ERINNA METTLER discovers the intricacies of a novel in stories from author Elizabeth Strout: ‘…when you combine the two tales, and the judgements you made about Olive in the first story, each story becomes something bigger than itself…’
PETER JORDAN examines Ezra Pound’s influence on the ending of ‘Up in Michigan’ by Ernest Hemingway: ‘Indeed, ‘Up in Michigan’s’ final paragraph might just be the place to look if you want to see where Hemingway made the leap from young budding writer to potential literary superstar…’
CLAIRE SAVAGE discovers a writer’s yearning in ‘Illumination’ by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne: ‘…amidst Ní Dhuibhne’s story-book rabbits and poetic prose, something unsettling ripples, unseen, like the suspected mountain lion thought to roam the hillside…
VICTORIA LESLIE examines the themes that lie within A.S. Byatt’s metamorphic story ‘A Stone Woman’: ‘This story is unequivocally about change, but also about notions of stasis and permanence…’
STEPHEN DEVEREUX finds hints of Tennessee Williams’ personal life in his story ‘The Resemblance between a Violin Case and a Coffin’: ‘This close brother and sister relationship has been frequently re-enacted in Williams’ plays and has provided a rich pasture for psychoanalytical critics to graze…’
SUSMITA BHATTACHARYA makes a connection with ‘Rowing to Eden’ by Amy Bloom: ‘What makes me connect to this particular story is the absence of any sentimentality or bleakness. This is a study of human relationships in the face of problems. There is a coldness of facts, and yet the tongue-in-cheek observations of the cancer patient and her carers often produce a mental chuckle…’
RICHARD BUXTON, runner-up in the 2015 Thresholds Competition, rediscovers the American South through the stories of Tim Gautreaux’s collection Waiting for the Evening News: ‘These stories are replete with his love and understanding of his home…’
DAN POWELL, runner-up in the Thresholds Competition, considers the themes of Norwegian author Kjell Askildsen’s short stories: ‘The map of Askildsen’s fictional world is adorned with warnings: here be minimalism, repetition, variation and precise, stark prose. His stories, like his sentences, allow no clutter…’
We are delighted to announce the results of the 2015 THRESHOLDS International Short Fiction Feature Writing Competition: ‘In our winning essay, Richard Newton considers a world without the writings of Herman Charles Bosman…’
ERINNA METTLER tells of how short story spoken word event Rattle Tales went from a whim to an annual competition and anthology in just four years…
