Robinson On Writing

Over at Backstory, Roxana Robinson, whose latest book is the short story collection A Perfect Stranger, shares the process of writing her short stories.

There’s a certain convention that holds in this country, concerning fiction writers. By its terms, they’re more or less expected to write short stories while they’re learning their craft, and then, later, they’re expected to write novels when they’ve become accomplished. Underlying this convention is the premise that the short story is the easier form of the two, and one suitable only for beginners.

In fact, I’d argue that the short story form is the much more demanding of the two.

In the essay, Robinson talks specifically about her story “The Face Lift,” which was published in The Atlantic in 2000.