Short Stories Make A Comeback In A Second Golden Age That’s Open To All
Phoenixville, Pennyslvania – April 3, 2014 – We’re entering a second Golden Age of the short story, says Julie Duffy, organizer of the annual creative writing challenge StoryADay May, and this time it’s open to everyone.
“Short stories have made a huge comeback, in the past few years,” says Duffy. “From new, accessible methods of publication like Kindle and smart phones, to seeing short story writers like Karen Russell and Alice Monroe rewarded with MacArthur ‘Genius’ grants and the Nobel Prize for Literature, it’s an exciting time to be writing.”
Now in its fifth year, the StoryADay May writing challenge has seen the writing world change around it.
“When we first got together to challenge ourselves to write a short story every day in May 2010, Borders was still a major bookseller, the Kindle was less than three years old and the iPad had just been released the month before. And how many people did you know with a smart phone?”
The publishing revolution has, Duffy argues, given story telling back to the everyday person.
“For most of last century we were consumers of art – we listened to recorded music instead of buying sheet music and learning to play; we watched stories on TV instead of telling them around the dinner table; we read mass-market bestselling novels that were approved by companies who needed large volumes to make up for the small profit margins in ‘dead tree’ book publishing. And because of all this we forgot that we were allowed to be creative.”
StoryADay May is one of the many month-long creative challenges that have sprung up online as hubs of creativity.
“It’s not about publishing and fame and riches,” says Duffy. “It’s about giving people permission to tell their stories again, and the short story is the perfect entry-level project for both writers and readers.”
This year’s StoryADay May challenge begins on May 1 and is open to all. For more information: https://storyaday.org/2014-challenge
STORYADAY MAY (storyaday.org) is a month-long creativity challenge for short story writers. Featuring daily writing prompts and a community of hundreds of writers from 179 countries, StoryADay May has been running since May 2010. StoryADay.org was founded by writer Julie Duffy to encourage people to “Write Every Day, Not ‘Some Day'”.
CONTACT
Julie Duffy
julie@storyaday.org
+1 484.393.2233
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