True story

Today I wrote a poem, entitled 'Story', and labelled 'non-fiction'.

These things happen.

'We DO NOT accept poetry or short stories.'

Please don't call and say "I know you don't accept poetry, but I'd just like to read you this funny poem I've written anyway." That would be greatly appreciated.

- The Oldie, submissions guidelines ('What we DON'T want')

Facebooks - I

So, this thing is going round that you name ten books that had a major impact on you.

Ten books is not enough.

--

The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
Disgrace - JM Coetzee
Oscar Wilde - Richard Ellmann
One of the many biographies of The Doors [I will endeavour to recall         the particular volume]
The New English Hymnal - various
Tintin [all of] - Hergé
Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis - Wendy Cope
The Last Samurai - Helen DeWitt
Reality Hunger: A Manifesto - David Shields
The Collected Stories of... - Lydia Davis

--

Notes / Self-imposed Rules:

1) No particular order of importance.
2) Links are to editions read, where possible.
3) One book per author.
4) -ish. Book stipulated is either first read or first enjoyed.

Books I've actually finished lately: 31

On the ongoing American obsession with the (American) short story

Moreover, I teach stories as well as telling them, and like most writing coaches I find the short story most useful for seminar purposes. You can hold a short story in your hand, like a lyric poem; see it whole; examine the function of individual sentences, even individual words, as you can't readily do with Bleak House or War and Peace. (This pedagogical convenience, together with the proliferation of creative writing programs in the U.S.A., must be largely responsible for the happy resurgence of the American short story - at a time when, paradoxically, the popular audience has never been smaller.)

- John Barth, Lost in the Funhouse

Dave Eggers does a decent buffalo

and other graphic whimsies.

Books I've actually finished lately: 18

To cut a short story short

The Sunday Times is running a £30,000 short story competition. This is good.

But you have to be a published (fiction) author to enter. This is not so good.*

--
* Unless you're one of the judges, in which case one sees their point.