‘Guitar Bands Are On The Way Out’ British Agents And Short Story Collections

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#Authorday, agents, Are You Sitting Comfortably?, Cloud Atlas, cookbooks, crime, Elizabeth Strout, George Saunders, Gone Girl, Granta, Jennifer Egan, Liar's League, Neil Gaiman, Peters Fraser & Dunlop, publishers, Rattle Tales, Raymond Carver, short stories, short story collections, Small WOnder, spoken word, The BBC National Short Story Award, The Beatles, The Bridport Prize, The Manchester Fiction Prize, The Word Factory

On Friday, checking in with Twitter, I came across #Authorday, which invited tweeters to ask agents from Peters Fraser & Dunlop questions about their work. I am presently sending out a themed collection of short stories so I thought I’d ask the obvious.

#Authorday how come agents hate short story collections when the best do actually sell better than bad genre?

The answer?

Because finding a publisher to buy them is like putting a magnet to a haystack for that elusive needle.

I replied that as it was once again the year of the short story it should be getting easier for agents to get publishers interested and asked if it wasn’t a matter of pre-conception all round? Another short story writer commented that he too was disappointed by the lack of mainstream push for the genre. Neither of us got any further response.

This makes me so mad. What is it with British agents and publishers? They seem to be the only ones who hate short stories. It is not the case in the US or India. I have been writing them for a decade now. My ‘novel’ was actually a series of inter-linked short stories,  people other than my family bought it and read it (not many granted, but I didn’t even know some of them). In all that time I have only spoken to one person about books who told me they didn’t like short stories. I have co-directed a short story night (Rattle Tales) for the last five years. We have produced 12 shows and most of them were completely sold out, sometimes we had to turn people away at the door. How can this be the case if people don’t like short stories? There are hundreds of organisations putting on similar events up and down the country; Liar’s League, The Word Factory, Are You Sitting Comfortably? to name but a few, plus countless festivals with short fiction strands. There is even a whole festival dedicated to the genre, Small Wonder, at Charleston farmhouse no less, always packed out even though it is in the wilds. How do they continue to run if no-one buys any tickets? How come lit mags like Granta survive if no-one buys short stories? Type the words short fiction journals into Google and look at the huge list that comes up! Are they all running on air and goodwill?

How come The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Spectator and many other non-literary titles commission short stories? If no-body likes them, why would they bother? Why is there a BBC Short Story Prize (aired on Radio Four),  a Costa one, a Sunday Times one, the Bridport? How can The Manchester Fiction Prize offer thousands in prize-money if no-one is interested in anything other than crime and ghost-written celebrity cookbooks?

If no-body likes short stories how come Jennifer Egan and Elizabeth Strout won the Pulitzer with them? Those two books were not novels in the traditional sense, they were short story collections disguised to suit the pre-conceptions of agents and publishers. If no-one buys them why were collections by George Saunders and Neil Gaiman number one on the New York Times Bestsellers list? Remember Cloud Atlas? Booker nominated, glossy Hollywood movie, Richard & Judy Book of the year. It’s a collection of short stories! Or ‘six nested stories’ if you want to quote the publisher blurb.

Without short stories, there would be no Hemmingway, Chekov, Fitzgerald, Steven King, Laurie Moore, William Trevor, no Flannery O’Conor, no Raymond Carver. Thank god for indie publishers. However, the indies are overrun with submissions (strange that, as no-one is interested in short fiction) many close their windows after just a few weeks, some are only accepting recommendations from authors on their lists and agents. Back to agents. Remember the story about Decca telling The Beatles that they wouldn’t be signing them because ‘guitar bands are on the way out’? Remind you of something?

How many short story collections did you buy in the last year? they ask smugly. About fifteen actually. I know I’m not average in this but I know I’m not the only one. It’s a nonsense question anyway, did Malcolm Gladwell’s agent say how many books of essays on society and genius did you buy last year?

Brighton Waterstones has a stand dedicated to short fiction publications (established by short story writer Sara Crowley when she worked there). The shelves on it are not always full, sometimes there are spaces where books have been bought! They stocked the Rattle Tales Anthology this year and do you know what? They sold some!

Crime and cook books done well are wonderful but no-body needs another version of Gone Girl because it’s easy to sell. Shake it up a bit, dust off the guitars, you might be surprised.

Telling Tales

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Are You Sitting Comfortably?, Book Slam, Dr. Suess, Giraffe's Can't Dance, Green Eggs and Ham, Grit Lit, Liar's League, literacy, National Storytelling Week, Oh The Places You Will Go, Rattle Tales, reading, reading aloud, short stories, spoken word, Story Tails, Tiger Flower, Winnie The Pooh, Word Theatre

It’s National Storytelling Week. I know, I know, it’s always something or other week but I like this one, I am after all a storyteller, both verbally and on the page. Most of us start out in life being read to even if it’s only at school, if we are lucky our parents read to us at bedtime.  It goes without saying that children who are read to show a greater interest in books than those who are not, there have been numerous studies confirming this over the years; take a look at the Reading Agency for evidence. 

I don’t think you ever lose the memory of being read to as a child; even when we grow up it lays dormant within us. When I became a parent and started to read to my sons it stirred memories of my Dad reading Winnie the Pooh complete with silly voices,

‘Good Morning, Pooh Bear,’ said Eeyore gloomily. ‘If it is a good morning,’ he said. ‘Which I doubt,’ he said.”

The memory of it made me feel all warm and secure.  There is nothing like watching the delight on a child’s face as the tale unfolds, the wide eyes of surprise when the under-dog triumphs or the squirming laughter when the baddie gets a pie in their face. When you are an adult you can also see the skill involved in the really great stories, the brilliance with which Dr Seuss suggests to children that you don’t have to do what everyone else does, that it’s a big world out there with lots of options (Green Eggs and Ham and Oh The Places You Will Go!), or when Giles Andraeas and Guy Parker Rees show us that actually Giraffes can dance even when everyone else thinks they can’t (for supreme story-telling check out the Hugh Laurie audio book of Giraffes Can’t Dance).

My mother recently gave me an old battered picture book she’d found at the back of a wardrobe, Tiger Flower, a riot of 1970s psychedelic colour and poetry my older sisters used to read to me. I had forgotten all about it but turning the pages I was immediately transported to a time of nylon sheets, cuddly Wombles and midnight feasts of bourbons and milk. I was amazed by the strength of this memory buried for so long and yet so instantly retrievable.

But stories aren’t just for children. Over the last few years I have become a storyteller. As part of Rattle Tales I have read stories to adults many times. I suppose we recreate the storytelling atmosphere of our youth (perhaps even further back to our tribal ancestors sitting around the campfire) our events take place in candlelit rooms that are invariably toasty warm, everyone sips a drink and listens quietly as they are told a story, they don’t know where they will go or who will take them but like children they give themselves up to the ride. All our nights have been sell-outs and people return again and again. It’s not just us there is probably a storytelling event in every major city, Liar’s League, Grit Lit, Book Slam, Story Tails, and Are You Sitting Comfortably? The list is endless and that’s just in the UK.

I have also been lucky enough to listen to my own stories being read by other more proficient readers. I have listened to my words being read by actors at Are You Sitting Comfortably?, Liars League and Word Theatre. It is a strange experience, I recognise the words but somehow it’s like someone else has written them. Sitting in an audience in which few people knew I was the author made me both acutely aware of every word and its success or failure and utterly thrilled by the laughs and gasps from those around me. The fact that an audience was listening rapt to my work gave me butterflies.  Of course this happens when I am reading my work too, but then there is so much else to think about when someone else is reading it you just sit back and listen to the rhythm of the words. When one of my stories was read at Word Theatre at Latitude Festival the performance by the actors (Gethin Anthony and Diana Vickers) was so good that I actually forgot I’d written it, I just sat back on a cushion and listened, returning once again to the bedtime story of my childhood.

If you want to mark National Storytelling Week check out their website for details of events or look in the local press, I promise you won’t regret it. If you are a writer and fancy becoming a storyteller why not submit to Rattle Tales? The deadline is Friday for our show on Feb 20^th at The Brunswick in Hove.

‘He who holds the rattle tells the story.’