Skip to content
1981
Short Fiction as World Literature
  • ISSN: 2043-0701
  • E-ISSN: 2043-071X

Abstract

This report is an edited transcript of a speech Livi Michael gave as keynote speaker at the conference in Lisbon 2022. She argues that despite the need to support and promote short fiction, corporate, commercial publishing is not the best way forward. Short fiction needs to retain its links to the independent sector, and to the academy, where different values apply. Corporate publishing necessarily relies on marketing and commercial success, whereas independent publishers, and researchers, continue to value excellence and virtuosity. She also argues that greatness in fiction is mainly to be found in the short form, and that, while it has become a politically compromised, overused term, ‘greatness’ it is still a useful concept for writers and researchers who are driven by what inspires them and it should therefore be reclaimed. Writers and researchers are regularly involved in judging short fiction, and while judgement of any kind should be interrogated, the ideal of greatness is more appropriate as a standard for the short form than commercial success.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/fict_00087_7
2024-02-14
2024-10-16
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Aboulela, Leila (2010), ‘Missing Out’, Granta, 111, 12 July, https://granta.com/missing-out/. Accessed 20 July 2022.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Armstrong, Sheila (2022), ‘Red Market’, How to Gut a Fish, London: Bloomsbury, pp. 5975.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Hadley, Tessa (2017), ‘Bad Dreams’, Bad Dreams, London: Jonathan Cape, pp. 11326.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Jones, P. (2022), ‘No Deal’, The Author, 133:4, pp. 56.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Mason, Daniel (2020), ‘Death of the Pugilist, or the Famous Battle of Jacob Burke & Blindman McGraw’, A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth, London: Mantle, pp. 532.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Michael, Livi (1994), Under a Thin Moon, London: Minerva.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Mort, Graham (2010), ‘A Walk in the Snow’, Touch, Bridgend: Seren, pp. 713.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Munro, Alice (1998), ‘The Children Stay’, The Love of a Good Woman, London: Chatto & Windus, pp. 181214.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Small Pleasures (2022–), Podbean, https://smallpleasures.podbean.com/. Accessed 6 December 2023.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/fict_00087_7
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error