"Two cars parked on the overpass/Rocks hit the water like broken glass/I should have known right then it was too good to last"
Think about the numbers: 350 fiction programs. 3,000 new graduates per year. Each taking let's say four workshops, each of which requires three submissions. That's 36,000 short stories for each graduating class of writers, who have worked to convince each other that the top 1% of short stories - those that come closest to generating workshop consensus - may be published in a literary magazine. A literary magazine whose readership may largely comprise writers looking for a place to publish their short stories. "Guarded self-consciousness" starts to look like a mathematical inevitability. Perversely, then, the greatest danger to the short story may be the very institution that's sustaining it.
And, why, exactly, do we get out of bed in the morning?
Posted by Darby M. Dixon III at 8:48 PM.
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