To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour. -William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence."
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour. -William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence."
That is, to me, the essence of the short story, the creation of a world with great characters, conflicts, comedy and tragedy, and all contained within the space of a few pages.
While there seems to be no end to the number of blogs dedicated to young adult, fantasy, science fiction, and other forms of literature, there don't seem to be many focused on one of my favorite forms of writing, the short story. Hopefully I can help correct that.
I'm Isaac, a creative writing MA student studying, for now, in the UK, but I'm originally from Oklahoma. I like a lot of different kinds of books, but I tend to read ones that might be considered classics like Moby-Dick and The Lord of the Rings, or someday-classics like American Gods. But many of those books have been written about extensively, and as I said earlier I also love the short story, something that I'm not sure enough is being written about.
Some things that I hope to do to help fix that is reading and reviewing short stories published in collections, in magazines, and on the web. I'll also make recommendations of books to watch for, podcasts to listen to, and other things. One thing that this blog will not be for is my own work. I'm not going to use this space as one to exhibit my own work. If I get published someday, great, and I'll mention it, but for now this blog will review the published work of others.
I hope this blog will be read by those who, like me, love short fiction and by those who are looking to get into it. Whoever you are and whatever your background, please join me in standing tall with short fiction.
