At first, I couldn’t manage more than a poem, but the poems came so fast I carried a notebook with me everywhere. I wrote my first short story when I was eighteen on a manual type writer bought at Clevinger’s Thrift Shop downtown Aberdeen. Coincidence that I had just finished Still Life With Woodpecker?
So much time has passed since then. I’ve written three first drafts of novels, started a couple more. And yet, here I am, cozying up to the short story again.
What do you think is the essential difference between the a novel and a story? What are your favorite stories?
A short list of stories that have truly moved me?
The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin
Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood
The Swimmer by John Chever
Corporal and 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 by Richard Brautigan
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates
Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
To Build A Fire by Jack London
Tell me the stories that have left you burning for days. Those are the ones I want to read.
At some point I always ask a newly important person in my life to read Andre Dubus’s A Father Story. Sometimes we discuss the story, sometimes not, but it’s always shared.