This year’s editor, Stephen King, knows his stuff.
He has this to say about the state of the American short story, in the New York Times:
The author Stephen King was the editor of “The Best American Short Stories 2007.” He writes that although he read many good short stories, many seemed “show-offy rather than entertaining, self-important rather than interesting, guarded and self-conscious rather than gloriously open, and worst of all, written for editors and teachers rather than for readers.” Obviously, Jim doesn’t fall into that category.
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“San Farine” is a vividly imagined and utterly gripping story. I couldn’t put it down, and it’s haunted me for two years. It’s a combination of surreally weird and razor real at the same time. I can’t shake this eerie story. It’s amazing to think that human beings actually lived “ordinary” lives like these executioners. But human history is just plain unbelievable anyway, from the point of view of a little New England city in 2009.