• Why Short Stories?

    Jim Shepard on the White Hot Literary Center of America

    At the 2017 Bay Area Book Festival, Literary Hub went backstage to interview authors and panelists on a wide range of topics: the personal, the professional, and the political. In the below video, the second in an ongoing series, beloved short-story writer Jim Shepard, who appeared on the One Story panel at the festival, answers the question “why short stories” in hilarious—and astute—fashion.

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    Jim Shepard: “I’m actually impatient with what I call the ‘furniture moving’ involved in getting novels started, you know, that throat-clearing stuff . . . and I love the way stories kind of drop you right in the middle of something. I love that whole hit-the-ground-running thing, and do it as quickly as possible.”

    Jim Shepard: “Sometimes literary readers will say to me, ‘you know, I just want to relax.’ And I’ll be like, you can relax—take a quaalude and read the story, what can I tell you?”


    Emily Temple
    Emily Temple
    Emily Temple is the managing editor at Lit Hub. Her first novel, The Lightness, was published by William Morrow/HarperCollins in June 2020. You can buy it here.
    https://www.emilytemple.net/





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