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State of the Short Story
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There is no doubt that, as Stephen King
once alleged, the short story has declined in
popularity. Once a staple literary form, evolving
from the pulp magazines of the early twentieth
century and morphing into the multitude of more
respectable magazine media led by the once
dominant Saturday Evening Post, the short
story was a highly paid and sought after creative
endeavor.
Even the less commercial marketplace through a
large network of small literary magazines was once
a highly prestigious and well-read enterprise. The
short story was the entry-level form for most
literary wannabes. I attended creative writing
classes at The New School in the forties and
fifties with Mario Puzo, William Styron
and others of equal talent who cut their eyeteeth
on the short story form. It was considered the
curtain raiser to the big first novel.
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Vote Now for the Best
Humor-Themed Short Story
 Voting is now open until September 15 for
our
Summer 2008 Short Story Contest. Our five
finalists are now submitted to the general
public for voting, and the winners will
receive cash prizes based upon the number of
votes they attract by their work. Many of the
stories were quite wonderful, and a great deal
of effort and angst was applied in choosing
the winners. We have strived to put
originality as the gold standard of our
choices. By its nature our judgment is purely
subjective. Our advice to those who have
submitted is to stay with it. Not being among
our top five is by no means a rejection. Thank
you so much for submitting your work. We look
forward to hearing from you again when we
launch our next contest. Our motivation in
creating our contests is to enhance and
promote the art of the short story form and to
encourage other writers to embrace it. Click
to
read stories and vote now.
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