Off with the novels, Bring on the stories.

Sometimes, when I finish a good novel, I do not want to start another.  My addiction to short stories kicks in.  Alice (the great) Munro can slake that thirst as can William Trevor but this week I am working through a pile of old New Yorker magazines kindly saved for me by a friend's mother.  Each mag gives me a great short story.

 I love to get my  magazines in the mail, each one a surprise arranged by me.  I can't subscribe to all the marvelous lit mags out there, so I let the subs drop when they run out and send in the card for a different magazine.  Right now I get a Canadian group: Room, Other Voices, Prairie Fire and Event  as well as a couple of  Americans: The Story Teller and Glimmertrain. I love The New Quarterly, probably the top Canadian lit mag,  and I'll pick it up again.  I buy the Artery locally and usually pick up Canadian Stories when I see it at Chapters.And there is the NOWW magazine, 807, available to members.  What an addiction!

The new issue of Room sits beside the bed and a great issue it is.  The story Ghosting by M. E. Powell had me holding my breath.  Adrianne Kalfoupolou's story, April the Cruelest Month, uses the Demeter and Persephone myth as a thread winding through the tale.  And the wonderful story called Mandy Raeburn by Kimberley Fehr slid smoothly along to its bitter end. 

Reading a good story is like opening a present and finding all one's life inside.

Thanks to all the lit mags that keep my addiction flourishing.

Short Stories

I usually read about 100 plus books a year but in 2008, only 87. The reason? Short stories. Never have I read so many. I read them in magazines, text books, old collections, everywhere. I have a few CD's to listen to while I am driving, a great way to enjoy short stories.

I especially enjoy the literary magazines Prairie Fire, Room Magazine and the New Quarterly. Right now I am reading and loving the latest issue of Brick and CNQ (Canadian Notes and Queries).

What is amazing about short stories is that you can read them again and again. You may not reread an entire novel but a beloved short story gives renewed pleasure and opens up new doors. Today I reread two stories that I first read years ago. I found William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily, just as creepy as ever. and James Joyce's Araby, the plight of a love-struck young boy who wants to buy his beloved some sort of token at the bazaar, is still moving in a very true way.

A good short story does that - opens a door to a new reality, just a glimpse perhaps but you can come back later and find the reality has changed a bit, often in an interesting way.