My more comfortable form is definitely the short and very short story. Later this summer will see the release of Davis’ adaptation of Alfred Ollivant’s Bob, Son of Battle: The Last Gray Dog of Kenmuir, from NYR Children’s Collection. Davis is also the author of one novel, 1994’s The End of the Story. Lydia Davis is well known for her (often) very short fiction, which has been collected in seven volumes, including 2014’s Can’t and Won’t, and has earned her several awards, most notably the 2013 Man Booker International Prize. If I have learned anything, it is to write what is in your heart, what tugs at your thoughts, not what you think you “should.” You can work with your characters over time, get to know them, arrive at your destination in your own way. There’s a leisurely quality to working on a novel, a meandering sense of room that’s quite freeing. The very quality that makes the story seem less intimidating is what makes it so difficult: its compactness. But I’ve come to feel that stories are much harder than novels. Did I learn lessons while trying my hand at the short form? Absolutely. In hindsight, this is like deciding to ski jump because you’re daunted by the thought of some afternoon snowshoeing.

When the idea for my novel first came to me, I made the foolish assumption that I should wet my feet by writing a few short stories first. Her debut novel, The Sixteenth of June, longlisted for the 2014 Flaherty-Dunnan Prize, is out now from Scribner. Maya Lang was a finalist for Glimmer Train ’s Short Story Award for New Writers and was awarded the 2012 Bread Loaf-Rona Jaffe Foundation Scholarship in Fiction.

Best short stories to write about