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Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 7:19 pm Post subject: One Story magazine
Since it looks like we're about to tackle short stories in the next fiction discussion, I thought there might be some interest in a small magazine I recently ran across. It's called One Story, and is aimed at keeping the American short story alive -- evidently venues for publishing short stories are becoming fewer and further between.
One Story publishes exactly that -- one story -- every three weeks. I have not yet subscribed because I'm hoping to receive a subscription as a birthday gift, but I'll probably subscribe myself if that doesn't happen.
I could imagine an "Additional Fiction Book Discussion" built around a three week cycle of One Story. This presumes that the stories they publish are sufficiently interesting, of course.
Does One Story sound interesting to anyone else? How about the idea of a discussion built around it?
I guess it depends on how accessible the One Story mag is. And how much $$. And if I could subscribe online, that would be even better.
There is a web site: www.one-story.com. It is possible to subscribe online, but as far as I can tell it is not possible to receive your subscription online. They will email large-print PDF to subscribers who request it. I have sent them a query asking if the the normal-print version is available via email (or online). I'll let you know what they have to say. I'm curious to find out if their objections are practical, philosophical, or both.
I like wrryn's idea, but I have questions. The cost seems so reasonable that I wonder about the talent pool from which they'd be drawing the selections. Or are these not stories being published for the first time, but some kind of reprint of older stories? I'd like to pursue this if the stories reflect both the latest and the best.
DWill
I can only suggest that you look at their awards page http://www.one-story.com/index.php?page=awards and that, if you can find a copy, you read the article in Poets & Writers May/June issue. It seems that the number of places one can publish a short story is rather small.
I'm sure the quality varies. I know the style varies quite a lot.
I do know that these are not reprints -- they're first runs. One Story has launched a career or two already, but that doesn't necessarily mean that any given story is good (just that the occasional one is very good). One interesting quirk is that they'll publish an author only once; they want to prevent themselves from falling into the habit of relying on a few reliable sources. That's good for new authors but not necessarily good for readers.
My birthday is a little over a week away, so one way or another I'll start a subscription by June. By August or September I can provide a meaningful opinion. Before then all I can say is that I think One Story is a great idea and I want to support them with a subscription.
Here's the reply from One Story about the lack of electronic publication. So, no, there is no electronic distribution at present and there are no current plans to change that.
Quote:
Since it's inception, One Story has been a print only publication. We like the idea of a story arriving in the mail and opened like a letter from a friend. In that way, we're a bit old fashioned.
But we're not luddites. We use our web site to publish supporting information about the stories, the author interviews and the blogs are available only online. We see the internet as a place to develop a community around what we do in print. We also developed the submission manager system that many publications are using now, and have one of the more sophisticated subscriber databases around.
We know that recently many more publications have begun selling .pdf versions. The benefits are clear, particularly for foreign subscribers, but it's not something we have in the works right now. Interestingly, it's not something we get asked about that much. For now, our readers seem happy getting their stories on paper.
I checked out the website and continue to be intrigued by the product. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I have a birthday coming up, too. If I "get this," I'll post on this forum about the story and see what happens.
DWill
Don't many of the monthly magazines still publish short-stories? I know the New Yorker does. Does Playboy still? Redbook, Good Housekeeping? I remember when I was a kid, growing up on a farm in Upper Michigan, we got The Grit, a tabloid-like newspaper which published short stories and stories which were continued week to week; I was recently looking for some information on the internet and saw, to my great pleasure, that it is still being published. My mother always read the monthly romance magazines (True Confessions, Secrets) and my dad read a monthly magazine with western short stories (lots of Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour). The Saturday Evening Post was famous for it's short stories - is it still being published?
