An Interview with Zoe Gilbert
Join Vicki Heath in conversation with ZOE GILBERT, winner of this year’s prestigious Costa Short Story Award…
Author Profile: D.H. Lawrence
ROSEMARY GEMMELL takes a look at the short stories of one of the giants of English literature: ‘D.H. Lawrence has left a profound legacy of stories that explore what it means to be human, fragile, and capable of great love and deep cruelty…’
Saved
‘If I told you that a short story collection saved me as a reader and as a writer, would you believe me? Probably not. But it’s true…’ GINA PARSONS finds her writing self through the stories of Robert Shearman.
On George Mackay Brown
FRANCESCA CREFFIELD explores the life and writing of George Mackay Brown: ‘…once I started reading the stories I was immersed in a rich culture of storytelling unlike any I had ever known before. Gone were the creative writing rules of beginning, middle and end…’
No Story Without Trouble
PRATIBHA CASTLE takes a reflective look at Kevin Barry’s award-winning short stories: ‘Barry’s stories creak with trouble. His words throb dark and heavy on the page. His landscapes are hostile…’
The Unrecorded Stories of Oscar Wilde
ELEANOR FITZSIMONS discusses Oscar Wilde’s ardent storytelling and the stories we never got to read: ‘His own popularity was assured by his eagerness to entertain, to the extent that society hostesses took to including the words ‘to meet Oscar Wilde’ on invitations, in a bid to boost attendance at their gatherings…’
Carver: An Appreciation
In this essay, EVAN GUILFORD-BLAKE finds that Carver’s stories are ‘populated by seemingly uncomplicated people, but they are people who are damaged or empty; vessels, which Carver’s carefully controlled compassion gives us reasons to want to fix and fill…’
Mirror Images
MIKE SMITH compares two stories from James Salter’s collection Last Night: ‘The trajectories of both narratives, although not quite parallel, run close enough for the reader to be aware of the similarities between them. It is as if the author has been testing the same theory under alternative conditions…’
Three Stories and Me
SÉAMUS DUGGAN explores three short stories that ‘contain a true sense of the world’s absurdity: a drunkard Klansman planning to teach some bootleggers a lesson; a peasant putting life and limb at risk for a bitch that he had, just a few minutes earlier, tried to drown; a punch line turned back on the joker…’
Time to Talk About Humour
JONATHAN PINNOCK explores the humour in Nick Parker’s The Exploding Boy and Other Tiny Tales: ‘…the humorous writer has a whole kit of additional tools to bring to bear on a subject. Even the serious ones. Especially the serious ones…’