Learning the craft of short stories

While I’m not a fan of Zoom-work, or Zoom-school, I do have to admit I am a big fan of Zoom writing craft classes.

I have been taking them recently, and I am pleased to join in on classes I wouldn’t otherwise be able to join. When you’re  a writer, craft classes always provide new ideas and new ways of looking at your writing – and help improve the creative process, so I do try to get some in each year.

The latest class I took was a fabulous class on the art of the short story, with short story author Elizabeth Sims.

It was exciting to speak about short story structure, and to use examples of well-known short story writers and tales to learn how this is done.

Short stories/ Kimberly Sullivan

Some of my favorite short story collections

We also spoke about how greatly short story structure differs from novel structure.

This was good timing for me, because I’ve been writing short stories for a while (I love the genre) and plan on releasing my first short story collection next May – so a refresher class like this was timely as I’m working through edits. My collection falls within women’s fiction, and will have Italy as a backdrop for tales of Italian women and expat women living in or traveling through Italy.

I know short stories are not as popular today as they were in the past (to my endless disappointment), but I’m still excited about this collection – and it was fun to be able to enjoy a class with so many others who love the medium as much as I do.

What about you, readers, do you love short stories, too? If so, who are your favorite short story authors?

And for those of you who are writers, do you enjoy taking craft classes? Do they help you to sharpen your skills?

Happy reading (and writing) to all!

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