Peter Taylor won the Pulitzer for A Summons to Memphis, but he was at his best in his short stories.  The Collected Stories of Peter Taylor is out in a new edition on August 18, and you could do worse for a desert-island selection.

I worked for PT for a few years before his death in 1994.  Most of what I learned from him was indirect: how he thought about stories, what revision meant to him, etc.  But he did have a few tricks up his sleeve.  I just wrote about one of them in my friend Christina Baker Kline's blog.
Add Comment
 
 

Last week, I received these words from a thoughtful, well-respected agent:

... I have no confidence in being able to place a collection at this time in the world of publishing. Publishers don't like to publish short story collections in general unless they are VERY high concept or by someone very strange or very famous or Indian. In the current climate, it is harder to publish even those. Some of the authors I represent have story collections I have not been able to talk their loyal publishers into publishing. I can't in good conscience encourage you to send them to me. It will just make both of us feel bad. I am very sorry. If you write another novel, I will gladly read it...

Not very encouraging, to be sure.  Is this agent right?  Is the short-story collection going the way of the dodo bird?  It's been a long time since I've been in grad school.  Are short stories still the working unit of MFA workshops?  If so, where are all those stories going now?

11 Comments
 
 

For the last couple of years, I've been writing a collection of stories called Bad Daddies.  I'm now at the point where I'm trying to find a way to get it out into the world.  This, of course, is a long process.  And so while I'm waiting to hear from agents, I thought I'd use this blog to post thoughts about the writing process, give a sort of real-time account of the publishing process as I encounter it, and address some of the themes of the book itself and the nonfiction articles on parenting that I've published in the last couple of years.  And so off we go!...

Add Comment