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Stacy Barton completes her series on the wonderful short story by sharing some of her favorites.

Those of you who have read my recent posts know that my background is in the theater and that the language of academic study is not my native tongue. However, I have been dog paddling in the river of beautiful words for about a decade now and spent my entire childhood with my nose in a book – so while I may not be in line with the nuances of academia, I can tell you what I like in the way of short story authors and collections.

My husband Todd is an English teacher and he used to have this little hardback book from the 1950s called The 50 Best Short Stories or something like that. Its cover was yellowed, the print inside some horrid 8-point font and it smelled like a library rummage sale. That book has long since been lost to some dusty corner or relegated to a box in the garage (I looked for it last night), but there was a story in this slim volume that I still adore because it was the first Faulkner I ever read. I can honestly say that reading “That Evening Sun” by William Faulkner was like a first kiss. I’ll never forget it.

My favorite new collection (I suppose I’ve had it a year or two now) is Hannah Tinti’s Animal Crackers. Unexpected, delightful and slightly disturbing, she is a quirky soul-sister with scads of talent. Hannah Tinti is also the editor of One Story, a literary journal that publishes – as its name suggests – one story at a time. The work they choose is brilliant and I recommend both Tinti’s collection and her journal.

Okay, here is perhaps my most embarrassing admission. Half a dozen years ago I had written only three short stories when a number of people started telling me that I reminded them of Flannery O’Conner. That’s certainly not embarrassing – the embarrassing part is that at the time I didn’t know who she was! These days, A Good Man is Hard to Find is one of the dog-eared collections of hers I own, and the title story is absolutely divine. So are “The River” and “Good Country People”….good grief but she is a master of the short form. Greater minds than mine have said so before, but it is still true and I remain in awe. By the way, her book of essays, Of Mystery and Manners is a must for any writer of faith.

Alice Munro is to short stories what Meryl Streep is to movies…at least in my generation. Munro is perhaps the classic short story author of our time. When I found her work in an airport bookstore six years ago, I didn’t know who she was either. But all I had to do was I read a page to know that I had to have a book of hers. One of my favorite things about this gifted and accomplished writer is that she has declared – to a world that doesn’t support short stories – that she is a short story author. So it is with great delight that I recall that there were three different short story collections by Alice Munro in the Atlanta Airport that day. Three! In an airport!

When I home schooled our four children for a brief period of time (yes I am a bit of a nut-and-berry hippy) I taught a co-op class of high school English lit. In there, I read a story that my husband had read to me several times over the years – it was a story I loved to hear and a story that the actress in me loved to tell. Guy de Maupassant’s, “The Necklace.” Divine off the tongue. The rhythm of the tale is sheer beauty. The storytelling? Perfection. French, of course, but remarkably just as magnificent in English.

Then there is Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path.” Like “The Necklace,” it can be found in a textbook. Some academics might sneer at me for being so unoriginal, and yet greatness is simply greatness. I have read a helluva lot of bad “new” stories in a helluva lot of great journals. The suckers are just hard to write. I am the kind of reader who rereads a very small collection of books. I have my pet novels, poetry collections, and short stories that I return to for guidance and comfort. Certainly I subscribe to a number of journals and try to stay up on the latest trends, but I still keep my stash of home runs near the bed for safekeeping.

And finally we come to my last author, my mentor, the man who helped me discover both the short form and my voice, Lawrence Dorr – known to me as Janos (pronounced Yanosh). His collections, A Slow Soft River and Bearer of Divine Revelation are both gorgeous and award winning, but his Pulitzer nominated A Slight Momentary Affliction is the one I keep near. His work is so exquisite - so full of beauty and pain, so haunting and memorable – that I actually cannot read it very often. However I will say this, he always manages to find a glimmer of the divine in the midst of human brutality, evil, and loss.

So on a Thursday afternoon, pressed to pick the ones I love, those are the authors and collections I remember most. Tomorrow morning I am certain to remember half a dozen more and mourn their absence in my post. But ah well… There is always another day, always another short story to love.

IN JUST TWO WEEKS: Novel Writing – Ack!

A note from Kimberly: That's right, friends! Stacy has enjoyed blogging for Relief, and we have certainly enjoyed reading her blogs. So I'm happy to report that we've wooed her from casual "guest blogger" to committed "Relief staff blogger!" You will be able to read her fun-filled posts every other Friday from now until eternity. Okay, well, until she becomes so famous that she doesn't have time for blogging but does have oodles of fans to whom she occasionally plugs this very keen journal she used to blog for :-}

Stacy Barton is a short story author and playwright who is currently slogging through her first novel.  Her debut collection of short stories, Surviving Nashville, was released in 2007.  Her stories and poetry have appeared in a variety of literary magazines including Potomac Review, Relief, Ruminate and Stonework and her fifth stage play, an adaptation of Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales, premiered in Orlando, Florida in 2006.  In addition to short stories, plays, and poetry, Stacy is the author of a children's picture book and an animated short film.  She is currently a free-lance scriptwriter for the Disney Company.  Visit her at www.stacybarton.com

Michael R. Stevens joins the Relief blogging staff today by sharing his thoughts regarding a recent meeting of the T.S. Eliot Society.

I’ve been going to literary conferences for many years now, and I always come away with good ideas and also with troubling questions.  Thus, my conflicted mood on the 8 hour drive home from the T.S. Eliot Society meeting in St. Louis last weekend was not surprising.   I suppose this grim dualism is built into the ‘nature of the beast,’ as the analytical and scholarly engagement with creative work is by its very nature a strange, dissonant act.  Yet it is also an irresistible act.  We want to know why the poem or play moves us so, what ineffable mechanism has been unleashed upon us by an arrangement of that most pedestrian vehicle, words.  And I’m a hypocrite with regard to this, too!  I mock attempts to interpret great paintings by means of magnifying glasses and sonograms.  Yet, I’ve been known to rip the heck out of T.S. Eliot’s verse, to diagram the shape and movement of The Waste Land, to apply “Tradition and the Individual Talent” like a formula or recipe, to project fictional scenarios from Wendell Berry’s stories onto our culture’s socio-economic travails with unremitting logic (okay, that last one seems awfully forgivable in the last few weeks, doesn’t it?!). 

Well, what to do about this schizophrenia of literary criticism? I’ve tried avoidance.  I always say I’m not a literary critic, I’m a teacher who dabbles in scholarship, and since I get paid mainly to teach, I’ll hang onto that notion.  On the Monday morning after a conference weekend, one must return to the lectern, the white board, the ill-arranged chairs and tables of the undergraduate classroom.  This past week, I decided to view that return not as disorientation but as a reflective move.  And here’s what I discovered: the fundamental reason why these kids are sitting in front of me, in various states of exhaustion and dishabille and painstaking earnestness is that they want to hear from the literature.  They are attempting to un-stopper their ears, their imaginations, from countless flights into Facebook and Sufjan Stevens albums and manifold paths to caffeination—they more or less want to hear a poem speak to them, want to connect in some mysterious inward way with a character in that novel, perhaps want to run and hide from some realization evoked in a dialogue (that comes of starting the week with “Waiting for Godot”!).  And so they need the straight-stuff, the milk and bread and meat of the poems being read aloud, heard and felt.  I read The Waste Land in a wild-eyed fashion to my class a few weeks ago (it takes about 25 minutes if you draw out the final ‘Shantihs’), we read most of the Four Quartets aloud, I took a foray into scansion and prosody with several Yeats lyrics—and things were working.  Not because of me (nor in spite of me) but because the texts have a lot to say on their own.  Even Samuel Beckett.

But it is also the case that literary criticism can help.  Things I learned about “Little Gidding” in a paper I heard at the Eliot Conference deeply enriched my reading of the poem, and will forever after enrich the way I present it to the students.  Even readings of Eliot that distressed me, readings based on a notion that the human self is a mere construction, some psycho-sexual amalgam derived and embodied on a self-protective impulse, caused me to ponder not only what Eliot’s poetry (and prose and drama) seems to be about, but also what the human self seems to be about.  I suppose that I found myself more fully affirmed in my conviction that we bear God’s image as a result of hearing such a notion excoriated.  How to bring that level of reflection and wrestling to my students—well, that’s a conversation more difficult to satisfy.  Is this, perhaps, why we send them to grad school?! 

Stevens is an associate professor of English at Cornerstone, where he is in his twelfth year, teaching American and British Literature, many of the core courses in the worldview sequence, and occasional courses rooted in the work of Wendell Berry.  He and his colleague Matt Bonzo have written Wendell Berry and the Cultivation of Life, coming out with Brazos Press this December.  He is married to Linda, and they have three kids (Ethan-11, Julia-8, and Gabriel-6).  He is unashamed to admit himself a virulent New York Yankees fan (not a good thing this year) and Buffalo Bills fan (a good thing this year). 

Travis Griffith shares about the post-contract realities of publication.

A few months ago, I wrote a blog about the writing process and the inspiration for my children’s book, “Your Father Forever.” (You can refresh your memory by reading that blog here.)

The process of actually getting a contract to sign is tedious and at times, downright vicious. Yet once it’s signed, the author just sits back and waits for the publication date. Right? If an author has ever had it that easy, my hat goes off to him or her for mastering the craft of writing and providing exactly what an editor or publisher wanted right off the bat. That certainly wasn’t how it happened in my case.

It’s all downhill from here, right?

The manuscript I sent to the publisher was, in my mind, absolute perfection. I mean, that’s why I sent it in the first place. So I was a little taken aback by one of the questions they asked as they were determining if my book was right for them: Are you open to working with us on editing your book?

Of course I said yes. But in my mind, I was wondering why such a masterpiece would even NEED editing.

Editing and Layout

Well, the editing process took a full 12 months. During that time I learned a lot about the cadence of my words, how they would be laid out on the page and how they would sound when read aloud. The finished book also had to fit in with the vision of the publishing company, Illumination Arts, which publishes inspirational children’s books to inspire the mind, touch the heart, and uplift the spirit. I exchanged e-mails and phone calls directly with the publisher and slowly polished the manuscript into what it is today.

Once the publisher and I were happy with the placement and use of literally every word, I signed off on the copy which was then sent to a talented illustrator in Brazil named Raquel Abreu. And that’s where the magic of the book really happened. The illustrating process took another 12 months or so, during which time Raquel first created pencil drawings for each spread and submitted them to the publisher. Those drawings were shared with me and I gave my feedback. Adjustments were made and then Raquel created the full color, beautiful illustrations that brought the book to life.

A few months down the road and I had my first promotional copies to share with family and friends.

The Long Road

My book would never have been published if I hadn’t been willing to work with people and learn from them, or if I had been shut down to criticism. It took about two and a half years from the date of the contract to actual publication. It was well worth the work and the wait, as the book has touched a lot of people, and I’m thrilled with how it turned out.

The Top Ten Reasons Why We Love The Short Story

Number 10. Story

Certainly short stories do not have exclusive rights to the magic of Story. Movies, novels, plays, and picture books use Story too – as does the world of art, dance and music. Ever listen to a country song? It’s all about Story. But in a Top Ten List Of Why We Love Short Stories I would be remiss if I didn’t say that first and foremost, what we love about the short story is that it is the golden nugget of Story.

9. Journey

What is the chief end of the short story? To take us on a journey and return us home before supper. All story forms take the reader for a ride, but only in the journey of something as brief as the short story can you recall the beginning, middle and end of the experience with equal delight.

8. Drama

If done well, the brevity of the journey naturally begets higher drama. And as drama is at the heart of all good stories, short stories are rife with it. It should be remembered here, that high drama is not always synonymous with fast action; there are slower stories so packed with drama that you hold your breath as tightly as you hold the page.

7. Twists

Closely related to the drama of the short story is the closing twist, typical of this length. The payoff in a longer genre usually comes with a certain amount of expectation, but in a short story, especially a short short story, the twist at the end is often the very thing we await.

6. Symbolism

Symbolism is another quality of fiction not exclusive to short stories. But again, because of the compact nature of this genre, the symbolism is often more tangible. It is not uncommon to linger over the symbolism in a short story long after the final word is read.

5. Intensity

The absolute intensity of this genre is one of my favorite characteristics. With great anticipation we settle in like a fanatic – short story in hand – eager to begin the raucous ride we know will follow.

4. Language

Perhaps my favorite truth about short stories is that its language is unsurpassed in the world of Story. With a poet’s tongue and a playwright’s passion, the language in a short story delights us in a way that no other genre can.

3. Rhythm

Akin to the poetic precision of the language in the short story is the rhythm of its phrasing that reminds us of the power of music. Like the movement of verse and chorus in a ballad, the rhythm of this genre flows measure by measure.

2. Connection

History tells us that mankind has long told stories around the communal campfire because stories connect us to ourselves and to the world around us. I think it can be argued that the compressed experience of the short story makes this connection as immediate as it comes.

And the Number One Reason is: Length

At long last, so to speak, we come to length. Nearly every other element has touched on the influence of length in this genre and therefore we come to the number one reason why we love the short story: its length. We live in a day and age when time is in demand and attention is not. If the near future resembles the recent past, the short story may well be the enormous little genre of the future. I hope so.

Next Week: Authors and Collections I Love

These days Stacy Barton is primarily a short story author and playwright.  Her debut collection of short stories, Surviving Nashville, was released in 2007.  Her stories and poetry have appeared in a variety of literary magazines including Potomac Review, Relief, Ruminate and Stonework and her fifth stage play, an adaptation of Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales, premiered in Orlando, Florida in 2006.  In addition to short stories, plays, and poetry, Stacy is the author of a children's picture book and an animated short film.  She is currently a free-lance scriptwriter for the Disney Company.  Visit her at www.stacybarton.com