Well, we've passed the halfway point here of Short Story Month and things seem to be going very well. Just read a nice comment from Karen over at Readerville about just how many places that little logo off to the left has been popping up online this month - everybody is doing a great job of spreading the word out there.
It's been great to see Steven over at Storyglossia dissecting stories again like he did back before the journal became one of THE places to read fiction.
It's also nice seeing Aaron Burch, the mastermind behind Hobart, giving his own thoughts on stories he's been reading lately and slipping in great anecdotes to go along with the story critiques.
The folks behind Ninth Letter have also begun with very detailed looks at authors writing short stories with a couple of great initial posts about Dan Chaon and Keith Lee Morris.
The fine author, Blake Butler, has begun as well, over at his blog GDCW + SWDP, and again goes into great detail.
Then there's Matt Bell who is writing 800 word book review like posts on a daily basis, and all about simply fantastic stories and authors.
As for here at the EWN, we've been able to (albeit with two instances of using the next a.m. to catch up) keep up with the suggested idea of looking at 3 stories per day - one from a collection, one from a journal, and one from an exclusively online journal. There have been 48 stories pointed out to date, from these categories, including works from fairly well known authors like Barry Hannah, Ryan Boudinot, Noy Holland and Peter Markus, as well as perhaps sadly slightly less known authors like Elizabeth Ellen, Aaron Burch, Matt Bell, Amelia Gray, Tim Horvath, Patricia Engle, and many others. There have also been an additional 12 stories looked at that are in the anthology Visiting Hours, as I try to explain what it was that attracted my attention in the first place (as editor of this collection).
7 books have had my original reviews re-posted. These have been books I read and reviewed anywhere from 5 to 10 years ago and again, seem like many more people should know about them.
And we've had four people submit Short Story Mix Tapes for display and have had 26 different fantastic guest posts ranging from those like Mike Wood's that hones in on a single story, on up to that of John McNally, who questions why anybody writes stories and then rattles off half a dozen authors that should see us scouring stores for their works.
It's been fun reading all of the stories, all of the posts from others and seeing so many others getting excited by stories. The last half of the month will see looks at another 45 stories, the rest of the stories in Visiting Hours, more guest posts, more retro reviews and some looks at publishing houses deserving of your support due to their own belief in the short story as an entity worthy of being published.
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