Text Journal publication — Retelling Tales

My short piece “Some Ways to Retell a Fairy Tale” has been published in TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses!

It began as a series of observations about retellings that I’d encountered in the short-story reading project, but quickly grew into its own… direction? reference guide? invocation? invitation? litany?

October 2022 Short Story Reading Post

This post is a roughly tidied version of my October 2022 tweets about short stories. There’s a list of all stories at the very end of the post (that links to where they are first mentioned, but there’s often further discussion). Also, as usual, this post is long, so the rest is below the cut…

(Also, I’ve hurt my arm, so this is even less tidied than usual.)

Short stories: Rites and rituals and structure

As part of this year’s short story reading project, I’ve been noticing the strong structural and structuring pull rite or rituals exert on stories.

Structurally (and that’s how I’m talking about them in this post), rituals can be a way to first summon a story and peel apart a world, and then at the end to stitch through many layers, to mend and make new. And of course ritual brings with it layers of language, formulation, knowledge, history, time, family, the numinous brushing the physical, a way of altering the world or being acknowledged and changed by it, and (rendered bureaucratic) all the ways that can be made soulless.

This post is lengthy… (among other things, after the initial draft I injured myself in a way that made editing very difficult).

September 2022 Short Story Reading Post

This post is a roughly tidied version of my September 2022 tweets about short stories. There’s a list of all stories at the very end of the post. Also, as usual, this post is long, so the rest is below the cut…

August 2022 Short Story Reading Post

This post is a roughly tidied version of my August 2022 tweets about short stories. There’s a list of all stories at the very end of the post. Also, as usual, this post is long, so the rest is below the cut…

July 2022 Short Story Reading Post

This post is a roughly tidied version of my July 2022 tweets about short stories. It was curtailed by travel, but is still quite long, so I’m putting the rest of it below the cut. There’s a list of all stories at the very end of the post.

Also a warning: I was either in transit or badly jetlagged for a lot of this. Coherency may vary.

June 2022 short story reading thread

This post is a roughly tidied version of my June 2022 tweets about short stories. It’s quite long, so I’m putting the rest of it below the cut. There’s a list of all stories at the very end of the post.

May 2022 short story reading post

This post is a roughly tidied version of my May 2022 tweets about short stories. It’s quite long, so I’m putting the rest of it below the cut. There’s a list of all stories at the very end of the post.

Short story reading: a few notes on selection

(originally I was keeping the notes in spreadsheets, but things Got Out Of Hand)

Choosing stories

I was recently asked how I choose the short stories I’ve been reading for the short story reading posts. It’s not particularly scientific. But I’m trying very hard not to primarily review each story or reduce comments to whether or not I personally like it. Rather, I’m interested in what a story does, and how.

That’s why I’ve been working through a few recommended / year’s best lists (e.g. Locus and Quick Sips Reviews, among others).

I tell myself the stories have been

• (a) published by a venue, and
• (b) additionally selected by someone else,

so there’s no need to add my additional valuation to that. (Counterintuitively, this has also made it a lot easier to just enjoy the stories.)

Beyond that:

• I’ve chosen to read through some anthologies and collections because I’m interested in the author or editor or theme;
• sometimes a story just catches my eye, or a recommendation floats past;
• I’ve been reading Fireside Fiction and The Sunday Morning Transport stories as they arrive in my inbox; and
• when awards shortlists are announced, I’ve been adding any stories I haven’t read yet to the list.

Noticing patterns

So far, this reading project tends to be most revealing about:

• an author’s techniques and boundaries and the size of the blocks they build with
• a magazine’s vibes (these can be extremely distinct — often far more than editorial or authorial flavours)
• the consensus definition of a theme (in a given group — see e.g. the comments on the Supernatural Noir stories in the February post)
• the particular interests and tastes of people who collate lists of recommended stories

I need to read more anthologies, as the patterns of editors’ motivations are still a little obscure. There are lots of overlays there — the market or venue’s style, what is submitted, the collective motivation or interpretation or concerns of a particular group of authors in a particular era. I suspect analysing what’s happening at the anthology-construction level, across a number of books by the same editor, would give more of a sense of this.

Notes about individual stories

So far the short story notes are in these posts, but there will be more (tagged short story reading posts):

• January 2022 Big Giant Three-Mood Story Reading Thread
• February Short Story Reading Thread
• March Short Story Reading Post
• April Short Story Reading Post

April short story reading post

This post is a roughly tidied version of my April 2022 tweets about short stories. It’s quite long (although the month’s reading was abbreviated by Covid), so I’m putting the rest of it below the cut. There’s a list of all stories at the very end of the post.