Recently, I’ve been re-reading some short story classics by women writers including Grace Paley’s Somewhere else; Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery and Eudora Welty’s Why I live at the PO and Where is the voice coming from? I was taken from small town America to Mao’s China. Once again I was amazed at the power and impact the short story can have when written by geniuses of the genre. I marveled at the way Eudora Welty’s story Where is the voice coming from? was told by a racist killer. I laughed at the socialist narrator’s amusing innuendo in Somewhere else. I felt again the chill in my veins as the true nature of the “lottery” unfolded in Shirley Jackson’s remarkable work. Reading stories of this caliber is incredibly rewarding and if anyone hasn’t experienced the delights on offer by these authors I urge them to give them a try.

Speaking of short stories, several anthologies by contemporary women writers have been published by DLSIJ Press. One, entitled Stomping Ground is available as a FREE download by clicking on the tab in the Blog Roll on the right. The others are available from the publisher’s website after making a donation to a worthy charity.

Posted on March 27th, 2009 by Pat Turner
Filed under: General