Time’s Ripe for a Short Story Month

OFFICIAL BADGE FOR IntShoWriMo 2014 (MODIFIED)

Isn’t it about time there was a Short Story Month? Why short stories, you ask. And at this late date? In the following paragraphs I’ll try to present valid whys and wherefores. You, Dear Reader, are free to accept or refute the idea; it would do little by way of changing my opinion, though.

IntShoWriMo was founded on the unpretentious principle that the short story cannot be allowed to go extinct. There has to be a new way to reinvent the craft, the art, and keep it fresh in the heart of the reader. Cast your minds back to a time you were much younger than you are; recall all those stories, fairy tales, you grew up with; Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, Lil’ Red Riding Hood, and so forth. The stories we heard where animals assumed human qualities to teach us a moral lesson or two while we sat, innocent and rapt in awe, on Mama or Papa or even Granny’s bosom.

Many of those tales were spoken and (those we read in books) written in the short form of fiction. Our first taste of fiction came in the form of the short story; we can’t deny where we came from just as we must not deprive the next generation a stab at the treasures we inherited. For the short story is itself a peculiar variety of legacy. Facts through fantasy expressed in short, memorable lines of creative imagination which must not be conscripted to the paddy wagon of rut. That's the idea on which IntShoWriMo was created.

Keep your pens bleeding!

Akpan