Two short stories today: Flannery O’Connor and Blake Butler
By the Branta Webcrawler • May 7th, 2010 • Category: Editor's Picks, From the Interweb, Short Fiction 
Friday, May 7
A short-story-a-day: Blake Butler
In the last several years a movement has been underway to declare May the month of the short story. As there are no governing bodies deciding what months mean — and that itself would be a hair-too-whimsical of a short story plot — this is a grassroots movement. To contribute to that movement, I hereby present, every day this month, a short story link.
TODAY: The Passionate Male Prostitute, by Blake Butler
Atlanta’s Blake Butler is part of an inchoate group of writers I’m calling southern gothic by way of Robot Chicken. While older writers are angsting over whether to Tweet or not, this generation is publishing everywhere and anywhere, from the handmade small press, to websites, to Harper Perennial. If the distortion and feedback of Butler’s intense riffing is too loud, you may very well be too boring.
Thursday, May 6,
A short-story-a-day: Flannery O’Connor
TODAY: A Good Man Is Hard To Find, by Flannery O’Connor
No, I’m not trying to take you back to grade 11 on purpose. A Good Man Is Hard To Find is a great story but, for my money, O’Connor’s best was her final work, Parker’s Back. It’s just not online, but the story of a sinner, his harridan wife and a tattoo of Jesus is what I tell people to read when they ask for writing advice.
—
Both of these are via Brian Joseph Davis’ feature on Globe and Mail’s In Other Words blog.
the Branta Webcrawler is a compiler of information discovered, recommended and retrieved from either the "real" world or the world which is both wide and webbed.
Email this author | All posts by the Branta Webcrawler
