Novelist and National Book Award winner Colum McCann shows that there is big power in the short story. In his newest collection Thirteen Ways of Looking, McCann says he held back with some of his first lines. “I wanted to keep the tempo quiet at first and then draw the reader in,” he says in the March cover story of The Writer.
In the interview, McCann dissects the short story format. He says, “I think a story, when properly told, finds its own natural length. If you try to extend it too much, it just stretches and begins to bore, and if you try to compress it too much, it just fractures.” McCann also discusses the challenges of short stories and novels, the importance of details, research and quotation marks.
Win Colum McCann’s short story collection
Enter your details here for a chance to win a copy of Colum McCann’s short story collection Thirteen Ways of Looking, and head to your local retailer on February 9 to pick up a copy of the March issue of The Writer, featuring McCann on the cover. Or download the digital edition now to read the interview with him.
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Originally Published