ALISON ARMSTRONG explores the dark and sometimes violent world of Breece D’J Pancake’s short stories: ‘The hard-hitting stories are set in rural West Virginia, where the characters labour to survive in a blighted landscape of failing farms, industrialised remnants of mines, and nature struggling to reassert itself.’
ROSEMARY GEMMELL looks at Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s classic short story, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’: ‘When a work of fiction receives the comment that “such a story ought not to be written”, it surely begs the reader to find out why, especially when the critic claims “it was enough to drive anyone mad”.’
FARAH AHAMED, runner-up in the 2018 Feature Writing Competition, explores the shifting nature of political and historical events in short stories by R.K. Narayan and Ivan Vladislavic: ‘Every society feels it has evolved a greater understanding of a truth and seeks to entrench this belief, forgetting that in time new realisations will lead to a new dismantling, discarding and repositioning to find a hard-won balance that will also prove temporary…’
ERINNA METTLER, runner-up in the 2018 Feature Writing Competition, recommends Margaret Atwood’s short story, ‘The Bog Man.’: ‘I believe the key to Atwood’s pact with the horny old devil lies in the notion of the ideal reader; the persona all writers have in mind when they commit pen to paper…’
FIRST PLACE: ‘Meditations On Motherhood’ by KATE FINEGAN – the winning essay in the 2018 THRESHOLDS International Short Fiction Feature Writing Competition…
BRENDAN O’DEA takes us to Venice for a closer look at Daphne du Maurier’s spine-chilling short story, ‘Don’t Look Now’: ‘The ensuing action throws John, and the reader, into confusion. The denouement is delivered with panache, and is so devastating that it looks inevitable, almost predestined, permitting everything which preceded it to fall neatly into place…’
NICOLE MANSOUR takes a look at Chris Power’s Debut Collection, ‘Mothers’: ‘Throughout this collection, we encounter characters who have arrived at the intersections of their lives. They are people who find themselves in unfamiliar landscapes, or who have become isolated…’
GINA CHALLEN looks at new stories and essays inspired by the work of Joseph Conrad in the anthology, Conradology: ‘Not only do the writers embrace the spirit of his legacy by way of style and setting, but take his recurring themes, and see them with fresh eyes…’
TRACY FELLS looks at Erinna Mettler’s short story collection 15 Minutes : ‘These short stories are well paced, with intriguing characters, settings and storylines that compel you to keep reading…’
DAVID FRANKEL recommends The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat & Other Stories from the North: ‘The stories gathered here depict the struggle for survival against the environment and ourselves, fusing traditions and blending reality and fantasy…’
