STORIES ... Deborah EISENBERG

THE short story is not exactly a favoured form for writers nowadays. Fewer magazines are publishing them and literary agents (and publishers) tend to shy away from them because, generally speaking, short-story collections do not sell well enough. Fortunately, for those of us who enjoy reading short stories and the art of fiction, we have short-story writers like Deborah Eisenberg and Alice Munro still excelling at the form. However, it is good to know that at the moment, there is an effort among writers and publishers to reinvigorate the short story as a popular form of fiction.