Black Vodka
JEANLOUP PRANCHERE recommends Black Vodka: ‘I have always thought of myself as lost property, someone waiting to be claimed,’ confesses the main character in the title story of Deborah Levy’s new collection…
Testing Times in K’s ‘Metamorphosis’
G.F. PHILLIPS take us through the testing times of Franz Kafka’s story ‘Metamorphosis’: ‘…the central character is immediately faced with a sudden and overwhelming predicament of identity – and what a predicament…’
The World of Michel Faber
‘The whole point of fiction should be to allow the reader to experience life from inside different people’s skins’. MILES SALTER interviews Michel Faber and considers the many worlds of his fiction.
Breece D’J Pancake: A Short Life in the Hills
‘After reading just one story, ‘Hollow’, Andre Dubus wrote: ‘I wish someone could have saved him’. Joyce Carol Oates compared him to Hemingway; Jayne Anne Phillips – a fellow West Virginian – to the Joyce of Dubliners…’ In this Author Profile, SEAN MARTIN shows us the brief writing life of Breece D’J Pancake.
James Salter’s ‘Akhnilo’
MORGAN OMOTOYE takes us on Eddie Fenn’s journey to discover a mysterious sound in the night, in James Salter’s short story ‘Akhnilo’.
Patricia Highsmith’s Little Tales of Misogyny
‘I’ve often found Highsmith’s work both perplexing and engaging, yet, for me, there is no question about her value as a writer.’ KONSTANTINOS TZIKAS looks at the representation of women in Patricia Highsmith’s ‘Little Tales of Misogyny’.
Short Stories and the Power of ‘Not Knowing’ by David Constantine
‘I start a story because some concrete image or situation prompts or pesters or forces me to. And I don’t know where I am going when I start…’ Author DAVID CONSTANTINE talks to THRESHOLDS about the art of writing stories.
A Great Love Affair
In her essay, JEMMA DRAYCOTT shows us how her love of Hanan Al-Shaykh’s short stories developed, as she guides us through ‘The Scratching of Angels’ Pens’.
Story: ‘Berroca’ by Julie Burchill
EXCLUSIVE NEW STORY: We are thrilled to bring you ‘Berroca’, a provocative and satirical short story from author and journalist JULIE BURCHILL. This is REBECCA, but not as you know it… ‘Last night I dreamt I was hanging at Madderley again, like back in the day…’
The English Short Story Writer
MIKE SMITH looks at the writings and Englishness of V.S. Pritchett: ‘In so many of Pritchett’s stories, there is an uncomfortable consciousness that hangs in the atmosphere like the smell of an extinguished candle…’