Contemporary American Short Story
I put that word on the page,
but he added the apostrophe.
“Collaboration with Fly,” Lydia Davis
Short stories have come a long way since Edgar Allen Poe pronounced that a story should be able to be read in one sitting! In this class, we will read many short stories intensively and comparatively to cultivate ideas about what short stories do, and how they do it. Students will write about the stories per topics (such as history, identity, place, the political, and social relations) that will provide a frame of comparison as we consider examples from a diverse range of contemporary short story writers.
Requirements : Short in-class written exercises (weekly); two papers (3-4 p); a final exam.
Reading: The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction: 50 North American Stories from 1970 (Required; available at Revolution Books); Supplementary readings (TBD; on Laulima)