I only just finished blogging about the Best American Short Stories anthology of 2019 a few weeks ago, but I think now is about the right time to go ahead and call it on what the favorites from the anthology from last year were. I'm using my blog stats for this. I think most of the people who read my analyses of BASS stories are students. Students of the fall semester this year would have read the 2018 anthology, because the new one didn't come out until October. Next semester, they'll do the 2019 anthology, which means I'll start getting new visitors to this year's posts. Right now, at the end of the fall semester, the clicks for 2018's BASS have finally just about stopped, and I think I've got an accurate enough read at this point to call the favorites. I'm going to rank the stories based on which ones got the most clicks. (My guess is that most of those clicks represent a student who wanted to research a story, Googled it, and ended up on my blog.)
These numbers show some of the idiosyncrasies you'd expect from college students. For example, the story with the second-most clicks was "The Cougar" by Maria Anderson. I'd guess some of the reason it was so popular was that it was the first story in the collection. So some students, when asked to research and write about any story from the collection they wanted to, lazily picked the first one. I'd also guess some students did more research at the beginning of the semester than the end, which made for a bias in terms of stories early on in the anthology getting more clicks. It's also possible some students don't like the way I write and just quit clicking on Google links to my blog after a while.
But for whatever reason, here are the click counts. Keep in mind that Google doesn't tell me when someone views something by just cruising through my blog. I only get specific click counts when someone clicks directly onto a particular post. So there may be others who looked at some stories without it registering.
From most clicks to least:
1. "Boys Go to Jupiter" by Danielle Evans - 1683 clicks (this was also my favorite story, so good job, Internet)
2. "The Cougar" by Maria Anderson - 1651 clicks (the first story in the anthology)
3. "Come on, Silver" by Ann Glaviano - 1082
4. "The Brothers Brujo" by Matthew Lyons -1017 (this story and the next were my two least favorite; I can only assume the Internet wanted to research them in order to write more scathing papers about how the stories weren't that good)
5. "The Baptism" by Ron Rash (it was shorter than most, so maybe that appealed to students with busy lives playing Fortnite)
6. "What Got Into Us" by Jacob Guajardo - 842
7. "Control Negro" by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson - 684
8. "Items Awaiting Protective Enclosure" by Tea Obrecht - 666 (someone please click there now and de-curse the number)
9. "A Family" by Jamel Brinkley - 568
10. "Good with Boys" by Kristen Iskandrian - 539
11. "Whose Heart I Long to Stop with the Click of a Revolver" by Rivers Solomon - 525
12. "A History of China" by Carolyn Ferrell - 481
13. "The Art of Losing" by Yoon Choi - 461
14. "A Big True" by Dina Nayeri - 434
15. "Los Angeles" by Emma Cline - 404 (This was my second favorite, so I'm puzzled by its low number of clicks)
16. "The Prairie Wife" by Curtis Sittenfeld - 317
17. "Suburbia!" by Amy Silverburg - 277
18. "Unearth" by Alicia Elliott - 263
19. "What Terrible Thing it Was" by Esme Weijun Wang -205 (which may have been hurt not only by being the last in the anthology, but also by me not putting the title in the title of my post about it, meaning Google didn't recognize it as easily)
20. "Everything is Far From Here" by Cristina Henriquez - 168 (and while I didn't really like this story, I think part of the reason it had so few clicks is that it's not a difficult story to understand. Some clicks I get are no doubt of the "I don't understand this story" variety.)
I know we briefly discussed this before somewhere, but I can't control myself.
ReplyDeleteSome properties besides how "good" the story is, or how hard to read, might factor in here. Like, some classes will assign individual stories, not the whole book. That means the stories most likely to be assigned would be more popular. What would make a story more likely to be assigned? A particular writing technique, an author's popularity, and the age of the protagonist - I've always had the sense that teachers try to match stories to their students, so coming-of-age stories would tend to be more popular. I have a feeling that's one reason Danielle Evans was so popular - it features a college student in a situation that most people see a lot on social media, in one way or another. That it was a really good story doesn't hurt, either. I'm happy to see it get some love.
Location might have something to do with it, too - I could imagine a teacher in a rural classroom assigning a story like "Cougar". Suitability for classroom use might factor in - too much sex or violence for a high school class, say, which may have put a damper on Cline's LA.
Another thing that affects results would be hits for reasons other than the story itself. Someone searching for the author, for instance. Or for something mentioned in a post that isn't really part of the story. Back before everyone had automatic privacy software, I had a better sense of what people were looking for because search terms showed up in a list. Taiye Selasi's "the sex lives of African girls" is a terrific story, and got a lot of hits, but they were mostly looking for porn.
We have very similar profiles, with a couple of exceptions.
Elliot's "Unearth" is much higher on my list, coming in third. Not sure why, I did get a few click-throughs on the Dawnland film I mentioned, but not that many.
Jamel Brinkley's "Family" is much higher on mine, possibly because I mentioned the collection by title and that's what drew the hits.
Lyons' "Brujo" was much lower on my list. I don't see any real difference, in terms of what words might attract hits, between our posts. You go into Santeria a lot more, maybe that's it.
There are some other fluctuations but they're within the realm of "sometimes it just goes that way."
I'm surprised Tea Obreht's "Enclosures" didn't do better for either of us, I would think that would've been on a lot of class reading lists.
I'm looking forward to doing this with 2019. It's too early to tell - the first stories have been up longer, and at this point that would make a difference - but I'm surprised to see "The Era" and "No More than a Bubble" coming in behind several later stories, given the popularlity of those collections. Hmmm.
my data:
jupiter evans 2042
silver glaviao 1749
unearth elliot 1397 i am way higher,
family brinkly 1310 i am way higher - mentioned a lucky man
suburbia silverburg 1193
cougar anderson 1176
losing choi 1058
got into us guajardo 1053
la cline 1012
big true nayeri 870
baptism rash 818
history of china ferrell 795
terible thing wang 769
enclosure obreht 769
click solomon 713
good with obys iskadrian 710
brujo lyons 673 ? no idea why he has more hits, more santeria
negro johnson 654 somewhat lower
far from here henriquez 561
prairie sittenfeld 438
I think your ideas of why some did better than others are really interesting. It was also surprising to find that there are groups, like the senior continuing learning group, out there reading these entries. They seem to be interested in nearly all the stories.
ReplyDeleteIf instructors are assigning work tailored to young people, shouldn't they have grabbed "LA" by Cline? Isn't a story about young people making mistakes perfect for them? I don't get why that story didn't draw more interest. It's low on both our lists compared to where I'd guess it would be.
I really wonder about "Unearth" and the discrepancy between us. I think some of it has to do, maybe, with how you have a bigger, more established readership than I do? Maybe you've got more readers reading everything, whereas I just get people interested here and there? I don't know. Can't figure that one out. If I were writing a paper on a story from BASS for college, I think that would be a good one to pick, because there's a lot you can do with it in a paper.
Brujo is way lower for you than me? Interesting. I can't imagine it has anything to do with how I analyze it. People don't know that until after they click.
I'm interested in how our numbers are similar, but it's really fascinating to speculate on why they are different for some stories.
Also, you influence my numbers way more than I influence yours, again, because of your larger readership and because I've done my BASS readings before you, meaning I don't refer to you like you do to me.
Also worth considering: I also blogged through Pushcart last year. I got four times more hits for the first story ("Tornado Auction" by Karen Russell) than any other story. Going first really helps you find readers, I think.
ReplyDelete"Tornado Auction" is highest for me, too. I'm still dubious about "first story effect" though; it was the first fiction, but not the first piece, which is way further down my list. Russell did publish a big-deal collection, so that might influence things. Not to mention people looking for stuff about tornadoes.
DeleteFunny how reduced Pushcart traffic is - 154, top hits, compared to 2060 for the BASS top story. Even the lowest BASS story was 438. My understanding is that Pushcart is a more prestigious prize in terms of attracting the attention of agents and publishers, but it seems less read? Or maybe the readers just don't go looking for more info about the stories as much, they're writers, not students.
And now for something completely different: Have you ever heard of the Short Story Advent Calendar? It's an anthology (of sorts - each story is individually bound, and an author interview shows up on the website after the date assigned to the story) of litfic (not Christmas stories) by a small Canadian publisher, featuring some name authors (George Saunders, Lauren Groff), some big publications (TNY), is kind of crazy expensive (about 45 USD plus shipping) but seems like kind of fun. I've put a reminder in my calendarfor next October to see if I'm still in the mood. Paul Debraski has blogged it for four years now.
I don't know why I'm so tickled by this - I've seen advent calendars for everything, including cheeses and, most interestingly, absinthe. Why not literature?
their website https://www.hingstonandolsen.com/home
Paul's blog, category selected
https://ijustreadaboutthat.wordpress.com/category/the-short-story-advent-calendar/