There has been a lot of talk about the state of the short story recently. Stephen King wasn't the first to brig up the topic, but his voice carried the furthest. Now there are discussions, rants, defenses, offenses, etc. hitting the internet from all sides. Most recently, I read John Scalzi's posted regarding the circulation figures for the Big Three.

For those of you who write short stories and submit them to the Big Three, I'm curious how many of you subscribe to these magazines or any other magazine that prints short fiction. Where do you find the short stories that you read? How do you support the markets that you are trying to break into? Is it important for you, the writer, to support those markets?

I know these questions have barbs, so let me be the first to say that I submit to magazines that I don't support.

I always figured that I'd sign up for a subscription "after" I started making sales. This philosophy always sounded logical to me - at least until I started to understand some of the more important messages and themes regarding the health of the short story. (I won't go into those themes here because they've been done to death elsewhere.)

Writers who love writing short fiction need to be a part of the population that is supporting short fiction. That's just the way I see it. I don't know if it was King that made the point stick, or Scalzi, or some other post made online. In any case, I get it.

A few minutes ago, I signed up for an annual subscription of a genre magazine. (I won't say which one because I don't want this to become an advertisement for a specific magazine.) I can't afford to sign up for them all, but I felt like I should at least do something. I'm tired of all that online talk. From now on, I'm just going to focus on supporting my industry, reading as much as I can, and writing my brains out.

What will you do?

P.S. I feel like an all-star jerk for confessing that I haven't had an active subscription, but I couldn't afford it until recently. Also, it's not my intent to guilt anyone into buying a subscription. This is just something that I can do to suport a cause that I believe in, and I wanted to encourage each of you to find your own unique way to support a cause that is equally important to you. And remember support isn't necessarily a monetary thing.