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Literary Fiction: Why it Deserves to Die
When I was a teen, short stories were everywhere. There were stories in every genre and for every age level. Writers paid their bills by writing them. Then came the Writer's Workshop phenomenon, and the MFA. Short stories became confessions for the woebegone, pulpits for the put-upon, and mandatory publications for the nearly-tenured. This happened to poetry before it happened to short fiction. In the fifties and sixties, there were famous poets. They were featured in "Life Magazine" and ordinary people bought their books. They had agents. Now, poets who get their works published in journals receive two copies, and all the other people who receive two copies read only their own poems. The five other people who have subscriptions leave them on the coffee table. Guess what's next? Did you know that according to PW, of the thousands of books published each year, the vast majority sell fewer than 99 copies? Have you checked out how few copies sold constitute a best-seller? Yes, people will read. In fact, they wait in line for the right books. However, most will not waste their time on the self-indulgent, adolescent, elitist, or preachy. Short stories, in their current incarnation, deserve to die. So do novels. As literary craftsmen, our job is not to be "Ahtists" or to save the world. Instead, we should strive to tell a wonderful story filled with interesting people.
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Contributor's Note
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