For nearly five years, Kenneth “Ken” Randall has managed all business and creative development activities at iLaw and iLawGlobal in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, as president and chief executive officer. He previously spent 20 years as dean of the University of Alabama School of Law. Beyond his legal activities, Kenneth Randall enjoys reading and writing short fiction.
While many conversations on American literature revolve around the enigmatic concept of the Great American Novel, the nation has produced an equally impressive array of short stories. In 1908, Jack London, author of classic American novels like White Fang and The Call of the Wild, produced a man-versus-nature short that has survived the test of time. In "To Build a Fire," London's narrative follows a man and dog traveling through freezing Northwestern Canada and the decisions both characters must make as conditions continue to worsen.
Written in 1948, "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson is arguably the most recognizable piece of short fiction in the American canon. The story describes a small-town gathering for a seemingly innocuous-seeming lottery, but as the drawing comes closer, Jackson ratchets up the tension and ultimately employs a horrifying twist that will stay with readers forever. The story is sometimes compared to Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," a horror approach to issues of physical and mental illness first published in The New England Magazine in 1892.
More recently, authors such as George Saunders and Junot Diaz have made the form their own. Saunders’ most recent story collection, The Tenth of December, received near unanimous levels of praise, the likes of which are generally reserved for novels. Diaz, meanwhile, has spent decades writing stories about the culture shift individuals experience whenever traveling between the Dominican Republic and the United States, stories collected in books like Drown and This Is How You Lose Her. He recently edited The Best American Short Stories 2016. Other popular writers of American short fiction include Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver, John Cheever, and Edgar Allen Poe.
