What it be?

F152. An Insurgent Surging: The Case for the Novella Now. (Josh Weil, Michael Knight, Tom Franklin, Cynthia Reeves) This panel will examine the novella as a renegade art form whose time has come. We will discuss the underappreciated rewards the form offers writers, readers, teachers, and publishers. But the focus will be on the craft of writing novellas—challenges, rewards, and the unique approaches that the form—all directed towards answering this question: why is right now the right time to refocus attention on the novella?

When and where it be?
Room 110. Colorado Convention Center, Street Level. 12pm-1.15pm

What about it?

I’ve had the good fortune to talk with award-winning author Josh Weil on several occasions and see him read. His novella collection, The New Valley, recently won the Sue Kaufman Prize for first fiction, awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. True, they always say these things, but it really couldn’t happen to a nicer person.

I asked him a few questions about the oft-neglected story form, the novella.

NK: Like flash fiction, novellas seem to be popping up more often. Also like flash fiction, they have a notoriously slippery definition. What is your quick-and-dirty definition of a novella? Does the definition lie more in scope or word count?

JW: Well, if you want really quick and really dirty, then word count. In which case I’d say roughly 15,000 – 50,000 words. But I doubt Don Delillo’s new “novel” is even close to 50,000; I’d bet its more like 40, or even 30. And the longest novella in my collection is around 49,000 or something. So, I’d rather go with scope. And if we’re talking scope, here’s the best I can do: If a short story focuses sharply on a narrow part of the world and treats it with great intensity and a novel approaches the world with a much wider lense and greater sweep and treats what it sees with a broad generosity, then a novella compressess the world with the focus of a short story, but it explores that smaller space with a novel’s generous care.

NK: You’re the writer-in-residence at a private high school. Are you teaching beginning writers the novella as a viable art form, or is it something to pick up later?

JW: Nope. They’re capable of dealing with it, but in an intro to fiction class (which is what I teach), I think short stories work better. I’d love to see advanced undergrad classes (and certainly graduate classes) grappling more frequently with the novella, though.

NK: Are there any contemporary writers you feel are ‘experts of the novella’ or are contemporary writers looking to the past for inspiration, conventions and guidance?

JW: Absolutely. There are contemporary masters of the form. Jim Harrison comes immediately to mind. So does Alice Munro (who write both long short stories and some full fledged novellas). And of course George Saunders, Charles Baxter, Denis Johnson, Annie Proulx…They’ve all written novellas. The form is alive and well; it’s just not recognized the way it should be.