Monday, June 29, 2009
Spread the Zine Word
Over on Criminal Brief this morning James Lincoln Warren is bemoaning the loss of markets for short stories and wondering why people are no longer reading shorts. Drop on over and tell him where you read and publish, let him know that there's a whole wide world of short stories just waiting to be read. Support the world of short stories today by spreading the joy of Zines over at Criminal Brief. http://criminalbrief.com/?p=7465
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8 comments:
Good morning, Sandra!
I've visited your blog several times and noted the kind mentions you've made of Criminal Brief.
I personally distress at giving up two things, (a) a real book/magazine I can hold in our hand (I like the look and feel)) and (b) getting paid!
I've seen at least one paying web site fold recently, but blogs like yours and Hope Clark's might help bridge the gap, bring the mountain to Muhammad, so to speak, helping to keep us myopic word-slingers apprised of markets.
Thanks, Sandra, namaste.
Welcome to the corner, Leigh! I prefer holding books, too. At my age, they're easier to read. But I also realize that if I want to write and publish short stories I need to go where the markets are and right now, for the most part, they're online.
Generating income from a website is difficult, which is why so many of the paying markets fold. One the upsides is that the best zines are being noticed and stories picked up for a variety of print anthologies that do put money in the writers pockets.
But the truth is, if the writers themselves don't promote the zines, how will readers find them? And its a two-way street, writers published online have a much higher profile than writers who don't, which builds a following if they do manage to snag a book deal.
What's happening to the short story mirrors the plight of newspapers. Young people read online in bite size pieces. I doubt we will go backward in this although I hope we do.
I don't think we'll ever go backwards, Patti. I still buy my local paper but they're so money conscious that there's more ads than articles. I miss the local columns of "items" from all the small towns in our county. Now they merely cover school sports and supervisors meetings, no personal touches anymore.
I've been writing short stories for a long time now, starting at age 10! When I started, they were many successful digest size short story magazines. Many people decried how it was the end of the short story format forever!
For as long as I've been writing, "they" have been saying "short stories" are almost dead. Boy, long, long lingering death...
I agree, Conda! I've seen more stories online and in anthologies in the last year than ever before. And people are still reading them even if they aren't in print.
Pattinase (abbott) writes "What's happening to the short story mirrors the plight of newspapers. Young people read online in bite size pieces. I doubt we will go backward in this although I hope we do."
In one of Agatha Christie's novels, Miss Marple remarks sometimes progress doesn't seem very much like progress.
Like Sandra, I've been thinking about the situation and causal relationships. I've complained on Criminal Brief about the dumbing down of boys and the failure of males to read much more than cereal boxes, sports stats, and beer labels.
I think there's another underlying culprit. For decades now, television has become babysitter, playmate, friend, lover, companion, conspirator, consolator, educator, entertainer, game competitor, and emotional drug dealer. Add internet and we add librarian, collaborator, study guide, and many other roles. For generations who haven't known anything else, it's a tiny step to getting reading material from a screen.
I think TV and computers have also had an effect on how a writers are expected to write now also, especially short story writers.
We're expected to jump straight into the action and use little or no description because this is the way TV works. Young people reading today don't need to "see" the setting because they've seen it all their lives.
We can give them the sounds and smells but the pictures are all embedded on their brain, they don't need their imagination fired up to see Africa, China, or even small town USA because they've seen it all on the screen.
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