Presentation Format: In-Person Only

Taking inspiration from the convention theme, this year’s short story panel asks presenters to consider how the unique properties of the form contribute to its ability to offer hope, particularly the hope of human connection in an inhuman time.

Panelists might explore how formal considerations inform the short story’s relationship with hope:

• Does the brevity of the short story facilitate an author’s reach in a time of waning attention spans?  How do established writers of other forms and/or consummate writers of short stories lean into the shortness of the short story to make connections? 

• What specific opportunities do linked stories or short story cycles afford?  How do authors develop ideas across stories?  Is hope locatable in the works themselves or in the promise of connection through disconnection the form itself seems to make, for example?

• Is the new hope the old hope?  To what extent do contemporary short stories look back to their precursors to offer reassurance or reintroduce ‘lost’ values?

• How might Edgar Allan Poe’s conception of the form’s capacity to produce a single effect speak to its ability to proffer hope?

• How do contemporary writers make use of James Joyce’s notion of epiphany to effect personal transformations and/or create political solidarities? 

Alternatively, contributors to the panel might explore the form’s ideological associations:

• To what extent do contemporary works bear out Frank O’Connor’s argument that the form takes as its particular focus “outlawed figures wandering about the fringes of society” (19)?

• Is Sean O’Faolain right when he argues that “all stories are about one thing and one thing only – human relationships” (123)?  What role do human/non-human or non-human/non-human relationships play in contemporary short stories?  What hope can be found in the relationships short story writers portray and/or the approaches they take to depicting them? 

• What hope can be found in the many examples of the genre that have given rise to its reputation for creating unease?  Do such works offer catharsis or stoke appetites for change?  What other forms can hope take in these seemingly hopeless works?

• How do writers make use of the short story form to explore alternate ideas of usefulness and its measurability? 

• How does the form facilitate exploration of non-capitalist modes of exchange?   

Please send abstracts of 250-300 words and a brief biographical statement to Dr. Heather Joyce at hjoyce@nwpolytech.ca by April 25, 2025. 

The MMLA’s 2025 Convention will take place November 14-16 in Milwaukee, WI.  Learn more about the convention here: https://mmla.memberclicks.net/convention