MIA: New Yorker's Winter Fiction Issue

I'm always interested in the fiction published in The New Yorker. Although I generally don't buy the New Yorker. It's a weekly! I can't be expected to keep up that kind of reading pace. But, there are historically two New Yorker issues that I'll buy without provocation: the summer and winter fiction issues. Two over-sized issues devoted to fiction. Ahhhh.

So imagine me standing around the Barnes & Noble stacks last month in a fugue of holiday shopping overstimulation, staring at the spine of the late December New Yorker that reads World Changers. I didn't even thumb through it. I barely touched it. There must be some mistake. What happened to the winter fiction issue? Turns out it's economics: The summer fiction issue will remain, but the winter issue has been downsized. All is explained here and here.

Goodbye winter fiction issue. You were my winter friend, my electric blanket of contemporary prose under which I warmed my chilly muse (you can Tweet that!). Reading you was like driving my rusted-out 79' Prelude through the nice part of literary town. Sure, I'll buy the summer fiction issue, but I'll have to pace myself, keeping some stories for the long haul through the coming winter.

Note to the New Yorker: Why not continue the winter fiction issue online? This gives you virtually unlimited space to publish as many stories, articles, and cartoons on writing as you can find. Just a thought.