April 21st, 2011

Rose-coloured reviews the launch party for *And Also Sharks*

Jessica Westhead is the author of the acclaimed novel Pulpy and Midge from 2007, and a new collection of short stories, And Also Sharks, which launched yesterday evening at Toronto Underground Cinema.

Jessica is also a warmhearted, endlessly engaged and generous presence on the Toronto literary scene, always organizing something cool and cheering others on to do likewise. Her launch party was a chance not only for those of us who adore her and her work to show our support (and you should have seen the crowd), but for Jessica’s generosity to find a new expression, as an expert hostess. I’ve never seen a writer work so hard to make her book launch not just a sale opportunity or a validictory address, but a fun and delightful evening for all who attended.

The Toronto Underground Cinema is at the back of a mall in Chinatown. It’s badly marked from the street, and once inside the (mainly defunct) mall, you have to walk down a long hallway, the floor covered in kraft paper for some reason. Then there’s a flight of stairs, and the smell of popcorn. You turn around on a landing and suddenly you can see a milling crowd of chattering friends at the bottom of the stairs–and those down there can watch new arrivals cruise down the stairs, as if at the Oscars. It’s really neat–and the space is huge, spiffy, and adorned with tentacles coming out of the wall(??)

It was nice to see the author all dolled up for the occasion, at the bottom of the stairs giving and receiving hugs. After I’d gotten mine, I milled and chatted for a bit, then went to the photo area, where Jessica’s husband Derek Wuenschirs would take your portrait (with a very professional setup!), then photoshop it onto the cover of *And Also Sharks* as a keepsake souvenir. See Kerry and Stuart‘s photo for an adorable example.

After that, there was buying a book–of course–and picking up *And Also Sharks* swag like a button, a bookmark, and some blue-raspberry shark gummies. The table was run by the folks at Type Books, and was very well-stocked and well-organized. They even took credit cards!!

The movie theatre’s concession stand was also running, serving soda and popcorn, as well as wine and beer. I can’t figure out from the website if the Underground is usually licensed, or this was a special thing for the night, but either way, the crowd seemed quite appreciative.

And, then! As if that weren’t enough, we all filed into the theatre for a speech from Marc Cote of Cormorant Books, *And Also Sharks*’s publisher. He was genuinely enthused, and funny, and then he very gallantly helped the author of the evening onto the stage.

Jessica introduced the two book trailers she and many talented others put together, which were both wonderful. After the trailers, she gave a series of heartfelt thanks for the help with the evening and book, which made you realize how much planning had gone into the launch: the folks at the theatre, the photography setup, the specially selected music, the trailers, etc., etc. You could see why the evening was so great–because great people worked hard to make it so.

And then, in my opinion, the best part: Jessica gave a short, stellar reading from her story “Coconut.” Then we applauded hard, and all filed back out to the foyer (actually, I think some stayed to watch a silent version of *Jaws). Some left, some joined the long but friendly line for autographs (I did), some got further librations. I know the party raged much longer into the evening, but I had to depart. What a great time!

A book launch is such a great chance to for an author to celebrate his/her work, as well as share it with others, but I’ve noticed a trend towards the less-is-more launch, lately–mainly chatting and drinking, with a quick set of thank yous and a mini-reading, totalling perhaps 5 or 10 minutes. This is lovely if you are good friends with the author and his or her other friends; rather awkward if you’re just a fan or someone who saw a Facebook invitation and thought the book looked interesting. It’s also a bit anticlimatic for those of us who need to take a bus, a subway, and a streetcar to arrive at most downtown events (cough). The thing I loved about the *And Also Sharks* launch is that it was for everyone–friends and fans and people who just turned up wondering what all the fuss was about. You were able to get a good idea of what both book and author are like, and make a fairly well-considered decision at the book table, if so inclined. And it was tonnes of fun and the author made it charmingly clear she was glad each of us came.

But the best part is now I get to read the book.

April 20th, 2011

Interview on Open Book

I’m still super-frazzled and stressed, with nothing interesting to say. However, before it all went downhill I did an interview with the very insightful Angela Hibbs for Open Book. You might want to read it either because you miss the days when I used to be coherent, or because you want to see examples excellent literary interview questions. I was truly delighted by the level of depth in the questions; I only hope my answers live up to them.

April 19th, 2011

Cats help

Today is not a good day. I sort of hate everything (not you) right now and just want to lie on the floor and think of all who have done me wrong. But I can’t, because I have stuff to do and making an enemies list will not help with that agenda, so I won’t. Instead, I will power through, with only brief bursts of cats for support. If you need some cat help, too, try:

April 14th, 2011

Hart House Review

I can’t help myself from saying this: I heart Hart House. If you’ve never been there, it’s the deeply old-school student centre on UofT campus. There’s a gym with a pool, a cafeteria that serves a wide variety of chicken-based meals (and some without chicken), a radio station, a tiny library, a gorgeous courtyard that is apparently the most expensive place in Toronto to have a wedding reception, and loads of “common rooms” (how 19th-century girls school!) where you can hold events.

I spent the vast majority of my free time in grad school here: using the gym, swimming, eating, wireless-internetting, reading, even studying. When the weather got nice, I liked to move the reading and studying onto the lawn across the drive from the building, but still well within sight of it. But actually, even in hottest summer (of course I still came to campus in summer) the fact that the building is stone and shawdowy made it still relatively cool. It’s my favourite place on campus, and probably one of my most favourite in the city.

I was there on Monday for a lunch meeting, and now on Friday I’m doing a reading there to launch the Hart House review. This annual literary review is another wonderful thing about Hart House–student run, printed by Coach House Books, very communal yet very professional-looking, it’s a lovely anthology of work by students, community members, and the occasional alum. I was in it as a student, and I’m proud to be asked back as an alum. In the current issue you can read work by Helen Guri, Prathna Lor, tonnes of other awesome stuff, and my story, “Sarah” (which is an early look at a story from *The Big Dream,* where it appears under another name) as well as an interview with me and the charming Kira Dorward.

Copies of the review are free, but I believe you pretty much have to come to Hart House to get one. Even if you can’t make the launch, there will be copies at the front desk and elsewhere for a couple weeks hence, if you happen to be passing through. And if you won’t be, and really wish you could get one, hit me up–I’ll grab one for you.

April 12th, 2011

What’s this book about?

Bookstore employees, librarians, students and teachers answer this question with aplomb–accurately, succintly, and without hestitation–but I think anyone who has actually written and published a book knows how baffling it is. Something 200 pages, or even less, full of people and places and thoughts and ideas, is not easy to sum up. Even if there is in fact a spy, a grim police investigator, a hooker with a heart of gold, and a car chase through the Andes, the guy who spent a year or two of his life writing it is not going to say, “Classic spy novel,” and leave it at that. Once you’ve spent hours and days and weeks poring over the minutiae of the characters’ lives, you’ll never be able to boil them down to quick descriptors–they are far too human and complex and difficult and weird and…oh, if you really want to know, why not read the book?

Basically, when someone asks me what my book is about (either one), I am extremely tempted to say, “Everything.” Because though the characters and situations in the stories are deeply specific, unique, and definite, the book itself represents my way of seeing the world: what I think is important, worth noticing, worth dismissing, funny, strange, exciting, stupid, boring, and/or cool. A book is a world view because a book is by its nature a microcosm: what get left in versus ignored constitutes what the writer sees as important.

I can’t say for sure, having not gotten very far down the road yet, but I think this might be more pronounced in writers early in their careers. You have so many years (nearly 30, in my case) to work up to your first book and then–well, most people’s first books aren’t satires of European governance. First books are usually very personal, which is not at all to say autobiographical (though many are, of course): you can tell who people are through what they care about, just as easily as through what they’ve done.

And all this is to say: I’m having trouble coming up with a decent summary of The Big Dream. I had this problem with *Once* too–it took me months *after* the book came out to work up a competent summary of what one might expect in reading it. This necessity shouldn’t have taken me by surprise–I wouldn’t read anything that had offered no clue what it was about. But it’s only being on the inside that has shown me how hard it is to offer that clue.

So, here’s what I’ve come up with so far–what do you think? Sure, I’d like people to want to read the book after reading this paragraph, but even more important is that they have some sense of what they would experience if they did. After all, there are people in the world who would just *hate* this book, based on who they are and what they want when they read–they might as well be able to flag an inappropriate choice from the outset and not get involved. So, do you think this gives you a clue?

The Big Dream is a collection of short stories about life at the Canadian offices of Dream Inc., an American lifestyle-magazine publisher. In a tough market, the staff is struggling to do their jobs well–or even to keep them. But they’re also trying to have friends, to be good parents and good children, to eat lunch and answer the phone and be happy. The Big Dream is a book about how life doesn’t stop on company time. It’s about how the “dream job” and dream life that is supposed to accompany it do not necessarily happen, but the joys and sorrows and sandwiches of waking life are more than enough to occupy our minds and hearts. The Big Dream is a book not about jobs, but about the people who have them.

April 8th, 2011

Rose-coloured reviews the North York Ikea on a Sunday Afternoon

Here at last, my post-move post:

So we moved on Thursday and Friday, and contrary to popular belief (mine) it was not a nightmare. Mainly due to awesome friends on day one, and awesome professional movers on the second, the move went off efficiently, quickly, and painlessly.

However, moves do drive home the horrors of capitalism, and the new apartment is completely engulfed with boxes of stuff, stuff of dubious necessity. Nevertheless, as every post-move euphoric does, we went out in search of more. More specifically, everyone goes to Ikea right after they move, and so did we.

I had wanted the cheap-o breakfast at the Ikea restaurant, but we were held hostage at home by the Bell guy until early afternoon (how sadly typical is that?) By the time we parked in the enormous upper deck of the North York Ikea parking lot, crossed the lot, took the elevator to the other lot, clammered along the sidewalk past the loading zone, and on into the store, we were ravenous and headed directly to the restaurant.

So, apparently, did everyone else in the universe. The place was huge, so not every table was taken, but it was a siege of people, a good 50% of them seeming to be little children going bananas. This was generally the theme of the afternoon–large familes, good-naturedly shepherding their absolutely ballistic offspring through a maze of ottomans and loveseats. I swear, I did not see very many people seriously considering the furniture; it appeared to simply be an excursion, like Disneyworld. I can’t say that I understand.

Except about the food: Ikea food is good, cheap, and plentiful, which I suppose makes it perfect for little ones. However, the long lines are less ideal. The fellow in front of us had adorable twin girls, about 3, who passed their ten minutes in line swinging from the cutlery dispenser, bapping each other on the head, shrieking for their mother (who was apparently elsewhere in the restaurant; wise woman), and yanking chocolate milks off the display. My favourite part was when the dad told one girl she was not allowed to have the milk, she simply let it fall to the floor.

The above sounds like I was super-irritated but I wasn’t; the dad was very sweetly doing his best to keep a handle on them (and he picked up the milk), and they weren’t really bad for 3-year-olds in a giangantic line. I was quite content to watch the show, and then scurry off to my own, quieter, table.

My dining companion and I had identical salmon dinners with a side crepe, and dalm cake for dessert, so I can only describe the one meal, but it was pretty amazing for cafeteria food. The salmon was a trifle firm and pink, and the stuffing, which could not be identified, was the same texture and flavour as the actual fish, but it was all very tasty. I had expected the sauce, bright yellow with bits of herbs in it, to be mustardy, but the dominant flavour was butter. Good, but very rich–I guess those Nordic peoples need to be well-insulated from the cold.

The vegetables were very fresh and crunchy, and nice bright colours, always a good sign. There were also these small white pucks of, I think, finely chopped cauliflower and brocolli, cemented together with vaguely cheesy mashed potatoes–again, tasty, not healthy.

We could not locate tea bags and the fountain pop was too syrupy even for me (shock!) but the dalm cake was amazing. I think it’s actually a torte, being gluten-free and built of layers of nut-crumbs, marzipan, and chocolate. Astounding.

Also, there was some furniture. Lots and lots of it, actually, and we dutifully followed the trail through the whole store, albeit rather quickly. I hadn’t been to Ikea in perhaps 3 years, and it seemed to me there was a lot more customizable stuff now–modular offices and bits of kitchens and other things that you would need to have professionally installed. This seemed a bit high-end for the Ikea I know and love.

The regular stuff was as shiny and bright and tempting as ever. I always want their very simple couches and loveseats covered in brightly coloured canvas. They are so charming and cheap, though I have no need of any such thing. They looked as lovely as ever this time, and I contemplated jamming one into the bathroom or something. Right at the end of the trip, Mark suggested we get a bench for the patio with stripy cushions, so that helped mitigate my desire for plush furniture…somewhat.

I also picked out a dresser, after *mucho* agony, because I had failed to measure depth of the space it is supposed to go in. There is not, in truth, a wide variety of dresser depths at Ikea, so eventually I just chose the thinnest one (Malm, 6 drawer), only to discover on the back of the tag that it is supposed to be *bolted to the wall* to prevent it falling over on me. Who does that? I would guess that many people buying Ikea furniture lack the energy, organization, drill, and landlord permission to do such a thing; was this warning a ruse to forstall insurance issues?

I asked a salesperson and she said of course I had to bolt it to the wall (with an “I am talking to a dumb person” face on); otherwise, if I opened multiple drawers at once, it would fall on me. I said, “What if I just open one drawer at time?” and she said that might be all right, but if I had babies, it would need to be bolted in. Babies open drawers now? How terrifying.

The best bit, as always, was the Marketplace down on the first floor. It was actually strangely hard to find the door–it was ill-marked–but then we found it and there it was in all its glory! Thousands of small inexpensive items that I might someday need! I might have gone into a buying frenzy if I weren’t so very tired; as it was we found hangers, a laundry hamper, a drainboard, and possibly something else that I forget, all of which needed to be lugged around for the rest of our stay in the store.

The marketplace was very crowded; this is where most of the actual shopping goes on, it seems. Here I actually did see people looking at merchandise, although the primary activities still seemed to be milling and yelling. It was pretty chaotic–I didn’t realize kitchenware was over until long after we were into plants, and I probably would’ve bought more stuff if I had found a cart earlier in the process. It was always kind of fun to be wandering around and see someone carrying the same thing I was–merchandise twins.

The self-serve warehouse was a nightmare. My bureau came in two separate boxes of parts. Box 2 was on top of the stack, but all the Box 1s were buried deep. Everything was extremely heavy, and at least 5 boxes had to be hauled into the aisle by my esteemed companion, while I hovered around, fretting (nothing like household goods to bring on the gender roles!) There was a brief consideration of reassembling the stack, but if the Ikea folks wanted things left tidy, they should have ordered them better.

I would’ve liked to go to the As-Is department (I’ve found some good stuff there) but the cart was so heavy we could barely pilot it, and the crowd at the checkout lines was sort of blocking the way. While waiting in line I went to the pop machine and returned, went to the bathroom and returned, and then Mark went off to the hysterical blur of the food market and bought some Ikea cookies for a dear friend with a gift for assembling furniture (and some for us–I’d never had them before and it turns out they are fantastic!!) When Mark was returning with the cookies, I finally reached the very bored and unhappy cashier, who grimly rang us out and we were free to go.

The trek back was shorter–the exit is closer to the upper parking deck than the entrance, and after a lot of Jenga-ing the boxes into the car, we were on our way.

As this is a review of the *experience* of the Ikea store, I won’t dwell on the furniture, and anyway, most of it is still disassembled. The laundry hamper is doing just fine, but I guess standards for a laundry hamper are low–probably a cardboard box would’ve sufficed, really. The drainboard was a dismal bust, as it does not fit in the sink and is constantly flipping sideways. But it did only cost $3. The cookies are almost gone. But the memory of the happy chaos at Ikea will live forever.

April 6th, 2011

Quickie

I’ve been working on an awesome post-move-post, but post-moving, it turns out I’m still really busy and I haven’t finished it yet. So I just wanted to say–I live somewhere else now! And it’s fine! Kind of awesome, in fact, except for not being able to find stuff and not having a working phone line. If you want to talk to me, an electronic method is currently your best bet, followed quickly by throwing pebbles at my window. But we’re on the ninth floor, so depending on your arm…

I’ll continue to be busy for a while yet–I am reading on Friday night at the First Edition Reading Series in Perth, and a week from Friday at Hart House Review 2011 Launch back here in Toronto. If you’re in either hood on the appropriate date and have no plans…well, you’d be welcome.

In other other news…nope, nothing. I baked some cookies in my new kitchen, that’s a good step (even though I set off the fire alarm), and tomorrow some kindly people are going to come and help me assemble my bureau so I can stop living like a hobo in my own home. Some day we’ll probably even get the phone fixed, but since I spent a half hour today at the pay phone on the corner, being cold and angry and yelling at various people from Bell, I don’t have any great hope for the immediate future on that front.

On the upside, Kerry linked to this hilarious post today, and it cheered me right up. Be sure to read the comments for Stuart’s follow-up.

March 30th, 2011

Yikes!

Two grade-eight girls on the bus, talking about what high schools they want to go to. Dressed in eighties reflux: side ponytails, jelly bracelets, identical pink plaid shirts hiked up and tied to reveal their bellies. Both with very loud voices, very severe speech impediments (of the sort probably caused by extreme orthodontia, but I couldn’t see for sure). Crowded bus, but very quiet. School names redacted because I have already forgotten them.

Girl #1: And if I don’t get into School A, I’m totally going to School B.
Girl #2: Yeah?
Girl #1: That’s an art school too.
Girl #2: Yeah?
Girl #1: Because with an art school, you get aaalllll white.
Girl #2: Yeah?
Girl #1: Yeah. I mean, I don’t mean to be racist, but like, black people? What can they do.
Girl #2: (pause, then very firmly) Sing. And dance and rap and stuff.

I doubt the conversation meant much; the girls had already classified most of their classmates as skanks, hos, bitches and sluts, all of whom are ugly. I can’t even imagine where in Toronto their current school might be, that they only know white people so far.

I also feel really bad for *really really* disliking those two girls. They’re just kids, right? I feel like I should have gone and sat with them and explained diversity or something. They probably would’ve stolen my purse if I’d even made eye-contact.

When I was getting off the bus, I walked down the aisle and realized everyone was listening, and that these two guys in their early 20s were adding little comments to the dialogue, making fun of them. I felt better that those dudes agreed with me, and then terrible that the girls were being mocked by exactly the demographic they most wanted to impress.

Life in the city is weird.

March 29th, 2011

The Old Place

I have started half a dozen amusing, insightful blog posts in the last week or two, and finished none. I am moving in two days and it consumes my life, pushing thoughts of writing–plus actual writing–out of my crazed mind.

I’ve been jamming everything I own into banana boxes, trying to figure if I’ll be sorry if I throw out the inexplicable package of castors I found in the linen closet, and scrubbing the stove for all I’m worth (did you know there’s a level below the level below the burners, but above the oven? yeah, there is, and it gets dirty too). In the gaps between all that, though, I’ve been indulging in a little nostalgia.

I’ve lived here just shy of 8 years, and I’m pretty certain they were the best 8 years of my life. It was the first place I lived where I couldn’t see the fridge from the bed, the first time I ever had multiple rooms and a dining nook–it was the first place I lived as a sort of grown up. I had only been in TO just over a year when I moved in, and I was really shocked when a lot of people came to my housewarming–the first Toronto party I threw–and we had a lot of fun. It was the place where I started feeling I belong in this city, that I could stay awhile.

I eventually grew to semi-hate this apartment, partly because I just lived here too long, partly because… Ok, I can admit this now, since no one will ever being invited over here again–partly because of a small but persistent vermin problem. Mainly because Mark doesn’t live here, though; I probably would have stuck it out with my little friends out of sheer inertia if I didn’t want to go live with him so much.

But it’s actually a nice apartment. You can sort of tell in these pictures, some of which (the not grey ones) were taken here. I’ll miss the 10-foot south-facing window that made all my plants thrive. I’ll miss being on the second floor and never having to take the elevator (I seem to have developed an elevator phobia without noticing, since I never have to take them). I’ll miss my rare and delightful bathroom window, my shiny dark-wood cupboards, and big deep windowsills.

I’ll miss all the stuff I remember when I look around here. This is where I wrote most of my first book and all of the second. The place where I learned poker and RPGs (well, one) and to make bread and devein shrimp. I got some amazing letters in that mailbox downstairs–ones that make me tear them open in the foyer to see what they said. Here is where I once crouched at the window for an hour, fascinated and sleepless, as a Portuguese family crammed all their belongings–one by one–into a truck in the middle of the night. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it was very loud.

I’ve hosted various book clubs, writing workshops and salons here, had great guests of all stripes and prepared some fabulous brunches. FYI, guys, I slept on the futon last night (bed has been disposed of) and it’s still really comfortable–hope you will visit in the new place.

But even the things that happened to me while I was away are memories about the apartment, too. Here is where I returned to from Costa Rica, New York, Japan, PEI–and was always happy to do so, no matter how great the trip had been. Here is where I slouched down at my computer with a bowl of cereal after great and terrible dates, parties, readings, my dissertation defense, horrible rejections, strange days at work, and everything else.

Here is my baseline, the background against which everything else has been happening. And the larger background, the ‘hood, my beloved Leaside–the best place in the city where nothing every happens. I’ll miss all the cashiers I know at the Metro, including the one who mysteriously knows far too much about me. I’ll miss the fatalistic incompetence of the drug-store staff and how all the ladies at the gym have Lululemon everything and massive engagement rings.

I’ll miss my neighbours of the present and the ghosts of all the past ones: the guy who I met by the garbage bins on my first night, and asked him how he liked the building. He said, “It is what it is,” and that has rung in my ears ever since. I will miss the guy next door who sold tires out of his apartment and the woman upstairs who had so much vigorous sex. I will miss the current upstairs neighbours and their ill-behaved but adorable puppy. I’ll missed all of the parade of supers, from Eric who was never around to the very first one, Raoul, who was so adamant in his refusal to fix my shower that I actually asked my father to speak to him.

I miss my (much) younger self, who thought it was ok to ask her parents to solve everything. My younger self who thought I would be happy in one secure, stable job forever; that made awkward conversation with the guy across the street even though I really dislike him; that did not know all the things I now know about my stove. I’m still pretty much afraid of everything (now including elevators!) but in this apartment I got a lot better about conquering my fears, or at least peacefully co-existing with them.

For all my (frequent) complaining, this has been a great place to live, vermin not withstanding, nor that time that someone stole my bathtowel out of the washing machine.

And now I’m ready for the next thing.

I’ll probably be offline starting Thursday morning until at least Saturday afternoon, possibly longer depending on how utterly Bell screws us. If you were planning to ask me or tell me something, tomorrow’s the day–but remember, I’m hopped up on stress and oven-cleaner, so I hope it’s not a hard question.

March 23rd, 2011

What is a short story?

In honour of The Year of the Short Story, I’ve been wanting to do a short-story post. I decided to do a “What is?” post because I’ve read a few things lately that challenged, for good or ill, my personal definition of the story. And that reminded me that this definition *is* very personal, so I bet if I make this list, lots of people will be able to add to it, or debate various points, or tell me I’m wrong entirely. And the best way to celebrate the short story, I think, is to engage with the form: debate it, read it, write it, and think about it. So let’s do that:

Short stories have character(s) and events. Let’s get the really controversial stuff out of the way first: in my mind, short stories have one or more characters doing things, or having things done to them, or reacting to events, in a particular time and place. I’m ok with characters that aren’t human: dogs, aliens, faerie princesses, even a well-written tree character might exist somewhere. And the events can be minor–in Jincey Willet’s “Justine Laughs at Death,” the very dramatic story is actually a couple conversations on the phone. Much is *said*, and threatened, but there are few actual events. Still a really powerful story though. I think many writers are stronger at either character (Katherine Mansfield, anyone?) or event (Guy de Maupassant?) and just kind of take a swipe at the other side, which is fine if you can pull it off. But even if the story is mainly the creation and explanation of these wonderful characters, they need to do things sometime. And even if the wild logic of events *seems* to stand on their own, there still have to be people living them out. I really think there has to be a throughline of personality, and an internal logic to events to make a story. I know, craziness–have at me.

Short stories are short in word-count, and use their shortness for concentration of meaning. There is no exact word-count that defines a short story for me–I’ve seen some great ones that were more than 10 000 words, over forty pages. I can’t put a cut-off on the actual length, yet there comes a certain point where the scope changes the tone, and it just doesn’t feel story-ish anymore. Slowly evolving characters with lots of back-story, a build to a fore-shadowed climax of action, and then a reflection period after that–I guess you could do anything in a short story, but those things to me seem inherently novel-ish.

I just finished reading Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s (for the first time; am behind) and though it is usually termed a novella, and 117 pages I think that’s proper, I’ve also seen it deemed a short story. I think there might be a 117-page short story out there, but Breakfast at Tiffany’s is not it. Capote uses the pages for things that, in my definition, novelists do: framing of the story in future and past (Joe Bell’s story about Africa), situating the characters in lives outside the story (the arrival of Doc, which doesn’t influence the action one way or another, just teaches us a bit about Holly), and neat set pieces that sort of flesh out the characters but are mainly just neat set pieces. Don’t get me wrong, as a novella I think it’s brilliant–but the length gives it a very different flavour from a short story.

For a true short story, the length appears not a constraint or a limit, just the amount of words it takes to show what needs to be shown. As I said above, short stories are not constrained by length; they are exactly as long as they need to be to give the reader the joys, sorrows, laughs, or whatever the author wants to give in that space. But they are shaped like stories, whatever their lengths. I’ve read a few stories recently that read like the first chapter of a novel, or maybe the fifth chapter of a novel (I’m in the midst of judging a story contest at the moment, so I have a wide variety of these on-hand). The first-chapter ones, you get a lot of background and insight into the characters and their problems, and they’re sort of mulling over what to do about them; then it’s over. In the fifth-chapter stories, there’s tonnes of action, drama, intensity, but you don’t know anything about the characters or what all these events mean to them, or where anything is headed.

Both these issues used to come up a lot when I was teaching high-school students to write stories (teaching is perhaps too strong a word; try encouraging). When I urged them to give the reader a more complete, consolidated picture of the characters and their dramas, they retorted, “You said it had to be 2/5/10 pages, and that’s all I can fit.” Which is fair if you’re 15, and this is your first story, and you’re only here because your mom forgot to sign the permission slip for the band trip. But despite short stories’ well-earned reputation for inconclusive endings, your ending should still have a bit of that, “I see” sort of feeling, even if you get it three days later. Short story endings, as a rule, don’t shut anything down or solve any problems; they open things up to the next page, the page that isn’t there. Amy explains very well: “it’s always a bit of a shock to end a short story, as a reader or a writer, but then you carry that shock with you for the rest of the day. you feel restless, unquieted, maybe even a little angry. you’re fucking confused! and you don’t want to admit it, but that’s kind of the best feeling in the world.”

Many readers offer short-story writers the compliment of “It ended too soon–I wanted to know what happened next!” To a certain extent, that’s a wonderful compliment–well, speaking only for myself, I love to think I could create a world people would want to continue to live in, and characters they’d like to continue to know. However, there should be something basically satisfying and self-contained about a short story–you should receive enough knowledge, emotion, action, whatever the story requires, that when it ends, some part of you is like, “Yeah. I see…” and what you see is your own version of the next page. It takes work to craft that page for yourself–maybe this is what some people hate about stories–but the writer should have given you the basic tools to do so.  It is difficult to explain the difference between the ending-feeling you get with a crafted short story, and the feeling you get when the writer has just run out of space or steam and dropped in “The End” instead of writing the next bit. But trust me, there’s a big difference.

There’s this great Robert Coover story that I just read that elides almost everything that actually happens–the skips are bigger than the hits, and the story itself is tiny, just over 1000 words (what, you never cut’n’paste a story into a word processor to see how long it is?) And yet it packs a huge wallop; the elisions are the story, in a certain sense; but the fact that they are elided for both the reader and the character are the story, too. So you care at the end, about this man whose life you don’t really know, because he doesn’t know, either. Now, in my mind, that’s a good ending.

Short stories don’t do stunts or party tricks. I occasionally find (sometimes in my own work) things stuck in stories that are really cool, either stylistically (unusual narrative voices or perspectives, time fragmentation, kooky narrative structures, etc.) or content-wise (alien invasions, gender-bending, political or media satires) but don’t belong there. Not that I’m saying there could never be stories with the above, even all in the same story, but there’d have to be a bloody good reason for it. What makes a story not a story is when it contains a string of effects that don’t have anything to do with what the story *is*–the writer is just thrilled to be able to do this stuff, and is, essentially, showing off. FYI, this is why my flying baby story never worked out, but I think if I could integrate that baby more fully into the narrative, it still could.

The very wise Kim Jernigan says that stories are “research & development branch of contemporary fiction, where much of the stylistic and narrative experiment occurs” and I heartily agree. However, a successful experiment has to become one with the story, so that you can’t imagine anyone ever writing or reading that story without it. A true innovation is one that renders itself, in the moment of its creation, indispensible.

Like, for example, Matthew J. Trafford wrote this story, “Gutted,” that is about adolescent turmoil, about father-son relationships, about sexuality and “otherness” and violence. It’s a really wrenching story, one that leaves you exactly “gutted” when you finish reading it, and for that it is brilliant. The things I was thinking when I finished reading it were, “I really feel for those people” and “I wonder what they did next.” The thing I was *not* thinking was, “Hey, mermaid story–neat-o!” though in fact there is a mermaid in the story. There’s nothing wrong with “neat-o” but it doesn’t bear rereading, rethinking, mulling over in the shower. Trafford’s story transcends “neat-o” by doing a thousand other things right and writing the mermaid in so finely and subtly I seriously don’t think the story would have been possible in any other guise.

I’d say the same thing about Spencer Gordon’s short story, “Transcript: The Appeal of the Sentence, a story that’s a single, nearly 3000-word sentence about the speaker’s crush on Miley Cyrus. It’s a terrifying story, and terrifyingly good, because the interrogation of language and celebrity obsession, and the modern “It’s not what you’re like, it’s what you like.” ethos, plus this one guy’s personal and very sweet lunacy doesn’t seem doable in any other way other than the way Gordon did it.

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I guess what it boils down to for me is, it works if it works. There are stories I love that break every rule above, but that’s because they aren’t rules–they’re really just observations of what I’ve seen working really well in a lot of stories. I’d love to hear/read other people’s observations, if they should like to share them…