just got my copy of George Saunders’ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life.
writer & musical theatre lyricist
Filtering by Tag: short stories
Shirley Jackson and rising dread
i delved into the The New Yorker: Fiction podcast with the May 1, 2020 episode, “Kristen Roupenian Reads Shirley Jackson.”
the short story being discussed is Jackson’s 1943 “Afternoon in Linen” and i was intrigued by Roupenian’s assertion that, based on one word towards the end, it is indeed a horror story.
like a lot of people, my introduction to Shirley Jackson was “The Lottery” in high school english. (quite the introduction, to be fair.) but last fall, i read “The Summer People” and now want to read everything she’s ever written.
i love the way Jackson does rising dread. you’re drawn in by the domestic and the familiar so matter-of-factly, and then… oh, something’s not quite right. or as Roupenian puts it:
“The feeling that I have when reading a Shirley Jackson story is that things feel flat and a little overly simple, and then they open up in this really kind of wrenching way and then you feel kind of like you're in a free fall…”
short story vs. novel
today i attended Reedsy’s “Writing a Short Story” online workshop hosted by writer Shaelin Bishop.
i’ve been a big fan of Shaelin’s youtube channel since last fall and love her perspective on fiction writing. (and her short story “Cherry and Jane in the Garden of Eden” is one of the most beautiful and evocative pieces i’ve read in a while—check it out here in The Puritan.)
this workshop was such a great round-up of her advice and reminded me of something i jotted in my notebook last September while watching another one of her videos:
i recommend starting with “15 Tips for Writing Better Short Stories!” and then working through the entire “Short Stories” playlist on the ShaelinWrites channel.