Comments on: Jeff Kleinman Hates Short Stories

By: Carole Carlson

Carole Carlson — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:48:19 +0000

Although I’ve had some success in publishing my stories, I must agree with Kleinman — who, by the way, had some interest in a non-fiction book I had written but in the end rejected it. “I think there’s so much MFA stuff with such a standard voice and such a standard protocol.” Yes. “How-to” academia killed the short story for the general population. It killed the creativity that older masters such as Mark Twain displayed. It discouraaged individual thinking and, to a large extent, individual voices and intuition. A fairly successful novel and story writer told me recently he only got an MFA, because most rules-driven editors wouldn’t have paid any attention to him without it. OF COURSE the general public isn’t interested in today’s short fiction. Most of their authors are writing only for each other.

And Proulx’s comment: “The audience for a film may be a different type of person than a reader of short stories.” They are NOW, yes. Who made that happen? Almost everybody read stories by Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Lardner, etc., in the general interest mags. General interest readers liked them. Now I hear Saturday Evening Post is going to start publishing short stories again. We’ll see how that works out. I’ll be the first in line with submissions. Prediction: If SEP follows academia guidelines, it will soon drop short stories again. Speaking of rules — Proulx meant “different type of person FROM,” not “THAN.”

By: Amanda Gersh

Amanda Gersh — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:03:05 +0000

Cheryl
You are looking for stories that are “very contemporary [with] a stylish tone, a sense of humor, about unusual or new things”: ZZ Packer, Miranda July, Judy Budnitz, Sherman Alexie, Aimee Bender…keep going… and for heaven’s sake everyone on the right rail of this website, not to mention the more “out there” stylists like Gary Lutz and Ben Marcus, and on, and on. I in fact think it’s easier to find inventiveness in the modern American story than in the modern American novel. Though that, of course, can also be disproven and it’s really a rather stupid point to make in the first place, pitting one form against the other the way this fellow does. Anyone who says they don’t like short stories is just biased, uninformed, lazy, unawakened to the possibilities. There is no difference between short stories and novels when it comes to exemplars of the form: the good ones are good and the bad ones are bad. What is tedious and tonally dull in stories is every bit the same in novels–only worse, cause you have to endure it longer. Yes, i too have been bored by many stories in the New Yorker and elsewhere, stories that seem formally unengaging to me and of a certain familiar tone and stripe. But there is so much that is phenomenal and fantastic out there and you bump right into it when you make even the most cursory investigation into the short story form.
This guy, when he says “I’m falling asleep already” is trying to be witty but he just sounds illiterate to me. What, hasn’t he heard of George Saunders? Wells Tower? What a toss.

By: Cortney

Cortney — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 06:35:59 +0000

The beauty of a short is that you can hold it all in your head and examine it for days. There tends to be one pure, bright-shining moment that stays with you. The trick is to only read one at a time, and then - dare I say it? - THINK about it. One Story does so much for the form because it encourages just this thing.

By: Cheryl

Cheryl — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 18:03:42 +0000

I liked his candor– a lot of people are bored by short stories. I think it was telling that he said a lot of them have the same tone. I’m always looking for fiction that is very contemporary– has a stylish tone, a sense of humor, about unusual or new things– and that is hard to come by in short stories. Also, collections of short stories tend to run one into the other– which one is the best? Where do you start? Onestory is the first idea that has attracted my interest in the form recently. For some reason, collections of stories really turn me off, but I’ll read a standalone short story in the New Yorker, for example. I can assume that the story selected is of high quality, is worth my time, and I don’t need to make decisions about where to focus. I think in this era of multiple entertainment distractions, guidance and curation are important. The way people consume information is changing, and I like to see the story format adapt and survive.

By: Heather S. Ingemar

Heather S. Ingemar — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 05:13:42 +0000

Boy, I wonder what *he’s* been reading.

By: Garry

Garry — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:40:20 +0000

Not sure what I meant by the above. I was half-asleep and kind of angry that this guy has belittled the short story like he has. Plus, I find it depressing. There’s one less person who will fight for short story writers.

By: Garry

Garry — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 01:36:56 +0000

So, I guess this asshat eats only fast food and prefers postage stamps to murals.