I Love Short Stories!
Two short story collections release today and I'm in heaven.
One definition of the short story form is one that “begins after the beginning and ends before the end.” I’ve always loved the way a short story plays with our imaginations, that we get fragments of the before and a hint of the after, and a most satisfying middle.
In that spirit, I won’t spend time on the short story fiction course I took one summer in college, in which Professor Brice Finch led us through discussion of 20 stories a week, or the way I devoured a collection by Joyce Carol Oates called Heat not long after that. I won’t even mention that back in 2014, I was one of a full cast of narrators on Tom Perrotta’s Audie nominated short story collection Nine Inches, handling three stories that still bubble up in my thoughts.
The Audie Awards are “tonight” by the way - the quotation marks account for the time difference, since as I type this in the breakfast room of my Sydney hotel, it’s still Monday in the US and my colleagues are wrapping up the first in-person APAC since 2020.
Today, March 28th, is a double release day and both titles are short story collections you should add to your library.
I’d Really Prefer Not To Be Here With You and other stories, by Julianna Baggott
THAT CAST, THO! When Jesse at Blackstone sent the project thread email for this one, a massive squeeee was heard throughout the land and we all had to pinch ourselves so hard that it caused a second wave of squee-ing. I mean ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS CAST LIST?? What a great way for listeners to enjoy snack-size audio and discover a bunch of new favorite narrators interspersed with familiar voices.
And those stories! Julianna Baggott’s collection contains material previously released in literary magazines, several of which have already been optioned for film and television projects. Of course I’m biased, but I love that I got to narrate the first one, Welcome to Oxhead, currently in development as a Paramount TV series. Further proof that a short story can be the seed of a longer project, and if this ever makes it to the small screen I will be ready with my popcorn. Since I’m confident the whole collection will be just as juicy, this is one project I will definitely be adding to my own audiobook library so I can hear everyone else’s stories and celebrate the release.
In That Endlessness, Our End by Gemma Files
Again, THAT CAST THO!! That is one hell of a dinner party right there. And put us together with these chilling, suspenseful, innovative, twisty horror stories and you have a must-listen collection. I got to narrate two of Gemma Files’ concoctions: Always After Three, about a couple hearing strange noises in their apartment building that keep them up at night, and The Church In The Mountains, in which reality and memory and storytelling join and separate and morph like the blobs in a lava lamp.
“Ever find yourself remembering stuff you know can’t possibly be true?…I mean—things you think you saw once somewhere, like on TV or whatever, when you were a kid; spooky shit, disturbing, real nightmare fuel. Only you can’t tell if you actually really did see it, looking back, or somebody just told you about it, and it got inside you that way…if you even just dreamed it, maybe. Like the whole thing actually came from you, only you can’t remember how, or why.”
-Gemma Files, from “The Church in the Mountains”
As with Julianna Baggott’s collection, I will be adding this collection to my personal listening library, to hear my colleagues’ work and to enjoy Gemma Files’ gorgeous, poetic nightmares.
Short stories: I love them. More, please!