Times are changing, but I really don't believe that people's desire for stories has changed. Heck, we love stories no matter what kind of package they come in: gossip, conversations, print, comics, video, and even audio. Humans are hardwired for story. Humans have told and listened to stories for as long as we have been able to communicate our thoughts to each other. So, when you ask me, if short stories are dead or in ill health, the only answer I can give you is "no". It’s an impossibility.

The problem as I see it is that our mechanisms for telling our short stories have not kept up with our high-tech, fast paced lifestyle. However, things are changing. Developments surrounding the combination of storytelling with new media are pointing to the future of the short story. This isn't to say that print media is coming to an end, but rather that a new medium is being born. Podcasting.

Podcast are audio recordings of stories (either long or short) that are downloadable to iPods or other media players. How can this be the future of short stories? Well, think about the millions of mobile media players that have been sold over the last few years. How often do you see people walking around town or running down the road while plugged into their iPod? I'd venture to say you see it every day; maybe even every time you leave your house, depending on where you live. Mobile media is the wave of the future.

Granted, print novels aren’t having the same trouble in the marketplace as short stories, so where's the strength of this argument? I'd venture that since these two story forms are not experiencing the problem of declining readership to the same degree that there is something about the printed short story people are finding increasingly more difficult to embrace. My guess is that it has something to do with the ease of use between novels and short stories.

Speaking from personal experience, I find novels a lot easier to read. I can set them down and pick them up at and time. I can read in short 5-minute spurts or sit down and read for hours on end. Novels are versatile story forms that people can squeeze into their day. Short stories do not enjoy the same luxury. Generally speaking, short stories are a little more difficult to read because every word counts, every word is packed with meaning. When I finish the last page of a short story, I can’t turn to the first page of the next story and just mow through the book without pausing for thought. This forces a slowness of pace that makes it difficult to read through a short story collection as quickly or as easily as people can plow through a novel.

This brings me back to the point, and value, of podcasts. Increasingly, popular short fiction has been finding a home in the realm of podcasts available through such sources as Audible.com, Escapepod, and Pseudopod. While most of the early podcasting sites seem to cater to genre/ popular fiction, other sites like the New Yorker Audio and Houghton Mifflin Poetry Podcast are now following suit.

Short stories fit perfectly as companions for thirty-minute walk or a summer hike. They work well for boring commutes to work or during those times when we need our hands free as we go about our business. Podcasting seems designed as much for the short story form as it is for the busy lifestyle of our high-tech, fast paced society. For authors and publishers who want to get more exposure for their works, it's worth taking a look at recording more short stories for download now, during the infancy of the podcasting movement.

There are quite a few new comers who are being published via podcast. However, there are also professionals like James Patrick Kelly who have been pioneering in this field for awhile. In the near future, you will see a growing number of short stories, novels, poems, etc available as audio downloads. As more new, previously published, and classic fiction is transferred to podcast, you will see a revitalization of the short story form via this new media. Mark my words.

For your reference, here are a handful of interesting podcast links:

PODCASTING

• Producig a Podcast With the Gear You Own Today
  
• Escape Pod - What is podcasting?
  
• I Should Be Writing - Mur Lafferty's blog on podcasting & writing
  
• Odyssey Writers' Workshop Podcasts - Lecture Excerpts from Guest Writers
  

PODIBLE/AUDIBLE FICTION, POETRY, & NONFICTION

• Audible.com
  
• Bound Off
  
• Drabblecast
  
• Escape Pod
  
• Fiction by James Patrick Kelly
  
• The New Yorker Out Loud
  
• PodCastle
  
• PodLit: The Podcast of Creative Nonfiction
  
• The Poetic Voice: Houghton Mifflin Poetry Podcast
  
• Pseudopod
  
• The Sci Fi Traveling Road Show
  
• SFFaudio
  
• Sniplits
  
• Well Told Tales
  

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.