C. Michael Curtis was one of the legendary editors who flourished in a brilliant era of literary journalism.
Curtis, known for discovering a starry spectrum of new writers in a 57-year-career at the Atlantic, died last week at age 88, according to a warm eulogy by the magazine's Cullen Murphy and Scott Stossel.
The Atlantic under Curtis' influence helped foster the American short story revival at the end of the 20th century, along with Esquire's Rust Hills and Gordon Lish, the New Yorker's William Maxwell and Harper's Willie Morris.
Murphy and Stossel give Curtis deserved recognition, yet err in not crediting the other magazines. They also fail to point out that the Atlantic ceased publishing short stories for a few years, abandoning a tradition dating back to the magazine's founding in the 19th century. The Atlantic has returned to its American fiction legacy.
Curtis patiently guided writers at the start of their careers. He prodigiously read the magazine's heavy load of submissions, taking time to reply to promising talents.
Noted contemporary author Lauren Groff in Murphy and Stossel's eulogy said that Curtis gave her her first major publication, discovering one of her stories on the magazine's "slush pile," which he religiously perused.
Curtis was a benevolent spirit, the genial model of the civilized man of letters, except on the basketball court, where he was a fierce competitor, as Murphy and Stossel note.
The short story remains a vital form, with writers finding publication in The New Yorker, Harper's and the Atlantic and a thriving community of literary journals.
Even with increasing consolidation of the publishing industry and preference to celebrity authors, short story collections have undergone a mini-renaissance.
Editors like Curtis kept the American short story alive when the genre appeared an endangered species.
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