SARAH RACHEL BEART looks finds intimacy and redemption in Trezza Azzopardi’s short story ‘Sticks and Stones’: ‘Azzopardi never imposes, but invites us to watch the protagonist in his confused flux, eventually work things out for himself…’
MIKE SMITH continues his explorations of the stories of H.E. Bates: ‘I recently stumbled upon a copy of H. E. Bates’ 1955 short story collection The Daffodil Sky & other stories. On the cover is a quotation from a reviewer: “contains some of the best tales he has written”.’
SHORT STORY ADAPTATIONS: this month, Dr. CHRIS MACHELL takes us to war-time Shanghai for a closer look at Eileen Chang’s story, ‘Lust, Caution’: ‘Chang’s prose is direct and efficient, yet evokes well-springs of emotion, historical trauma, and shared cultural memory…’
Get your notebooks and laptops ready – it’s the launch of the 2018 Thresholds International Short Fiction Feature Writing Competition…
PODCAST: In the fourth instalment of this year’s Short Story Masterclass podcasts, Jac Cattaneo talks with award-winning author, Dame Penelope Lively, about the relationship between the past and the present, the nature of memory and the unknowability of other people…
ELEANOR WALSH explores the feminist traits of ‘The Limping Bride’, a powerful short story by Samrat Upadhyay: ‘The most striking tension in the story is the stark disparity between what we as the reader learn about Rukmini’s character, and the other characters’ perception of her…’
In a special Christmas post, we are delighted to bring you ALISON MACLEOD’s festive short story ‘There are Precious Things’:
J.L . BOGENSCHNEIDER looks at domestic secrets and lies in stories by Heinrich Böll and Julio Cortázar : ‘Here then, are two families faced with the same problem: a fragile individual who must be protected from the truth at all costs…’
SHORT STORY ADAPTATIONS: this month, Dr. CHRIS MACHELL looks at the limitations of film in the adaptation of Steven Millhauser’s Eisenheim the Illusionist: ‘Working in the ‘dark realm of transgressions’, Millhauser’s Eisenheim undermines the distinction between reality and illusion…’
PODCAST: In the second instalment of this year’s Short Story Masterclass podcasts, Jac Cattaneo talks with multi award-winning author, Jon McGregor, about the loss of innocence, the dangers of complacency, playing with short story form, and visions of the apocalypse in his short story collection, ‘This Isn’t the Sort of Things That Happens to Someone Like You’…
