Debate: Should There Be A Short Story Laureate?
I don’t know about you, but I am a huge fan of short stories. I think they’re the most underrated genre and the best, in my opinion, which is why, I think, there should be a Short Story Laureate to acknowledge a genre that has been seriously overlooked.
We have a poet laureate, a tradition that has gone from being a lifetime honour to just lasting ten years (yes Tennyson we should give someone else a chance) which shows that things like honours and awards are progressing with the times. We have a children’s laureate. And although we don’t have a laureate for the novel, I feel that with the novel being in such high demand and with so many competitions to choose from, the short story is just shunted away like the slightly less successful son with pushy favouritist parents. I understand that there are competitions out there for short story writers – I know I feel like I’ve submitted stuff to most of them – but not in the same way that poetry and novels are regarded. Firstly there aren't as many and secondly they come with so many more restrictions such as word counts and particular themes.
Short stories will, I think, be a genre that grows and develops into what the novel has managed to create. With a short story, as Edgar Allan Poe once said, you can read it in a single sitting and there is something very satisfying about that – about finishing a piece of writing in one go, in one reading.
There is also the advantage that a short story is quick to read. Nowadays, with technology being as dominant as it is, people want to have things instantly, to know things in a few simple touches. The beauty of the short story is that they can have that instant satisfaction of having read something; we don’t have to slog through 600 pages in order to get the same effect.
Some of the best writers, in my opinion, have been short fiction writers. Raymond Carver, Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood. And yes, I am not completely dismissing the fact that novels are brilliant in what they do. And yes I also know that poetry, like short fiction, has the ability to wow in an instant. But with the short story, it’s always been brushed off, forgotten, like in Toy Story 2 when Jessie falls under the bed and sings the song that always makes me weep.
I think the short story needs more recognition as a genre, and more and more people are venturing into it. Publishing houses are wanting to publish it, short fiction writers are winning major prizes. But it’s still not enough. Short stories should be up there with the poetry and novels. Why do they not get as much attention or as much profit as novels? I can’t understand it. So, I believe, that one way of recognising that the short story is an incredible form that needs to be noticed and praised, is by having a short story laureate. Plenty of potential candidates spring to mind and I really think it would be such a good thing to put this forgotten genre on the map.