With all of the world-changing events that have occurred these past few years requiring our urgent...
The effectiveness of a short story lies in its ability to encapsulate all the hallmarks of fiction - plot, characters, setting, important themes - into a limited space, allowing the reader to briefly immerse themselves in the world you have created. "I find that it’s the voice of a short story that really defines it," says Carolyn Kuebler, Guest Judge for our Short Story Competition. "Any story could be told from many different angles or viewpoints, and the one you choose as a writer will inform every sentence."
Read on for Carolyn’s advice about writing, editing, and submitting your work for publication!
Tell us about your path to where you are today. Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?
I knew I wanted to be a writer at least since I was twelve, though I didn’t want to say it out loud, since I was just a quiet kid from Allentown, Pennsylvania. It felt wiser to set my sights on something like landscape architect, a much more short-lived aspiration of mine. “To be a writer” and “to write” turn out to be two different things. (We recently published an essay about this by Efrén Ordóñez Garza in the New England Review, which I recommend.). But both have stayed alive for me since adolescence. My path to the present, where I have for a long time been the editor of a literary magazine by day and a writer in the hours that linger on the edges, has been shockingly consistent, in retrospect. Read, write, edit, repeat. I’ve had other jobs along the way to support my habits, but I have always found my deepest pleasure in “the text.”
You’re a writer and an editor. In what ways does being a writer versus an editor differ, and in what ways do they inform each other?
These two occupations fight for attention constantly, but in my case have also become dependent on one another. To put it in practical terms, editing pays better! I’m one of those nerds who has always loved grammar, or “diagramming sentences” as we used to call it. On one level, that’s what I do as an editor—pay close attention to the mechanics of sentences. But on another level, editing allows me to immerse myself in another writer’s words, their patterns of thinking, and to locate the confusing points and try to sort them out, not in my voice but in the writer’s voice. Of course, I don’t always get it right, but I leave plenty of room for the author to object. It’s great fun. And it’s often necessary to break the rules. I break them much more often when writing, which is why it’s best for me to keep the editor in me at a distance. When writing I need to be free of judgment, expectation, and even the rules of grammar. I need to give my internal editor a “time out” in order to write any first draft.
You’ve written essays, fiction, and now a novel coming out next year! For this particular competition, writers are tasked with writing a complete story in 1,000 words or less. What are some of the challenges of writing a short, contained story, and how do you approach them?
Writing a complete story in 1,000 words or less is challenging, but it can be done! We just accepted for publication in the New England Review two startling and satisfying stories under 800 words. While short story writers are often given specific instructions regarding craft—plot, character, pacing, etc.—and those can be useful, I find that it’s the voice of a short story that really defines it. Any story could be told from many different angles or viewpoints, and the one you choose as a writer will inform every sentence. As for me, I tend to write a lot of long, messy drafts of a single story before settling on the voice and point of view. I think of the drafts as the block of clay out of which I’ll sculpt the final piece.
As editor of New England Review, you select submissions to be published in the review. What advice do you have for writers who are looking to be published? Any things to definitely do or definitely avoid?
We read literally thousands of submissions for every hundred that we publish, which isn’t unusual for any publication. It’s good for writers to know that high rejection rate when going in. If your work is declined by a publisher, it may be because it just isn’t finished or didn’t stand out, or because they’ve already published a story with a similar style or point of view, and honestly it might also be because they made a mistake. All writers want to believe the latter, and they wouldn’t necessarily be wrong. This is just to say that the real decision about whether your story is finished, whether it is “good,” has to come from somewhere else—usually from your most honest self. Definitely avoid sending a first draft as soon as you finish it. Let it sit. Come back to it later, when the fever has passed and you can see it more clearly.
What are you looking for in a winning entry? Any tips for our young writers, especially those who are new to the genre?
I’m looking for writing that is attentive to language, but not overly precious about it—not reaching for the SAT word but also not just tossing off first thoughts. In general I think it’s more effective for writers to write about the things that truly obsess them, even if they seem trivial or outlandish, rather than reaching for the big, important issues that they think should obsess them. The way to address profound questions is often through the seemingly weird or mundane.
About the Guest Judge: Carolyn Kuebler is a writer and editor from Vermont. She’s the author of the forthcoming novel Liquid, Fragile, Perishable (Melville House, 2024) and of numerous short stories, essays, and reviews, which have appeared in Massachusetts Review, Colorado Review, The Common, The Literary Review, and others. Her essays have won the John Burroughs Award for Nature Essay and been cited as Notable in Best American Essays. Former editor of Rain Taxi Review of Books and current editor of New England Review, she has worked with hundreds of writers to publish their stories, poems, essays, and translations.
