About the book

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 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.

Praise

“Half meditation on the nature of the form, half textbook for the instruction of the same, the anthology mostly succeeds on both fronts, remaining highly readable and full of erudite commentary. For people new to the nature of the short-short format, or who have limited experience with the pieces contained within, this is an insightful and valuable collection.”
—Alex McCown-Levy, A.V. Club

“Cooperman and Shields have written a great essay; both powerful as a unified argument and elegantly satisfying as a collage. Its many proverb-like short paragraphs–some composed by them, some adopted from Charles Baxter, Sarah Manguso, Virginia Woolf (amongst others)–are rewarding over multiple readings. As a defense and validation of very brief prose, the essay is excellent.”
—Daniel Wallace, Fiction Writers Review