Joan Aiken is most familiar to readers for her children’s novels such as The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and Black Hearts in Battersea. But she was a talented story writer as well, producing Dahl-esque modern day stories that often rely on supernatural elements.
What: The Serial Garden: The Complete Family Armitage Stories by Joan Aiken is a collection of children’s stories written by Aiken. The Armitage family moves through a landscape reminiscent of the England of the Pevensies or Would-Be_Goods and they have the same, non-cloying sweetness to them.
Who: Read this if you’re a MG or YA author looking for inspiration. Or if you’re a parent looking for some solid reading to share with your children..
Why: Read it because Aiken knows how to construct a short story. Look at how deftly she weaves in elements, tying them all up in endings that are unpredictable but ineffably right.
When: Read it in the evenings, as befits fairy tales.
Where and How: Read it if you’re in the mind for a little gentle silliness and the ghost of a governess conducting midnight lessons.
#sfwapro
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I find that when I read short stories, more short stories of my own come to me and I believe Delany when he says that you can’t write anything better than the best stuff you’re reading. Here’s ten of my most accessible favorites, mostly speculative fiction, but with a few lit writers in there as well.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. – Vonnegut is the best of the best, and I don’t just say that because he’s a fellow Hoosier. Welcome to the Monkey House is a great collection to start with and one that I read over and over in high school, but I’m also fond of Look At the Birdie, published posthumously.
Carol Emshwiller – Also amazing, also doing things so skillfully that plain language manages to become part of such a lovely construction that the grain of the words seems ornamental as well as story material. I just love Emshwiller, and getting to publish one of her short stories during my time at Fantasy Magazine was a highlight. I particularly recommend I Live With You and Report to The Men’s Club.
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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
(Written with Ben Burgis, fantasy story) They said the Marielitas were escoria – scum. The abuelitas muttered it to each other, and the young girls coming home from school clustered together like butterflies, looking thrilled and worried whenever the wind whistled at them. The newspapers said Miami was under siege, that Castro had loosed the worst from the Cuban prisons and madhouses.
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