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The Modern Law Library

‘Company’ is the perfect short story collection for spooky season

By Lee Rawles

October 9, 2024, 4:00 pm CDT

Most—though not all—of the 13 short stories in Company deal with members of the Collins family. Three generations of narrators bear witness to the changing fortunes of the family, and as with any witness statement, everyone has a different perspective on what actually happened. Also, there are ghosts—and at least one witch.

The matriarch and patriarch of the Collins family ran a jazz club in Atlantic City. Their four daughters and eight grandchildren face issues of race and class, fecundity and infertility, marriage and divorce.

In this episode of The Modern Law Library podcast, the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles speaks with author Shannon Sanders about the similarity between crafting a perfect brief and a short story and its differences from novel writing. They discuss the ways that families are built—through biology, shared experiences and legal paperwork.

Sanders shares how she balances her full-time legal work, her family life and her work as a writer. She also offers tips for people looking to publish their short stories in magazines and literary journals. The hardback version of Company is available now, and the paperback will be released Nov. 12.

In This Podcast:

Shannon Sanders

Shannon Sanders is a Black writer and attorney and the author of the linked short story collection Company. Sanders’ short fiction was the recipient of a 2020 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers and has appeared in several publications, including One Story, TriQuarterly, Joyland, Electric Literature and elsewhere. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with her husband and three sons.