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Long Story Short by Kathy Anderson

June 9, 2026 | By Women Writers Women Books | Reply More

“The general reading public has no idea of what goes into a short story because it is literally short and can give the impression that the writer sat down and rattled the thing out in an hour or two.” —Annie Proulx

How long did it take you to write those stories? is the hardest question in the world. To answer it, I’d have to say things like:

Well … I had the opening scene of two lesbian librarians bouncing along in the back of a pickup truck in my notebook for decades, but I threw out all the words that followed a few times a year for a very long time before the next lines came.

Well … I had the two sisters right away, could hear their voices in my head and knew their distinct personalities and even their names, but it took years before their dying mother spoke up and the invasion of mice came.

Well … the idea of dogs that kept biting a new lesbian couple and they didn’t know why was so funny to me, but I had no idea what else would happen in the story until I discovered the ex-husband of one of them getting kicked out of book club.

Well … I had the lesbian wild woman in my heart for so long that you wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but I couldn’t get the story to work until I forced her into a Kundalini yoga class on a last-chance dare.

That’s what the process of writing Vamoose: Stories was like for me: a treasure hunt, a waiting game, a delete fest, a giant puzzle. It took a daily summoning up of trust that the right words would come if I kept at it. It took a steady joy in trying.

Writers should get extra points from the muses for cultivating joy in the creative process because there are so many fallow periods and so many false paths we have to go down before we get to the sweet spots. Like my lesbian librarians in the opening story of Vamoose bouncing along in the back of a pickup truck, writers need to bounce happily along enjoying the ride.

What helped me was that I had a deep belief in the stories of these women, who stride through Vamoose with their heads up high, making their own paths, showing the power of simply being themselves in a world that doesn’t make it easy. Older women are not invisible in Vamoose as they often are in real life, in fiction, and in media. In Vamoose, they are the main characters, the drivers of their own life, in charge of the show.

As I wrote the stories, I heard their raucous sounds, felt their rebellions, loved them in all their human strivings. My own longing was to write unconventional women including older lesbians; women who grew up in foster care; women who worked as stilt walkers, construction company managers, housekeepers for rich men, landscapers, and nuns. Women as fascinating and unique as the ones we meet in real life, with surprising life stories and lots of secrets.

So if it takes a decade or more to get their stories right, that is a small price to pay. After all, I got to keep company with my women characters all those years. Plus I got to celebrate the triumph of the stories in Vamoose that were published in literary journals along the way. When the title story earned the honor of the New Letters nomination for a Pushcart Prize where it was awarded a Special Mention in the Pushcart Prize Anthology, it was a reward from the universe for all those years of work on it.

I kept going. So many talented writers I know stopped writing along the way, for their own private reasons. Observing that gave me a deep understanding that writing is not only about who are the best writers, but it’s also—and most importantly—who wants it the most.

I kept going by going deep into myself, by cultivating that inner joy that no amount of rejections can take away from you. I kept going by cracking myself up, by writing stories that made me laugh—even if it felt sometimes like I was the only one who got the joke.

I kept going by celebrating thrilling acceptances after many rejections. I kept going by the love and support I got along the way from other writers, the most generous community I could ever imagine. I kept going when readers got it, when they reached out to tell me how the stories felt in their hearts.

I kept going when my first book was published after submitting to many book publication contests and finally winning one, then my second with an indie press open to unagented authors. Most of all, I kept going by deciding that this was how I wanted to spend my time on earth, no matter the outcome.

And when individual stories form the cohesive shape of a book, where the opening story leads inevitably to the closing story, when the women in the stories feel connected under their skins, that’s a dream come true, that’s the circle closing. That’s Vamoose: Stories, out in the world today.

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Kathy Anderson is the author of three books. Her first short story collection, Bull and Other Stories (Autumn House Press), won the Autumn House Press Fiction Prize, was a finalist for Publishing Triangle’s Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, Lambda Literary Awards, and Foreword INDIES Award for Short Stories, as well as longlisted for The Story Prize. Her debut novel, The New Town Librarian (NineStar Press), was a finalist for Foreword INDIES Award for LGBTQ+ Fiction. Vamoose: Stories (Vine Leaves Press) is her second short story collection. She lives with her wife in Philadelphia, PA. For more, kathyandersonwriter.com.