Weall love writing short stories but we don’t like paying to read them
The Sunday Star-Times’ annual short story awards are open for entries. It’s one of New Zealand’s oldest and most prestigious contests, and past winners include Carl Nixon, Linda Olsson, Eleanor Catton and Sarah Laing.
Last year’s awards attracted more than 500 entries. More than 800 writers also entered this year’s Sargeson Prize, a short story award launched by novelist Catherine Chidgey and sponsored by the University of Waikato.
Think about it: 800 stories by New Zealand writers. That’s the equivalent of a story contest in the UK receiving more than 10,000 entries.
Every news bulletin from the NZ Society of Authors lists links for multiple story contests. Our writers enter contests like the Bath Short Story Award, which charges a $16 entry fee for one submission. For just over $20, writers can submit two stories to the UK-based Fiction Factory contest. In the US, the Iowa Review – where I was once an editorial assistant – charges $30 to enter its annual story contest.
Every month, everywhere in the Englishspeaking world, there are more contests, offering more opportunities for aspiring shortstory writers. The odds aren’t great, and sometimes the prize money isn’t either. At the Iowa Review we were bombarded with hundreds of entries, most of which had no chance of being published anywhere, ever. (‘‘A fool and his money are easily parted,’’ as my mother would say.)
Meanwhile, I hear the same complaint all the time – here and elsewhere. Writers can’t get their collections published. Publishers, they say, aren’t interested in short stories.
I understand. It’s hard. In New Zealand, only one of our university presses – Victoria – publishes story collections on a regular basis, and that’s two a year at most. True, the best stories entered in the Pikihuia Awards for Ma¯ori writers are published by Huia in an annual anthology. But most commercial publishers steer clear. Here’s the reason.
Publishers like to sell books. They are businesses, after all, rather than artistic charities. Some story anthologies perform well – like Pu¯ra¯kau: Ma¯ori Myths Retold by Ma¯ori Writers, published by Penguin in 2019, which has sold more than 5000 copies, including 500 in Australia.
But most story anthologies sell closer to 1500, and story collections, even by established writers with a ready-made audience, are lucky to break the thousand threshold. They make no money for anyone. Debut writers without followings will sell far fewer. ‘‘We prefer reading novels,’’ I hear from my spies in various book clubs. This is the received wisdom from publishers, here and overseas: readers prefer novels.
What about writers? Sometimes when I’m speaking in public, I ask audience members to raise their hands if they’ve entered a short story into a contest in the past year. Many hands go up. Then I ask them to raise their hands if they’ve bought a short story collection this year. Fewer hands. A collection by a local writer? Sometimes no hands at all. Taken one out of the library? Maybe a few.
This is why it’s so hard to get a story collection published. We’re busy writing short stories but not reading them, and certainly not buying – or borrowing – them. Many of us love the form so much we want to write short fiction and enter contests. That’s great. But if we also buy more work by short story writers, publishers will seek more to sell.
Even more important is what we learn, as writers, from reading excellent stories. The more we immerse ourselves in accomplished and artful short fiction, the more we can scrutinise our own work and develop our craft.
The Sunday Star-Times short story award is free to enter. Many others are not. If we stop spending so much money on entering feecharging contests and redirect those funds to buying good contemporary story collections and anthologies, we’re supporting the industry we hope to join. And maybe becoming better story writers ourselves.
Many of us love the form so much we want to write short fiction and enter contests. That’s great. But if we also buy more work by short story writers, publishers will seek more to sell.