Somebody Must Have

declared this Short Story Day. Yippee! There are all kinds of essays and leads in the short story field today, so here we go.

With a hat tip to Corey Wilde we have Oprah's Book Club selection - a volume of short stories by Uwem Akpan entitled "Say You're One of Them". http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahsbookclub/pastselections/pkguwemakpan/20090918-obc-about-say-youre-one-of-them Now, I'm not a big Oprah fan and most her book club selections tend toward the overly literary crowd but anything that points readers in the direction of short stories is a good thing.

Over at the SF Signal they've posted part one of an interview with several anthology editors about putting together "The Hottest Short Fiction Anthologies". Very good stuff here http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2009/09/mind-meld-behind-the-sceneshow-the-hottest-short-fiction-anthologies-are-created-part-1/

Adrienne Martin is the author of the essay, "Neverending Stories". It's about short stories being the core of, in this case, the sci-fi genre, but I think it applies to the mystery genre as well. Short stories are where the best ideas in any genre are written and explored. http://citypaper.com/special/story.asp?id=18999

With a hat tip to Deborah Elliott-Upton over at Criminal Brief, we have "East of the Web" where short stories, old and new are published for folks to read and enjoy. They also take submissions from writers, so take time not just to read, but to check out their guidelines. They're not a paying market but with a half million hits a month, it could be great exposure for writers. http://www.short-stories.co.uk/

And finally another new zine, this one called "Rotten Leaves". They're looking to launch their first issue on October 31 and while they're not looking for Halloween themed stories, they will be publishing one story with a Halloween bend to it. The deadline for the first issue is October 20, but they will be accepting submissions on a continuing basis. According to their guidelines they're looking for dark fiction in any genre. Sadly, they're a non-paying market. Here's the link to their guidelines http://www.rottenleaves.com/submissions Be sure to click on some of the other links because they have information scattered all through the site, especially at the News link. This is a nice looking website that shows a lot of thought has gone into setting it up.

***A late addition here. From Michael Bracken's blog comes the news that he'll be guest-blogging today at Sleuth's Ink http://sleuthsink.blogspot.com/ He's promising tips on becoming a short story writer and advice on how to maintain a long-term career in the short story field. The man's an expert in this field, folks, so pay attention.

We're Snoopy Dancing for the short story here at The Corner today!!