The short story is a literary genre. It is usually fictional narrative prose and tends to be more concise and to the point than longer works of fiction, such as novellas (in the modern sense of this term) and novels. Short stories have their origins in oral story-telling traditions and the prose anecdote, a swiftly-sketched situation that comes rapidly to its point. With the rise of the comparatively realistic novel, the short story evolved as a miniature, with some of its first perfectly independent examples in the tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann and Anton Chekhov.

Short stories were a staple of early 19th century magazines and often led to recognition, fame, and novel-length projects for their authors. More recently, short stories are often collected in anthologies, categorized by topic or by critical import. Many authors today release compilations of their short stories in short story collections. Ron Carlson is a contemporary, multiple prize-winning author and educator noted for his short stories published in both magazines and in collections, such as "A Kind of Flying."

Some authors are known almost entirely for their short stories, either by choice (they didn"t write anything else) or by critical regard (short story writing is a challenging art). One such example is Jorge Luis Borges, who obtained American fame with his story, "The Garden of Forking Paths," published in Ellery Queen"s Mystery Magazine in August of 1948. Another fine example is O. Henry, author of the renowned "Gift of the Magi" and for whom a prestigious short story award is named (The O. Henry Award). Authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway were highly capable in both novel writing and short stories