VICTORIA LESLIE discusses the feminist message behind the stories of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: ‘When we think of the nineteenth century cult of the drowned woman, and of the abundance of these tragic figures in art and literature… Gilman’s story offers a new kind of heroine for the new century…’
ELIZABETH EDELGLASS recommends Apples from the Desert by Savyon Liebrecht: ‘Liebrecht is a multi-talented author who has written, and been honored for novels, novellas, plays, and television scripts, but the short story is the form that first brought her acclaim and to which she always returns…’
RICHARD NEWTON, shortlisted in the 2017 Feature Writing Competition, recommends Cormac McCarthy as a short story writer, whether he likes it or not: ‘Ride him down, bring him in. Against his will, if that’s what it takes. Drag him to the pantheon kicking and writhing. Disregard his testimony: ‘I’m not interested in writing short stories. Anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.’ Commit Cormac McCarthy to the front rank of short story writers; to hell with his protestations…’
In this essay, shortlisted for the 2017 THRESHOLDS International Short Fiction Feature Writing Competition, MORGAN OMOTOYE is reminded of the power of the short story in Jennifer Egan’s ‘Why China?’: ‘While reading ‘Why China?’ I was a sad-sack stock trader, a sculptor, a globe trotting criminal, an ‘Asian woman in a collegiate headband’ and a twelve-year-old girl. Egan’s skill lies in presenting the immediacy of these lives in moments of duress and transformation. While I read there were no walls, no borders, no barriers between what these characters made me feel and think. I was me and also not only me…’
In this essay, shortlisted for the 2017 THRESHOLDS International Short Fiction Feature Writing Competition, SEAN BAKER finds the ‘country noir’ in Daniel Woodrell’s collection The Outlaw Album: ‘Daniel Woodrell could be said to be America’s best-kept secret, its greatest writer no one has ever heard of. Tell anyone that your favourite writer is Daniel Woodrell, and you are met with a blank face … But mention WINTER’S BONE to most people and you get an “Ohhhh” of recognition as they recall the 2010 Oscar-nominated film starring Jennifer Lawrence pre-Hunger Games mega-fame. Point out that it’s actually based on a Daniel Woodrell novel of the same name and their faces register something approaching interest and a promise to check out the book…’
JESSICA WHYTE, runner-up in the 2017 Feature Writing Competition, recommends ‘Miss Brill’ by Katherine Mansfield: ‘Katherine Mansfield’s short story ‘Miss Brill’ was written to be read out loud. In early 1921, shortly after the story was first published in the magazine The Athenaeum, Katherine Mansfield wrote to her brother-in-law Richard Murry: ‘after I’d written it, I read it aloud – numbers of times – just as one would play over a musical composition, trying to get it nearer and nearer to the expression of Miss Brill – until it fitted her…’
COMPETITION SHORTLIST: The THRESHOLDS International Short Fiction Feature Writing Competition is now in its sixth year – celebrating all that the short story form has to offer and awarding one deserving essayist the top prize of £500…
INTERVIEW: Stephanie Norgate interviews Jamie McKendrick, poet and translator, on his translation of Georgio Bassani’s short story collection Within the Walls…
COMPETITION LONGLIST: We would like to congratulate the following writers whose work has been selected for the 2017 THRESHOLDS International Short Fiction Feature Writing Competition longlist…
Dr CHRIS MACHELL delves into the world of story adaptations in film as he explores The Thing and Peter Watts’ short story ‘The Things’: ‘Threading itself through film and literature as well as the bodies of its victims, The Thing renders culture itself as an abject body, absorbing, adapting and transforming.’
