KENNETH STEVEN recommends ‘Clay’ by Scottish writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon: ‘When you read Grassic Gibbon’s stories, you feel that cold sore in the ends of fingers and feet, because he succeeds in putting the very smell of that soil on the page…’
WRITING EXERCISE: SHAUN LEVIN, creator of the Writing Maps guides for writers, looks at movement in short stories and how to check you’re getting enough: ‘Kafka manages, in a 181-word story, to include an account of: 1) what is happening, 2) questions regarding what might actually be happening, and 3) a mention of what had been happening before all that is happening started…’
JENNIE RYAN roughs it in the Australian Outback with Henry Lawson’s short story, The Drover’s Wife: ‘…he told of a lived experience. His stories are populated with those who truly adopted and loved this new land…’
JENNIFER HARVEY peers beneath the surface of The Lagoon by Janet Frame: ‘…this is an essay about the way a writer sees the world, and the sensitivities a writer brings to experiences which may, at times, come close to madness…’
GEOFFREY HEPTONSTALL profiles the writing life of Jorge Luis Borges: ‘A Borges world is one of paradox and irony. In a few paragraphs, he is able to suggest possibilities that open doors into the infinite…’
LUCY DURRANT profiles the life and writing of Jean Rhys: ‘When Jean Rhys was finally given the recognition she deserved, after nearly twenty years in obscurity, she reacted as blasé and bitterly as anyone who has read her stories might expect…’
As Dan Coxon’s latest project – an anthology titled Being Dad: Short Stories about Fatherhood – gains crowdfunding, we talk to contributing author DAN POWELL about writing his memories into a story, his life as a hands-on dad, and his writing processes…
THRESHOLDS Assistant Editor DAVID FRANKEL interviews author David Swann on his latest flash collection, Stronger Faster Shorter: ‘My fiction is usually too poetic, and my poetry’s too narrative-based. I think of ‘flash’ as some sort of ‘third space’ between poetry and fiction…’
‘During our conversations, Hogan informed me that he writes only short stories now because they are “fitting for our time”…’ SHAUNA GILLIGAN looks at the writing life of Irish author Desmond Hogan, and considers his shift from novels to short stories.
It’s the last weekend in September and that means one thing to us at Thresholds: The Small Wonder International Short Story Festival.
