"And I’ve got a perspective of being a short-story reader going back to when I was 8 or 9 years old. At that time there were magazines all over the place. There were so many magazines publishing short fiction that nobody could keep up with it. They were just this open mouth going “Feed me! Feed me!” The pulps alone, the 15- and 20-cent pulps, published like 400 stories a month, and that’s not even counting the so-called “slicks” — Cosmopolitan, American Mercury. All those magazine published short fiction. And it started to dry up. And now you can number literally on two hands the number of magazines that are not little presses that publish short fiction. And I’ve always felt like I wanted to write for a wide audience. And I think that that’s an honorable thing to want to do and I also think it’s an honorable thing to say, “I’ve got something that will only appeal to a small slice of the audience”. And there are little magazines that publish in that sense — but a lot of the people who read those magazines are only reading them to see what they publish so that they can publish their own stories.
"
It isn’t a general thing. You don’t see people on airplanes with their magazines folded open to Part 7 of the new Norman Mailer. He’s dead of course, but you know what I mean. And all of these e-books and this computer stuff, it kind of muddies the water and obscures the fact that people just don’t read short fiction. And when you fall out of the habit of doing it, you lose the knack, you lose the ability to sit down for 45 minutes like you can with this story and get a little bit of entertainment.
Stephen King speaks with The Atlantic contributing editor James Parker on the creative process, the state of fiction, and more. Read the whole interview at The Atlantic (via theatlantic)
Notes
-
edhardy-clothing liked this
-
worldfallsdown liked this
-
deniseduguay reblogged this from theatlantic
-
gayagayaputomaya liked this
-
muffinperson liked this
-
thepoliticalnotebook liked this
-
typewriterdaily liked this
-
runranliurun liked this
-
withyourcrookedheart liked this
-
uhitsjayvee liked this
-
spazolot liked this
-
senyn reblogged this from bookobsessed
-
bookobsessed reblogged this from wordpainting
-
kristaaaaa reblogged this from theatlantic
-
libraryofthedeep liked this
-
angeloricci reblogged this from theatlantic
-
graceorfavor liked this
-
flamingsoupface liked this
-
lukehackney reblogged this from theatlantic
-
polyplutocity liked this
-
This was featured in #Long Reads
-
curmudgeonlaine liked this
-
myisms liked this
-
hawgdriver reblogged this from wordpainting
-
mikebakerthebikemaker liked this
-
thoughtpuddles liked this
-
womaninterrupted liked this
-
comelylittletree liked this
-
drakestrange liked this
-
onehundreddollars reblogged this from theatlantic
-
irony-and-wine liked this
-
white-page-black-ink reblogged this from wordpainting
-
blackpolosandsweaters liked this
-
ourcatastrophe liked this
-
fragmentedreality liked this
-
howlcoyotecody liked this
-
ton-tonintechnicolor reblogged this from wordpainting
-
quickerandeasier liked this
-
wordpainting reblogged this from theatlantic
-
relisez reblogged this from theatlantic
-
therodentqueen liked this
-
rachelsweeet liked this
-
katiehonan liked this
-
katiehonan reblogged this from theatlantic
-
morequasar reblogged this from theatlantic
-
coyotesqrl liked this
-
fluffynotes reblogged this from theatlantic
-
conclusiveevidence liked this
-
thispopculture liked this
-
jmsy liked this
- Show more notes
