I mean, he's pretty much the best living short story writer we have, but the amount of MFA students that want to be him is frankly annoying.

>>8191894
Love him. At the same time, I consider him a bit overrated. The amount of attention he receives versus other great contemporary short story writers is pretty crazy.

>>8191929

who are some other short story writers that you would recommend?

Like Bartheleme if he had a soul, or Pynchon if he could get over his own cleverness and admit he likes Lifetime movies. Not very original b/c he just recycles po-mo tropes of wierdness/surrealism and what not; but, seeing as how he's all we really got, I dig him. Beats the hell out of the other New Yorker MFA fuckbois (and annoying Anne Beattie rip offs).

>>8191939
Contemporary short stories are ass. MFA programs have royaly fucked the medium. Just go back to Borges if you want the good good.

Zadie Smith will put out something like once a year worthwhile. Same for Toby Wolff. Ben Lerner isn't complete shit, though he is a bit too high off his own shit. Most everyone else is extremeley forgettable.

>>8191974

>MFA programs have royaly fucked the medium

how so?

>>8191939
Lydia davis

Probably my favorite living writer.

>>8191939
Alice Munro, Amy Hempel, Steve Almond, Craig Davidson, Joyce Carol Oates

Where to start with him? I know Pinecone blurbed one of his books.

b-bump!

>>8192007
Homogenizing story and writing style. MFA programs exist for people to try their hardest to ape popular writers. Methods to do this include:

-light elements of magical realism --explicitly in a lower class setting
-writing in second person (or extensive dialogue with the reader) despite it adding nothing to the story
-liberal use of curse words to prove how cool you are
-any characters peripheral to the main characters become cardboard cutouts resigned to a single trait
-mention video games several times, because you're a milleneal and these things are important (this step is optional)

>>8192999
anywhere really. His writing is not difficult at all and his themes are easy to understand. He is sort of like Orwell in that aspect.

>>8191922
I'll just go ahead and disagree with you right there. Alice Munro is the best living short story writer, fampai.

>>8192007
Social Justice Virtue Signalling

>>8192008
Lydia Davis might be my favorite short story writer ever.

>>8195072

I've taken several creative writing classes at university and all the assigned fiction reading was really samey. It was like all the stories were written by the same few people. There was nothing from before 1985 and no translated literature. I thought it was stupid desu. New writers should be exposed to as diverse an array of styles and subjects as possible, especially considering how poorly read most of these students were.

>>8191974
>MFA programs have royaly fucked the medium
as someone who writes short stories but didn't do an MFA, can someone explain how they've fucked the medium?