The short story gets big

'ARMINTA WALLACE

IS 2012 THE year of the short story? It certainly looks that way; as winter turns to spring, story collections are blossoming all over the place.

One of the UK’s biggest publishing houses, Bloomsbury, is bringing out a book of short fiction every month from now until May; at the other end of the publishing scale, the tiny Irish publisher Arlen House has a whopping six collections in its spring pipeline.

Already you can find Éilis Ní Dhuibhne’s Shelter of Neighbours and Adrian Kenny’s Portobello Notebook in the shops. Kevin Barry’s new book of stories, Dark Lies the Island , is due in April, Joseph O’Connor has a new book of stories on the way and, to top it all, the Dublin City Libraries One City: One Book choice for this year is James Joyce’sDubliners .

So what’s the story? Is it all just a coincidence or is something new in the literary air?'

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