Breton Dukes

Low Life by Michael Botur (Createspace, 2017), 244 pp., $27.99; Fresh Ink by multiple authors (Cloud Ink Press, 2017), 224 pp., $28

It’s a tough time to be writing short stories in New Zealand. Anecdotally, we hear collections aren’t selling well. Competitions have disappeared or had prize money slashed (the Katherine Mansfield and the Sunday Star Times Short Story Awards). Magazines that once accepted single stories (the Listener) stopped taking them years ago. And many publishers state, if in not so many words, WARNING, SHORT STORIES NOT WELCOME. Other forms, such as creative non-fiction and poetry (particularly with the arrival of Hera Lindsay Bird and Ashleigh Young), have vaulted short stories in terms of profile and sales.  [Read more…]