Via Canongate author Mark Sarvas's The Elegant Variation, I've learned of NPR's Three-Minute Fiction contest that runs throughout the entire summer of 2009. The New Yorker's literary critic, James Wood, will select his favourites and read them live on NPR.
How exciting! I'm a recent convert to short stories, and flash fiction absolutely rocks when done well. I'm glad that the art of fiction writing continues to thrive in an age when everyone is afraid that the culture of free will kill publishing.
Traditional publishers just need to catch up with (and hone) writers' inventive ways of expressing themselves and bring book (and newspaper and magazine) publishing into the modern age.
