WEBLEY .45 by R.K. Simpson is Now Available

These days you hear about the decline of short stories as a literary form. That's surprising in our attention-deficit society that prefers to shorter articles in magazines (a trend ushered in by People Weekly back in 1974), all those :30 commercials on TV, and those now-you-see-'em-now-you-don't online pop ups.

A recent article was titled "The Difficult Future of the Short Story." Interestingly enough, the entire article was itself short, merely 13 lines.

"As the magazine industry is pummeled by layoffs, the short story has become an early casualty in this economic disaster for print publications," notes GalleyCat, a website that bills itself as "the first word in book publishing."

It elaborates, "We all know what's happened to the short story as a form in magazines. There used to be the Atlantic had one every week, but now they only do it once a year. There used to be more fiction in GQand Esquire. Now all of those places don't run fiction. All the places where authors might have gotten a few dollars a word for their stories have gone away."

But don't give up!

"We like short stories as a literary form," counters Shirrel Rhoades, publisher of Absolutely Amazing eBooks. A former executive withHarper's, Scholastic, and Reader's Digest Books, he helped TheSaturday Evening Post bring back short stories while serving as its fiction editor.

Under his direction, Absolutely Amazing eBooks and its sister imprint The New Atlantian Library has published nearly two-dozen short story collections in the past two years. They can be found at Short Story Collection.

In keeping with this commitment to short fiction, Absolutely Amazing eBooks has just published Webley .45 and other Short Stories, a terrific collection by R.K. Simpson.

There is real diversity in the short stories that make up the Webley .45 collection. We watch a young man, who was sexually abused as a boy, dream of killing his assailant. We hear the confession of a black man who has "passed" as white for much of his life, and we watch a gay man struggle to be honest with his partner, his father, and himself. On the lighter side, there are endings that surprise us, and the chronicle of a practical joker. Most importantly, these diverse tales are brought to life by unique and credible characters. They will touch you and you will root for them, despite their flaws and foibles. You may even find that one or two of them "will drift like phantom companions along the edges of your mind" -- to borrow a phrase from the author -- long after you meet them in this captivating book.

The ebook edition is only $3.99 -- less than 10-cents a story. The 6" x 9" paperback is priced at $14.95 for those who prefer the traditional book format.

Webley .45 can be instantly downloaded at Absolutely Amazing eBooks, Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com, or Kobo.com with the click of a button. Or you can find the paperback edition at Amazon.com.

A graduate of Dartmouth College, Chip Simpson served as a diplomat in several of our embassies in Europe and Africa for over twenty years. As you might imagine, he has plenty of interesting stories to tell.

"This is the time of the short story," argues Juan Pedro Aparicio, the well-known Spanish author. Yes, we agree.

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