Thank you for visiting my blog.

 

Today (September 17, 2021), my blog ”Reading the Short Story” marked 2 million page views.  I know that is not a lot in the Internet world, but it pleases me that so many people are reading my thoughts on the short story, even though I have not posted any new essays for the past three years, when, without any notice or explanation, I just stopped writing.

However, today, I thought it might be a decent gesture to make a few remarks about my decision to stop.  I have been reading stories since I first discovered Edgar Allan Poe when I was growing up in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky.  I have read thousands of stories and written about hundreds of stories in books, articles, essays, reviews, and blog posts.  It amuses, rather than amazes me, to confess that as of today, I have not read a single short story in the past three years, much less written about any. 

Why? 

Even my doctor at my last physical exam a year ago asked me that question.  No real reason.  I just turned my attention to other things—more time with my wife, children, and grandchildren. And more time returning to my pre-reading roots on my grandfather’s hardscrabble farm, in honor of which I tend a garden in my back yard (great tomatoes this year), I tend four healthy hens, who faithfully deliver a couple of dozen delicious eggs each week.  I also bake bread, make soup, cook meals, and enjoy watching British detective television on Britbox with my wife, who beats me at Gin Rummy regularly.

In the past three years, I have been invited to contribute criticism and literary theory essays by several of my colleagues in Canada, Europe, and America.  Although I much appreciate the honor of  these invitations, I have respectfully declined them.

In short, as I  sit here surrounded by hundreds of books and four filing cabinets of drafts, notes, and ideas about the short story, I just feel that I have said enough.  I turned 80 a few months ago.  Other than the usual glitches that the body experiences at this age, I am basically healthy, and my mind, with the exception of the usual  lapses in memory, seems, if not keen, at least capable.

I will continue to read comments that readers of my blog make to my posts and to respond to them.  However, I have no plans to post any more full-length essays—unless, of course, I get wind of something that gets my goat or piques my pleasure.

I hope that students and admirers of the short story continue to find my blog essays useful.  Thank you all for your support over the years.

I remain, as always, the strongest cheerleader of the short story that I can possibly be.

----Cheers, Charles