Speculative Short Fiction Deserves Love discussion

Hello! This group is brand new so there is absolutely no furniture yet. Feel free to start conversations and I'll try to rustle up a crowd.

Hello! I am Ada. I am excited about the idea behind this group, but have no idea what I'm doing... :D

<- Charlotte! I read so much short fiction and I feel like I hardly ever get to talk to people about what I'm reading - so I hope we can make this happen here. :)

Can I advertise the group? ;)

Hi Ada! Hi Charlotte!
Yes, you can advertise the group! I think the idea is to see if we can actually get people talking about short fiction, and whether we can drum up larger enthusiasm, and whether we can maintain it.
If any of you early joiners are interested in being co-moderators, let me know.

Oh, hey. An introduction. I'm Sarah. I love short fiction, both as a reader and a writer. I grew up in a family that read lots of short fiction, which I've only recently realized is an unusual thing.

Hello! I'm Lee - used to prefer novels, but when life got busier I found myself enjoying short fiction collections. And now there's an amazing amount of short fiction online, where I now do most of my reading.
I began writing short fiction a few years ago, and that gave me even more of an appreciation for the well-told short story.

Hi,

I'm Aidan. Grew up reading short fiction and started submitting my own stories when I was in high school.

One of the first anthologies I loved was The Super Hugos - some of the most popular Hugo winners. Included Flowers For Algernon and Sandkings, which I loved to bit.

I'm Mike. Short stories by Lovecraft, Ellison and Disch warped me as a child. Nowadays I read short fiction, write it and also publish it, online and in print. I'm pleased to see "Flowers for Algernon" and "Sandkings" mentioned by Aidan.

Hello. I'm Debs. I've always loved short fiction. And have decades of years best science fiction and horror anthologies.

I've also got soft spot for Mythos horror, and if you twist my arm, I'll tell you that Philip K. Dick is my favourite SF author.

I'm Polenth and I'm around. I have trouble keeping up with endless threads of endlessness, but will likely take part when the individual threads for stories/books/people get going.

I'm Francesca--I confess to only really starting to read short fiction when I got online in the mid 2000s, but now I love it. It's easy to fit a short story into a break in work, and a good one can be so stimulating.

Hi Polenth and Francesca, good to meet you both.

Hi everybody! I'm Bunny. Some of my favorite short fiction writers are UK LeGuin, Connie Willis, Kij Johnson. I've always enjoyed short fiction and I think it might be starting a renaissance because it fits the ereader format so well. Just as it was more lively back (oh way way back in the mists of time) when there were a lot of weekly magazines.

Hi Bunny,

There are so many places to read spec short fiction. Factor in my enormous collection of anthologies and collections that I like to re-read, and you'll see that I just can't keep up.

I sometimes feel vaguely guilty about it. I hope this group is going to steer me in the right direction for new reads

Hi Deborah, nice to meet you.

Hi, I'm Serena. Two of our most prominent authors (Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar) mostly wrote short fiction, so I grew up with it. I got into short spec fiction only a couple of years ago, through Strange Horizons. Wholeheartedly agree that it deserves more love!

Welcome, Serena!

I'm Laura. I read and write short speculative fiction. Favorite writers of short fiction include Jorge Luis Borges, Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson, and many others that will bubble up in my brain five minutes from now.

Hi Laura!

Welcome, Laura!

I'm Neil. I've been reading sf short fiction since the mid-1970s. Magazine junkie. As editor of Clarkesworld Magazine, I read about 500-600 stories a month.

Hi Neil, and YIKES! How on earth do you manage to read that many stories? That's like, 20 a day!

When I'm reading slush, I don't finish a story I don't like. Turns out, that's a lot of them. (I'm known for my extreme dislike of zombie stories and there's no shortage of them. Quick way to lose me.)

Ahhh, that helps. Yeah I could probably get through a lot of stories that way.

Of course, I often don't finish stories I don't like either, but I'm not reading slush, so there are fewer of them.

Hi, Neil! Welcome!

Hooray, Neil joined us!

(I continue to be baffled that people *still* sub zombies to CW...)

I think they think he can somehow be converted. Or that it's some kind of a dare.

I just joined as I've been a reader and writer of short SF and fantasy for some time. Good to know there are other people out there with the same interests, and it isn't just a personality disorder!

Welcome, DJ!

Hi! In the '90s Interzone and Asimov's were my gateways to short SF, these days among other things I manage (but do not edit fiction for) Strange Horizons.

Hi, Niall! Good to see you. FYI, feel free to link to your monthly editorial/what SH alumni update posts here.

OK, will do!

Hello All!

My name is Kendra, although I go by KF more often than not, and am a lover of short stories! I got hooked at a young age by my dad's copies of the Sword and Sorceress anthologies, edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Since then, fantasy has always been my favorite, but science fiction, urban fantasy, and paranormal romances have their own places on my shelves.

I find it much easier to suspend belief on short stories, than with novels. Often the writer doesn't put in enough information to risk contradicting themselves. :P

I am currently writing a series of anthologies, the first of which has been released to Kindle this year (yippy for New Year's goal achieved!)

Haven't had a lot of time to read, this year, due to writing (I have a horrible time reading while I'm writing...) but I'm hoping to take small breaks between drafts this time around, and short stories are perfect for those!

Welcome!

Welcome, Kendra/KF!

Shiny!

I must admit to being a selfishly-interested reader of short stories, as they're all I seem to be able to write.

That said, I enjoy reading short stories for some of the reasons others here have mentioned already: they're easier to fit into a busy schedule and can carry quite a big impact despite their brevity. Also I'm okay with zombies (sorry, Neil) as long as it's well done and more about the humanity of the human characters than about the gore of zombies.

Welcome, Stewart!

I'll follow in Neil's footsteps: I'm Sean. I've co-edited three magazines, Clarkesworld Magazine, The Dark, and Fantasy Magazine. I read a lot of slush, maybe three to five hundred a month, myself. I love short fiction.

Sean wrote: "I'll follow in Neil's footsteps: I'm Sean. I've co-edited three magazines, Clarkesworld Magazine, The Dark, and Fantasy Magazine. I read a lot of slush, maybe three to five hundred a month, myself...."

Good to see you, Sean!

Hello! I'm Rose, and I'm a lifelong fan of short SF/F. When I was a teenager I all but built a shrine to Judith Merril and Terry Carr. I'm passionate about anthologies in particular, and also really enjoy collections. For some reason I've never been nearly as interested in reading short fiction in magazines. These days I occasionally read short fiction online when someone links to it, and I open Daily SF more often than not, but anthologies and collections continue to be my primary source of short fiction.

I'm also interested in reviewing; I started reviewing for Publishers Weekly in 2002 and have been an editor there since 2007 (handling reviews of SF/fantasy/horror and romance/erotica).

Full disclosure: I'm one of the editors of Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, and I'd love to know what the group's members think of the book and stories in it. But I promise to only lurk in those discussion threads. :) And I've contributed stories to a couple of tiny-press anthologies (Dark Furies: Weird Tales of Beauties & Beasts and Alleys & Doorways: An Anthology of Homoerotic Urban Fantasy Short Stories) but I write very little fiction these days.

Hi Rose! Welcome.

Hi Rose!

I met a friend from university in New York a few days ago and your name came up. David Dyte said he was friends with you.

I hadn't seen David for almost 18 years. (I live in Melbourne).

I backed Long Hidden but haven't got around to reading it yet. In my to read pile. :)

Welcome, Rose! I read Long Hidden and would be happy to talk about what I thought about it, although not today because today is super busy.

I'd be happy to talk about Long HIdden as well, though I'd duck out of the conversation if people wanted to discuss my story in the anthology without me there.

Hi, all. I'm Terry. I met Sarah at a recent BSFS Writer's Circle, and was blown away by her critique submission, which you'll see in print someplace soon. Trust me. Like Rose, I was a big fan of Judith Merrill, and also Damon Knight, James Blish, Kate Wilhelm, Alfred Bester, Harlan Ellison. These days I gorge on Willim Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Guy Gavriel Kay, and Lian Hearn, and am looking for a new short fiction authors to fall in love with.

Welcome, Terry!

Hey, I'm Jill. Hope this is the place to share thoughts about cool short fiction. Aliette de Bodard is my latest crush author. All time favourite sf authors include Kim Stanley Robinson, William Gibson, C.J. Cherryh and Jack McDevitt. I'm currently most of the way through the latest Year's Best Science Fiction (Dozois) anthology. Favourites so far are Jay Lake's ROCK OF AGES, Ken Liu's THE PLAGUE, and de Bodard's THE WAITING STARS. Next up I've got the Other Half of the Sky anthology, some Asimov's and Clarkesworld's.

Welcome, Jill! I think you're in the right place. Feel free to post a topic to discuss the Year's Best if you'd like.

And welcome to anyone who joins the group because of the Tor.com tweet shout-out this morning.

Hi, I'm Mikel. I've been drifting more towards short fiction recently, having discovered talented writers like Aliette de Bodard, Len Liu, Ted Chiang, and Tiina Raevaara. I'm excited to follow a group focusing on shorter speculative writing, and discovering more authors as a result!