Peter Pan flew across Kensington Gardens, Joseph Conrad was inspired to write The Secret Agent by a bomb plot in Greenwich Park and Henry James's characters held many an exquisitely nuanced conversation strolling through them. Now a group of contemporary authors including Will Self, Ali Smith and William Boyd are set to sprinkle a little more literary stardust on London's eight royal parks with a series of short stories set in – and sold from – the capital's grandest green spaces.A lovely idea, and very welcome! The stories will be printed on recycled paper and sold from the park shops, as well as bookshops. What next? Swimming pool stories? Fish'n'chip shop stories? I hope so. Read the full Guardian article here.
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The other contributors to the series are Darkmans author Nicola Barker (Greenwich Park), short story writer Clare Wigfall (St James's Park), Lebanese author Hanan Al-Shaykh (Kensington Gardens) and novelist Sheena Mackay (Richmond Park). Al-Shaykh's story will be published in a bilingual English/Arabic edition.
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6 comments:
wow, that's really great. we could have short stories on recycled paper in all kinds of places... a short fiction revolution...
Well, I hesitated to put it in such strong terms, but yes, maybe! The parks authority could really go wild and have the book be shaped like a leaf... or actually print stories on leaves... Am I getting carried away? There is SO much that could be done with short stories. Flash fiction on menus??
flash fiction on dog poo bins, might make people more inclined to scoop their poop... hmmm (maybe not).
I like the idea of take away flash fiction though, a short story for every cup of coffee. I also like the idea of flash fiction on buses, planes, trams, trains.
So, what are we going to do about this, folks? Do you know anyone at McDonald's? Or Kleenex? Or BT. T-shirts we can do ourselves. Mock spam... hmmm... Dog poo bins? There is already flash fiction on tins of coffee, I heard about it a few years ago, can't find it now. Let's keep thinking about this one, maybe we could lobby the airline magazines? I'm flying tomorrow, will look for ideas!
On those postcards that are given away free in cinema foyers... in holiday brochures to give people a flavour of the place... in Christmas crackers instead of those silly motto's or jokes... on the backs of cereal packets to read over breakfast (no unsavoury subject matter)... as bookmarks...
This could be a happening...
D
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