Introduction

Each time I’ve prepared a new edition of Writing Short Stories, I’ve referred to some different texts from writers I haven’t mentioned before. But I could never fit in everyone so I began compiling this list as a kind of appendix to the book. D. H. Lawrence for instance – why isn’t he in there? Once again, I had to cut a few names out, for various reasons, but what’s left is a selection of writers whose work merited much more than, at best, a fleeting mention. In deciding which stories to include, I followed connections between one text or another that are mostly self-evident. I’ve thrown in the final track as a kind of bonus exercise, but I also like to think we’re circling back to the beginning, and the notion that yes, you can tell a life story within a short form. You just have to do it right.