Rural fiction is storytelling in which life outside a city helps shape what happens. A farm, a fishing settlement, a village or a small town can provide the setting. What matters is how the place affects the choices people have and the choices they make.
What makes a story rural?
Imagine two people trying to avoid each other. In a city, they might take different trains home. In a village with one bus stop, they may stand ten feet apart every evening. The argument that brought them there could happen anywhere. The daily encounter belongs to that particular place.
Rural short stories can be funny, unsettling, romantic or quietly observant. A reader drawn to the landscape may stay for the relationship between two people who know exactly how much they owe each other.
Over the coming days, we’ll look at how writers make these places feel lived in. Five new stories are on the way at Rural Fiction Magazine, with settings that range from Nebraska to India and Sumatra. While you wait, browse the magazine’s fiction archive. Which story would you pass to a friend?
If you would like to be part of the Rural Fiction Magazine family, follow this link to the submissions guidelines.
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