What is Short Story Short?
Short Story Short is a newsletter that recommends one short story per month. I’m Rachel Khong, author of the novels Goodbye, Vitamin and Real Americans.
The basics:
Every month I’ll send a list of stories I’ve read, with my favorites starred
I’ll recommend ONE story, and tell you why, very briefly (“short” is the operative word here)
I’ll share the story, if possible, or at least let you know where to find it (most likely, the public library)
Each month, you will be encouraged to comment with the stories you’ve read. Share your favorites, or continue the discussion of the story I’ve recommended. Each month I’ll also randomly pick one person to snail mail a surprise short story you might like, based on the stories you shared.
This is an invitation to keep your own list along with me. The stories I choose will be to my own taste; they will have delighted or moved me in particular. But I’d love to know what delighted or moved you in particular. This is an experiment in building a community of story readers.
There will be no cost to subscribe, and monthly offerings will be free. After three(?) months, old posts will be put behind a paywall, so if you’d like to access archival entries, you may via a subscription. But no pressure!
I will not be recommending any stories from new books less than one year old. All my recommendations should be easily accessible: available at the public library, or for free online.
Why short stories?
It was short stories that made me believe I could be a writer, and stories that taught me how to write. In high school, stories introduced me to the fact that writers weren’t exclusively dead, but roamed among us (shocking!), metabolizing the same minutes I was living through. In my senior year of college, determined to write fiction I was proud of, I gave myself the assignment of reading a short story collection per week. Some stories made me wonder, Whoa, we’re allowed to do that?! Others made my day stranger, funnier, or more vivid. All of them made me feel—to at least some degree—less alone.
Despite their size, stories don’t narrow, they enlarge. Stories remind me of the many ways there are of being a person. They remind me that nobody is going about “being a person” in any consistent way. Short stories connect me to human consciousness in a way that Instagram stories never seem to. Reading stories has always been a way to regularly encounter sentences and perspectives that surprise and enthrall me.
Read with me!
Whether you read one story or one hundred, I hope you’ll read along with me each month. (Not sure where to begin? Here is a list of stories and story collections I admire.) Reading a story a day isn’t life-changing, but it has changed my life. I think of it as my secular devotional, orienting me toward openness. I’m hoping that reading short stories together can foster real connection, not app-enabled “connection” that leaves us feeling hollowed out. Less: certitude, broadcasting, performance, self-importance. More: ambiguity, openness, contradiction, curiosity. Could Short Story Short be an antidote? Let’s find out!
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