Post-Now: Futures of the Short Story, the Short Story of the Future
Recent discussions and debates in literary and creative writing studies have invited fiction writers, scholars, and readers alike to re-evaluate the form and the function of the short story. The rise and prominence of online literary magazines and e-texts have forced writers to adapt to lower word counts and the challenges of on-screen reading: writers have responded with fragmented and braided narratives that eschew the “long-read” short story published in venues like The New Yorker or Paris Review. Handheld gaming on consoles like Nintendo’s 3DS and Switch systems have brought genres like the visual novel to the West—transforming short-form narratives into portable and interactive hybrid works of literature.