KATHLEEN H. STORY looks at Stephen Graham Jones’ dark tale of fatherly love, and asks how far would you go?: ‘Parents often say they would give their left arm or even their life to save their children. That they could kill anyone who tries to harm them. But would they really? This story will force you to question yourself.’
DORA D’AGOSTINO champions the little girl who refuses to be silenced in Grace Paley’s story ‘The Loudest Voice’: ‘Shirley Abramowitz, the grammar-school aged, spunky and unabashed main character of the story, now an adult, is recalling the first time she felt important, when everything and everyone conspired for her to be quiet and compliant.’
CLAIRE EDWARDS walks us through Raymond Carver’s classic short story, Cathedral: ‘It is as if he has brought the ancient Greek character Tiresias, whose blindness is compensated for by second sight, into the prosaic setting of a living room’.
VICTORIA HEATH looks at what makes a great first line, by examining Best British Short Stories 2015: ‘…this is a place where the best of British is collected, and each of these stories must have hooked, from the very first word, the members of the SALT Publishing editorial board…’
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…’
PAT TOMPKINS considers the flawed but powerful story of human aspiration and the consequences of industrialisation: ‘Life in the Iron Mills’ brings us a view of outsiders, those ignored and disdained by the wider society. As the best short stories do, it gives voice to the lonely…’
