New Short Story Blog: Fifty-Two Stories

This week I received an e-mail from Alberto G. Rojas, Director of Publicity at Harper Perennial + Harper Paperbacks about a new short story blog called Fifty-Two Stories. I am currently not a big reader of short stories, but each year I make a resolution to read more of them. I think Fifty-Two Stories might be just the thing to get me started!

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Many of you have already heard about Harper Perennial's upcoming campaign for 2009: the Summer of the Short Story. With six stellar new collections coming this summer and fall from Dennis Cooper, Simon Van Booy, and Lydia Peelle, among others—along with six collections of classic shorts from masters like Dostoyevsky, Wilde, Cather, and Crane—we think it’s high time to celebrate the much-loved, but oft-overlooked, short story form.

The festivities and events really kick into gear starting in May, but we decided to get an early start with a new story blog called Fifty-Two Stories.

The idea is simple: Each week in 2009, we will post a new short story for our readers. Some of them will be new stories from our original collections, or from upcoming hardcovers; some original contributions never before published anywhere; some classics from our backlist. We’re even (gasp) accepting submissions for new stories from our readers, professional or amateur, published or not. (This may cause us some heartache, but we are strong.)

Our editorial director, Cal Morgan, will select a new story each week and post it Sunday night. We began our soft launch in January, with stories by Mary Gaitskill, Tony O’Neill, Simon Van Booy, and Tom Piazza. In coming weeks we’ll bring you stories from Katherine Dunn, Jess Walter, Mark Twain, Dennis Cooper, and Special Guest Stars. Last week, we were graced by previously unpublished story from Louise Erdrich's new collection, The Red Convertible and this week we’re thrilled to be featuring a story by Willa Cather from The Bohemian Girl, an upcoming selection of Willa Cather’s greatest short works by Harper Perennial.

We really hope you’ll check out the site. If you like it, we hope you’ll spread the word. We'd love it, of course, if you'd link to it on your own blog. Tell your friends to link to it on theirs. Share your link with us, and we’ll link to you! Post a link on MySpace or Facebook. Tweet about us on Twitter. We’re doing all that, too, of course, but every little bit helps.

And tell us what you think! If you have any tips, ideas, advice, wisdom, complaints, please email me here, or email Cal directly at fiftytwostories@harpercollins.com.

Thanks, all. Everyone at Harper Perennial is having a blast with this, and hope you will too.

All best,

Alberto

I hope you will check out Fifty-Two Stories and let me know what you think!