One of my favorite podcasts is Michael Silverblatt’s “Bookworm” from KCRW. These interviews with writers are about the right length for a thirty-minute walk around the neighborhood.

Silverblatt recently  talked with Jess Walter, a novelist and short story writer, whose latest book is We Live in Water, a collection of short stories. Walter says he spent seven years trying to get his stories published, and they kept coming back. “Manilla boomerangs,” he called them.

Jess Walter

Lately we are seeing an increase in the popularity and publication of short story collections. George Saunders, Sam Lipsyte, and, of course, Alice Munro all have new collections of stories.

If you have a short story tucked away in the drawer, why not take another look at it? And then write a new one just for the heck of it. You’re on your way to a collection!

I’m going to uncover a few of my stories lurking in certain computer files, breathe some life into them, and send them out. Maybe they will be “manila boomerangs,” but at least they will be out of hiding.

Here’s the interview from “Bookworm” (3/21/13).

Click on the small blue (Listen) bar below. We’ll talk more about fiction writing in future blogs.

Jess Walter: We Live in Water

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