on writing - short stories

Short fiction seems more targeted - hand grenades of ideas, if
you will. When they work, they hit, they explode, and you never
forget them. Long fiction feels more like atmosphere: it's a lot
smokier and less defined.   - Paolo Bacigalupi

When well told, a story captured the subtle movement of change.
If a novel was a map of a country, a story was the bright silver
pin that marked the crossroads.   - Ann Patchett

The short story form allows evocation, suggestion, implication.
Its potency often lies in what it does not say.   - Isobelle Carmody

By Janice Wu

the well written - steven millhauser

One sunny morning I woke and pushed aside a corner of the blinds. 
Above the frosted, sun-dazzled bottom of the glass I saw a brilliant blue
sky, divided into luminous rectangles by the orderly white strips of
wood in my window.  Down below, the backyard had vanished.  In its
place was a dazzling white sea, whose lifted and immobile waves would
surely have toppled if I had not looked just then.  It had happened
secretly, in the night.  It had snowed with such abandon, such fervor,
such furious delight, that I could not understand how that wildness of
snowing had failed to wake me with its white roar.

- Steven Millhauser, "Snowmen"

By Rikke Skovgaard

photo stories - empire state building

Buildings can have personalities of their own - allure, mystery, evils.
The show 666 Park Avenue builds on this premise, as do Millhauser's
"The Barnam Museum" and many of his other stories in Dangerous
Laughter ("The Tower" and "The Other Town").   The lavish houses in
Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby play important roles as well.  The list
goes on and on.  What houses, towers, and skyscrapers play roles in
your stories?

Downtown. Lights on buildings and everything that makes you wonder.
And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.
- Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

By Warhol

illustration - a pod of mermaids

I recently read Millhauser's short story "Mermaid Fever," found here
at Harper's Magazine for free.  "The Little Mermaid" has been retold many
times (Midnight Pearls by Debbie Viguie, Mermaid by Carolyn Turgeon),
and then there was the rumor that Stephanie Meyer was writing a book
on the topic of mermaids.  Anyway, it's interesting to see different authors'
takes on the creatures (Sur La Lune has a list of modern literary
interpretations, short or long, for any who are interested), as it is wonderful
to see different illustrators' treatments below.  Enjoy.

At 5:06 a.m. the body was discovered by George Caldwell, a forty-year-old
postal worker who lived two blocks from the water and was fond of his early-
morning swim. Caldwell found her lying just below the tide line; he thought
she was a teenager who had drowned. The body lay on its side among strings
of seaweed and scattered mussel shells. Caldwell stepped back. He did not
want trouble.  “I thought she was a high school girl,” Caldwell later told a
reporter; we read it in the Listener. “It was still dark out there. I thought she
was wearing some sort of a dress with the top torn off. I could tell she didn’t
look right. I didn’t want to get too close.

- Steven Millhauser, "Mermaid Fever"

There are people all over the world who carry the mermaid inside them, that
otherworldly beauty and longing and desire that made her reach for heaven
when she lived in the darkness of the sea.

- Carolyn Turgeon, Mermaid: A Twist on the Classic Tale

By Steph Holmes

By Sophie Blackall

photo stories - museums

Museums are certainly full of magic, as evidenced by all the stories and films
surrounding humans' time inside them.  Night at the Museum, The Barnam Museum
by Steven Millhauser, The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, The Girl
in the Castle Inside the Museum by Kate Bernheimer, and others.

What magic would you dream up to take place inside a museum?

It is probable that at some moment between birth and death, every inhabitant of our
city will enter the Barnum Museum.  It is less probable, but not impossible, that at
some moment in the history of the museum our entire citizenry, by a series of
overlapping impulses, will find themselves within these halls.  For a moment the city
will be deserted.  Our collective attention, directed at the displays of the Barnum
Museum, will cause the halls to swell with increased detail.  Outside, the streets and
buildings will grow vague; street corners will begin to dissolve; unobserved, a garbage
can cover, blown by the wind, will roll silently toward the edge of the world.

- Steven Millhauser, We Others (The Barnam Museum)

By Malbork

Field Museum Moon Model

photo stories - the circus

I recently finished reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
(a wonderful tale).  Some truly wonderful stories have been written
about circuses, illusionists, and so on (ex. Eisenheim the Illusionist
by Steven Millhauser).  In 2000, Michal Chelbin did a series of
photographs documenting the traditional circus performers of
Europe and Israel, and the result was exquisite.  Take a look and
dream a circus of your own.

writing and psych - logophobia and synesthesia

I recently read We Others by Steven Millhauser, a collection of his
short stories.  One of them (History of a Disturbance) has to do with
words, a man who comes to think they are unnecessary, even evil, and
that silence is better and truer, offering a new way of life.

This isn't true I'm sure, but it's possible a story like History of a 
Disturbance could be inspired by a psychological condition. 
Logophobia is the word - a fear of words or speaking.

A few weeks ago I read a short story called The Empire of Ice Cream
by Jeffrey Ford.  The whole story is based on a condition called Synesthesia. 

Again and again, psychological phenomena can inspire some wonderful,
fantastical stories.

Illustration found here.