Every couple of months there is another article about the death of the short story. In Mother Jones, Ted Genoways does a fine job explaining some of the issues confronting the literary magazines that publish these stories. Although I wouldn’t disagree with much of what Mr. Genoways says, I’m more optimistic. I believe that good writing, really good writing, will always find a place, and right now the best young writers continue to put out phenomenal short fiction. Adam Haslett, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Oscar Casares have all put out short fiction in collections and through journals that will stand the test of time. We’ll be talking about these three authors for the next fifty years, and, if my little dream comes true, some of that discussion will focus on their shorter works.
Haslett’s novel The Union Atlantic has been talked about and reviewed everywhere. It’s a remarkable first novel, and will most certainly be in contention for the end of the year honors. But, if you can only read one Haslett title, read his story collection, You Are Not a Stranger Here. Centering on the broken and the martyred, the collection’s characters steal the sweat of Flannery O’Connor and the bane of Richard Yates to wedge their way into your life. The title is a line from one of those characters, but may as well be talking about you. You’ll be somewhere in this book.
While Haslett finds the universal in the un-ordinary, Casares’s stories in Brownsville point to the incredible in the mundane. These stories are perfect. Casares will undoubtedly be compared to minimalist writers like Carver and Barthelme, but he’s so much more than a broad comparison, and not at all simply derivative. Imagine a writer so humble as to take himself completely out of his prose. Now imagine a subject matter so dripping with political possibilities, and imagine an author who passes on the easy political statement in favor of the more important and delicate lives of people who live in a Texas border town. You can’t imagine how good these stories are until you read them.
Nigerian born Adichie is young, talented, and she’s here to stay. If you haven’t noticed, there’s a boom in African literature right now. Taking up the torch for Coetzee, Achebe, and Thiong’O are young writers like Adichie, Lallami, and Salih. How exciting for us. If we can get over the fact that these authors have always been here, and it just took us a little while to pull away from that European magnet, we can enjoy Chimamanda for who she is: the most promising young writer to come along since Zadie Smith. The Thing Around Your Neck follows up her two novels and delves into the 21st century’s richest soil: movement. As the world gets smaller, and the borders are increase while becoming more fluid, it becomes less important to understand Faulkner’s South or Joyce’s Dublin. Adichie jumps continents and cultures simply and fruitfully, showing that differences are many, but marking those differences as better, nicer, or more important is never beneficial. She is my new favorite author and I know you’ll fall in love with her.
Short stories are here to stay, thank goodness, and all three of these collections would be a perfect introduction to the next generation of literature’s elite.
–Brian Contine
BookPeople 
I’ve also heard lots about the death of the short story, and as someone who does actually try to make a living from writing it’s always puzzled me why publishers take this dim view of them.
Several reasons why the ‘death’ of the short seems prematurely announced. There are loads on this interweb thingy. There are loads of self-published e-books of shorts on Amazon and elsewhere (though I don’t have a clue how well they sell). Allegedly people’s attention span is decreasing and many people are busy, on the move, and if they read it’s for twenty minutes at a time on public transport, or waiting for it so short stories fit the bill. And in certain genres short stories are apparently extremely popular – take a look at ‘adult’ or ‘erotica’ publishers. There’s always the cynical reason expressed for why people want a seven-minute read in that genre… but I’m unconvinced that’s the whole story, for reasons too academic and tedious to explain here unless someone really wants me to.
Plus, as you’ve pointed out, some collections of short stories are very well known. Those by Borges immediately come to mind because they’re on the shelf behind me as I type… and there’s another multi-author collection of stories about clubbing and rave culture on the shelves in the next room – it was very popular a few years back, I think even on best-seller lists.
So I’d conclude that (1) if publishers wanted to sell short story collections they could do it; they just seem not to want to; and (2) as long as publishers take this negative view it’s going to be hard for me to make actual income from my short stories.
Most of mine have gone to non-paying markets. Thankfully some other writing work I do for commercial clients, which is interesting in a different and often technical way, does pay quite well. But I admit I’d be gratified to see the shorts going to markets that pay in more than ‘recognition’.