For years I’ve had issues with short story collections. The whipping from one plot to another so quickly makes my brain feel like it’s on a very shaky roller coaster. But it’s the genre my mentor most likes to teach, so I’ve found myself reading a lot of it lately. Thanks to his patience, I have a newfound understanding of the short story, and decided to start off the year by revisiting the first short story collection I ever finished, Neil Gaiman’s “Smoke and Mirrors.” […]