MIKE SMITH learns much from Elizabeth Bowen’s collected works on the art of beginning a short story: ‘The beginnings of stories, and not only short stories, was the first facet of fiction that I began to consciously study, rather than merely notice…’
‘On Wednesday 20th March 2013, I lost a friend. I’d never met him but he’d made me laugh, cry, be fearful and shocked. He had been with me as I hid under the covers in my childhood, and opened a door into the world of horror stories.’ KATE MURRAY remembers the short stories of James Herbert.