Life Is Short--Art Is Shorter is not just the first anthology to
gather both mini-essays and short-short stories; readers, writers, and
teachers will get will get an anthology; a course's worth of writing
exercises; a rally for compression, concision, and velocity in an
increasingly digital, post-religious age; and a meditation on the
brevity of human existence.
1. We are mortal beings.
2. There is no god.
3. We live in a digital culture.
4. Art is related to the body and to the culture.
5. Art should reflect these things.
6. Brevity rules.
The book's 40 contributors include Donald Barthelme, Kate Chopin, Lydia
Davis, Annie Dillard, Jonathan Safran Foer, Barry Hannah, Amy Hempel,
Jamaica Kincaid, Wayne Koestenbaum, Anne Lamott, Daphne Merkin, Rick
Moody, Dinty W. Moore, George Orwell, Jayne Anne Phillips, George
Saunders, Lauren Slater, James Tate, and Paul Theroux.