a rambling conversation on story writing

between Ann Patchett and Elizabeth McCracken, it's from a little while ago and it's all pretty interesting.... click here

AP: Keeping on the whole short story/novel thing, I believe there’s practically no one who is equally good at the short story or the novel. I think Updike is, I think Márquez is. Just about everybody I can think of who write both I can say, well, you know what he really is a better X, she really is better at Y. ...I’m judging Best American this year and I’m reading now tons of short stories and they are all fabulous. I don’t know how in the world I’m going to choose, they are so incredibly good, which made me wonder what’s going on, why is it that there are so many better short stories than there are novels—in my humble opinion—because I’ve always thought that actually it was harder to write a really great short story than it was a novel.