Small Wonder Festival and Some Small Wonders of My Own

Four days at a short story festival, what a wonderful idea! From Thursday night until Sunday night, at gorgeous Charleston, home of Virginia Woolf's sister Vanessa Bell, writers reading from their stories and talking about stories. And in a large barn, with atmospheric lowing from the cows next door and the soothing hum of milking machines.

I came on Thursday night and stayed til Sunday lunchtime with Vanessa, in the company of several other writer friends, which meant late night chats about that thing that we do! I went to six events, and to sum it up I would say that while the concept of Small Wonder is fabulous and the organisers are to be applauded, it is, as most of these festivals must be, driven by commercial considerations, or, to use that lovely British phrase, "bums on seats". In other words: ticket sales and then book sales. Of course this is important since, sadly, there are no billionaire short-story-loving angels dispensing money to the few short story festivals that exist. But the upshot is that almost every writer is a "name", because otherwise many of the seats would be unfilled. So, as someone who loves to read experimental, non-traditional short stories from new voices, often published by small presses, much of the writing here didn't excite me.

Thinking about it, one of the reasons may be that there is only one space - albeit a very large converted barn - in which to hold the events, and so there is only ever one session at a time. If there was a second, smaller space, perhaps the big names could draw the crowds to subside the newer, riskier talents who might be talking only to a few keen and more adventurous readers and listeners. It would be a great shame to change the venue, Charleston is stunning and there is the scent of artistic endeavour in the air. But I read so many short story collections that just knock me sideways and I would love for these writers to reach the type of audiences that come to Small Wonder. Maybe I'm dreaming... but a girl can dream!

More specifically, though, the festival started badly for me but ended on a high. First, the low point: the event that kicked off my Small Wonder experience was one of those a short story lover hopes never to have to sit through, especially at a festival which celebrates the form. It was an "oh, the poor short story, why doesn't anyone want to read it?" type event, at which the question was even raised as to what the short story can do that, say, the novel can't. Oh, oh, oh: why even ask the question? Once you've read one great story, you know the answer. My blood pressure was rising dangerously.... and take this kind of thing very personally, perhaps too personally, but it just makes me MAD.

Thankfully, the excellent, sharply Scottish and very real writer Janice Galloway, whom I had heard so much about from Sara, cut through all of this nonsense to tell it like it is, as well as reading from her excellent stories. Thank you, Janice, for saving my health! Of course, I had to say something so, in the guise of a question - the final question! - I said how I didn't want to talk about the "problem with short stories" because I don't think there is a problem. The problem, I said, is that the pioneers taking the "risk" of publishing short story collections are the small presses, who do it for love and are often on the verge of financial ruin because of it. My question? "What did the panel think about this?"!! Apparently, although I was shaking from my public speaking and didn't notice, Janice Galloway applauded my question. And then she made the excellent point that these small presses make beautiful books and the reader just must go and search out these books. It's up to the reader. Yes, it is.

I approached her afterwards, we had a lovely chat, and she agreed to be interviewed for The Short Review to accompany a review of her new Collected Stories, which I promptly asked for from her publisher. So all wasn't completely dismal! (It was also great to meet Tom Lee, one of the others on the panel, a lovely writer whose first collection, Greenfly, we will be reviewing shortly!)

And the ending? Well, a session chaired by Alison MacLeod - a great writer and friend whose Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction is a must-have collection - in which A. L Kennedy, one of my favourite writers, and Helen Dunmore, read from the short stories they were commissioned to write for the new Amnesty International anthology, Freedom, inspired by the anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Two completely different stories, both deeply moving and beautifully written, and three highly intelligent and thoughtful writers discussing the book and the role of short stories. Fabulous, inspiring, unsettling. Alison introduced me to the woman from Amnesty afterwards, and I already have a review copy of the book, so watch this space and the Short Review for more on the book, including a giveaway and a blog post about how it all came about.

All in all, a great four days, for me personally too. I had flown from Israel to attend Small Wonder a few years ago on my own, and had found it quite a lonely experience, no-one to chat to, I was on the outside looking in. This time, within an hour of arriving, some lovely person - one of the founders of a shortly-to-be-launched short story venture, Spoken Ink, which will offer audio downloads of stories read by professional actors - wanted to meet me, has my book and "will be in touch"! I was introduced to the festival organiser, and was in the glorious company of Vanessa, Jo, Claudia, Selma, Vicky (congratulations on being an Asham finalist), Jenny, Marian, Geraldine, Adam, Alison... A very different view of events. It made me more confident, approaching people to give out Short Review postcards, sitting in the audience without that swirling in the pit of my stomach of longing to be "the ones with their names on the books". It was a great opportunity for me to see different stops on my personal journey, where I have traveled from and where I am.

Perhaps an opportune moment in this blog post to mention some small wonders of my own. Actually, pretty huge wonders. In the past two weeks I have been asked to judge not one but two short story competitions: I will be one of the judges of the next Bristol Short Story Prize, which is such a thrill and a great vote of confidence from my new home city. Joe Melia, the competition organiser, is a dynamic short story lover with so many ideas and I am delighted to be part of his plan for world short story domination! This year's competition will be launched in a few weeks, I will keep you updated.

The second offer is a double wonder: I am to be the new editor of Southword, the literary magazine of the Munster Literature Centre in Ireland which organises the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize and the annual festival which I read at last year. I will be taking over from Philip Ó Ceallaigh in December, and this one-year-post comes along with the honour of being the single judge of next year's Sean O'Foalain short story competition. Yes, I was bowled over to be asked. Bowled over.

I feel incredibly honoured and look forward to both of these responsibilities with great delight. Both competitions are judged strictly anonymously, so you can enter without any worries on that score - which is reassuring to me too. I will be reading the longlist of the Bristol Prize and every single entry of the Sean O'Faolain competition, and will report here on how it is to be on the other side of the process for a change.

A further surprise and delight: the three stories I have had broadcast on BBC Radio 4 were produced by Sweet Talk, a wonderful independent production company with whom I have become great friends. I had suggested that flash fiction could work in the Afternoon Reading slot (now three days a week, down from five), and Jeremy at Sweet Talk had mentioned this to the folks at Radio 4. Or rather: he cajoled, persuaded and assured them it could work. And now... they've said yes to a flash fiction week of stories! And not only this but, gulp, a week of my flash fiction! Yes, I know, I was on the floor too. Jeremy told me yesterday that it's now official and will be broadcast in April next year, so now we have to pick around 12 flash stories. I am unbelievably excited and I hope this open the doors to much more flash fiction on Radio 4, one of the best - and best-paying - British venues for short stories.

All of this feels to me like the clearest signal that our move here is the right one for me at this stage in my career. I get to travel around the country meeting people who want to talk about short stories (four or five more events in the next few weeks alone), and I am privileged enough to be asked for my opinion on the precious stories that are sent in to competitions, which I know only to well is really a great act of faith on the part of a writer. Will I be writing at all? I hope so! I have applied for a grant for writers working on their second book, so that would most definitely help. And I will be attempting to fathom my way through the Arts Council application forms, we will see how that goes. (A new review of the White Road and Other Stories on Bookmunch wonderfully entitled "Eschewing the rote delineation of new facts and stats in favour of zesty, obtuse life" is a great boost!)

And to put back some of this wonderful karma, I took part in Sue Guiney's Pay it Forward and so, in return for her sending me her excellent poetry play Dreams of May and a beautiful pendant, I am to "pay it forward" by offering to send a gift to the first three people who comment here saying that they agree to pay it forward too. How about it?

And last but not least, thank you to Kelly for the Kreative blogger award. After writing this blog post it might be more accurate to call it the lengthy-waffling-blog award, but I am honoured! I promise I will do all the things I am supposed to do in the next blog post.

I'm going offline now til tomorrow night, it's Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, a day of fasting and contemplation, so for those of you observing it, may it pass smoothly.

Writing and Place: Guest Blog Post by Nik Perring

"Place" is something that is preoccupying me now, as I deal with the fact of having moved countries a month ago. Since I am still processing, I thought I would ask my friend, author, writing colleague and blogger Nik Perring, how where he is affects him and his writing. If anyone else would like to do a guest blog post on this topic, please drop me a line!

Where are you?
In my office, which is an a house, which is in a village, which is about a half hour’s drive from Manchester and a twenty minute drive from the Peak District. In the UK.

How long have you been there?
I say this with a bit of regret and considerable frustration: pretty much all of my life.

I didn’t go to university, I chose to work instead, so I missed out on that experience which is something now, that I kind of regret. That said, I don’t think I’d have ended up being a writer if I had gone, so really I should be grateful to fate for that.

The other reason for regret and frustration is that I shouldn’t really be here, but that’s another story.

Were you there when you wrote I met a Roman Last Night, What Did You Do? If not, where were you?

Yes. I wrote it here, where I’m sitting. At this desk, from this very chair.

How do you think your location affected that book?

I’m not sure that it did. Not in any conscious or, more accurately, intentional way. Though I think there’s a possibility that being here for so long has made me interested in other things and places and people, made me actively Find Stuff Out, looking outward – and also made me look inside for inspiration and stories.

How do you think where you are affects what you write about and how you write?

Again, I’m not sure that it does in any conscious way – speaking for myself. While at the same time I’ll contradict myself and say: an awful lot. I think, in answering this, I’m also trying to find out what I think.

I like to think that I write about what interests me, about characters I make up who interest me. Now that could be a young lad who ends up meeting various and exciting historical peoples who feature on the National Curriculum, as easily as it could be about a nosey librarian who might be getting the wrong end of a stick about the intentions of one of her borrowers. I like to think that the people I write about are as universal as they can be and not restricted by place, as much as that’s possible; I think that a hugely important factor in good story telling is having characters that people can recognise – where they’re from or where they are, in my opinion, is something that comes second to that – although, clearly where they are will, to some degree, make them who they are and/or make them act the way they do. Complicated, huh?

Now for the contradictory part. All that said, I think it’s impossible to have been somewhere with it not having affected you in some way, good or bad. As writers, we soak things up, quite naturally – and it’s what has been absorbed that provides us with the stuff that our characters and settings come from. And books. Reading books does that too.

I think it comes down to this: a fiction writer’s biggest tool is his/her imagination. It’s the mind. The ability to make stuff up. The ability to make characters believable. The ability to show us their world (not the writer’s). How those characters are formed, where the ideas for them come from, aren’t that important to a reader because they, normally, won’t have anything to do with the story. So where a writer’s been and who they’ve met and the experiences they’ve had will all have fuelled his or her subconscious understanding or observation of people and places and the interactions between them, it’s what goes on top, what adds colour and character to their work that’s the difference, and that’s something that has to come from the imagination.

For me - and again I can only speak for myself here and I appreciate lots of people will disagree (I’m also speaking as someone whose work doesn’t often have a particularly strong lean towards realism) – a story is about a character or characters. It’s the story of what a character does, how she or he reacts to something, what they do to cope with something, how they feel about something - whatever that something may be. So a story is about people. And people are everywhere. And those somethings they have to deal with are pretty similar from place to place. If we’re talking about a character dealing with, say, ‘loss’ for instance: what places in the world don’t have people dealing with, or having dealt with, loss? The kind of loss may be shaped by their location, but that fundamental emotion is something that can be understood, recognised and empathised with, wherever you’re from. I also think that as emotions are something that are easily translated it’s often not essential to identify where a story’s set.

What I find I’m discovering, as I contradict myself and circle the point for an answer, is that a lot of this is down to a writer’s perception of themselves. It’s about ego. At the moment, for a hundred different reasons, I’m frustrated with where I am so I think I’m trying to find as many ways as I can to say that I don’t take inspiration from this place, when clearly I do, whether I want to or not. (I’m also discovering how much contradiction is part of my life.)

And how does location affect how a writer writes?

Tough one. I’d guess that writers have a compulsion to write. So if we’re talking about routine: they’ll fit it in somehow regardless of where they are. I’d also guess that where they are could either inspire them to write about their location or go completely the opposite way and cause them to write about somewhere else as a means of escape. Or a mixture of the two. You’re probably best asking them!

Complex creatures, writers. And they don’t have as much control over what they write as they may like to think, it would seem.

So that’s what I think about that, I’d be curious to hear what others’ opinions are.


Thanks so much, Nik, for expressing all the contradictions involved in thinking about how where we are affects what we do as writers. Anyone else?

Short story news roundup

I'm not yet ready to blog about what it's like to have moved countries, that kind of thing, I am still musing, so I thought I'd bring some exciting news from Short Story World. First, Electric Literature, the new lit zine that is available in print, as an eBook, or for your Kindle of iPhone, and pays its contributors a wonderful $1000 per story (!) has taken an exciting step into the world of animation and asked animators to create a very short film based on one line from each of the pieces they published in Issue 1. Here, for example, is Jonathon Ashley's take on a sentence from Michael Cunningham's novel excerpt:




There is one more animation on the Electric Literature YouTube page as well as a trailer for Jim Shepherd's Your Fate Hurtles Down at You. I love the idea of animating short stories... see what you think.

Another very welcome newcomer is Madras press, based in the US. This is what they are all about - and they are publishing the wondrous Aimee Bender as one of their first authors, which is always a great thing!

"Madras Press publishes individually bound short stories and novellas and distributes the proceeds to a growing list of charitable organizations chosen by our authors.

The format of our books provides readers with the opportunity to experience a story on its own, with no advertisements or unrelated articles surrounding it; it also provides a home for stories that are often arbitrarily ignored by commercial publishing outfits, whether because they’re too long for magazines but not trade-book length, or because they don’t resemble certain other stories. These are clumsy, ill-fitting stories made perfect when read in the simplest possible way.

Published in regular series of four, our books also serve as fundraising efforts for a number of charitable causes and organizations. Each of our authors has selected a beneficiary to which all net proceeds generated from the sales of his or her book will be donated; these include organizations dedicated to environmental protection, community development, human services, and much more.

On October 1, our online bookstore will open, at which time you'll be able to order from our first series of titles:The Third Elevator, by Aimee Bender
Proceeds to benefit InsideOUT Writers

Bobcat, by Rebecca Lee
Proceeds to benefit Riverkeeper

Sweet Tomb, by Trinie Dalton
Proceeds to benefit the Theodore Payne Foundation

A Mere Pittance, by Sumanth Prabhaker
Proceeds to benefit Helping Hands: Monkey Helpers for the Disabled

Each book will cost about as much as a greeting card, and will come with your name (or a name of your choice) transcribed in an ex-libris panel on the inside front cover."

A lovely idea, not only boosting the short story, but raising money for worthy causes at the same time. Founding editor Sumanth Prabhaker told me they will be accepting submissions from oct 1st and "We operate on a purely volunteer basis, so that the only cost subtracted from the sticker price of online purchases is for manufacturing. Acquisitions, editing, design, production, and marketing are all done at no cost. Taking inspiration from the Concord Free Press, we are foregoing commercial distribution and working directly with bookstores and consumers." Good luck to them!

Thirdly, going head to head with the BBC National Short Story Award, but with a bigger cheque, the brand new Sunday Times Short Story Prize will award £25,000 (no, you haven't read that wrong) "for a single short story in Britain and Ireland. " Says the announcement:

"The prize, backed by EFG Private Bank, is the latest sign that the genre is once again thriving after many years of falling popularity. The contest is open to authors who have already had work published in Britain and Ireland, and is intended to attract well-established writers as well as relative unknowns."

Now, this is welcome news indeed, as is anything that intends to get more people reading short stories (falling popularity? You're just looking in the wrong places).

However, as with the BBC award, this is not judged anonymously, which bothers me. It always bothers me. Is it about the writing or about the name above the writing? An interesting discussion on Facebook ensued, with Nicola making the excellent point that since this is open to published stories, it can't be anonymous since some of the (six) judges may have read some of the stories submitted and know who they were written by. Very good point. So: just accept unpublished stories. That solves that one.

What do you think? We all know that it is hard enough to read something without simultaneously looking up the author's bio, let alone reading something by a "big name". You just can't really read it in a vacuum. But you can at least attempt that. If it is going to be "award for best previously-published story" then that is something else.

I'm not complaining, not really. Just thinking out loud. £25,000 will mean an enormous amount to any writer unless they are Dan Brown, I highly doubt any writer of literary fiction (if this is what the prize is aiming at) makes that from their books. Yes, the best short story should win. But I say that anything that might stand in the way of that goal should, if at all possible, be removed.

Thoughts??

And the winners are...

I assigned everyone a number, and then used a random number generator (honestly, I did) to pick the winners. And... drum roll... the winners of a birthday signed copy of The White Road and Other Stories are:

• Andrew Philip
• Richard Osgood
• Nadiya

Congratulations! Email me at taniah@gmail.com and give me your addresses, I'll pop the books in the post.

For those of you that didn't win, a very special birthday offer: I am happy to send you a signed copy from my personal stash, for £6/$10, which includes p&p. You won't find it cheaper anywhere! If you'd like one, please email me at taniah@gmail.com . I will do my best to write an original and witty dedication to each person!

PS Funnily enough, I just got an email saying I'd won a book, The Einstein Girl, in a prize draw over at How Publishing Really Works. What goes around...

The Nude not Naked Tour Arrives at TaniaWrites!

I am delighted to be hosting the second leg on my great friend and writing colleague Nuala Ní Chonchúir's Nude Not Naked virtual book tour for her stunning short story collection, Nude, published on Sept 1st by Salt Publishing.

Young though she may be (the same age as me, so very very young!), Nuala, who lives in Galway, has already published 4 books: two short story collections and two collections of poetry, with a third forthcoming from Templar Poetry in November. Shortlisted for the European Prize for Literature, the Irish Times included her in their "People to watch this year" feature in January. Watch her? You'd better concentrate, she is so prolific and active, you are liable to miss something if you don't! (Did I mention that she gave birth to her third child, Juno, this year too?)


Before we start chatting, I thought I would give you a taste of Nuala's latest collection, in which all the stories have some flavour of nudity, but it is never what you expect. I tried so hard not to read it in one sitting, to savour it over time. But I couldn't put it down. It is clear to see that the writer is also a poet who loves language and rhythm.



Here is an excerpt from Unmothered:

The outflow on the bath is like a keyhole; you stopper it with your toe and let the water lap in your ears, to block out the house. If you were key-shaped, you wouldslither into that hole and slip down the pipes, away from here. Away from the women who breed women; the women who have cried lavishly for three days, though your daughter was an embarrassment to them and you all knowit. When you called your baby Angelica, your sister said it was a waste of a good name.

There is no name for you now.

Welcome, Nuala!


Tania: This is your third book of short stories. How do you feel this book is different, in terms of the writing style, tone, voices, subject matter, themes - any of those or other things?

Nuala: I think the style is pretty much still me; style is such an innate thing – an extension of personality – so I don’t think that’s changed in my work. I hope maybe it’s more comfortable now though, more honed. I feel like I’ve learnt so much over the years about what story is and hopefully some of that is apparent in my work. I’m a fan of stylistic, poetic writing and I hope I’ve achieved a better version of that in this book than in the others.

There are less children’s voices in Nude, as there are in To the World of Men, Welcome, my second collection; the themes are more adult in both. They deal a lot with broken relationships and sex. Nude has a lot of visual art in it from different POV’s: the artist, the model, the painting. If I was any good, I’d like to have been an artist.

The Wind Across the Grass, my first collection, mined a different seam – there were children’s lives in it. I do enjoy writing from a child’s point of view – I remember my own childhood vividly – but it can be a relief to write as an adult sometimes. I prefer being a grown-up!

T: For me, publishing my short story collection drew a line under all the 27 stories that were in it: it meant that they were done, dealt with, I didn't have to worry about them anymore and could move on. What does it mean to you as a writer to publish a book, whether it be poetry or short stories, both of which you write? What does having a book do for you personally?

N: Oh yes, I agree with that – the stories in Nude are now finished and I have a fresh canvas. It’s a relief in one way to get the book out there and nerve-wracking in another. I don’t show my fiction to anyone before it’s published (not even my Peer Group) so the first reading it gets is in magazines or a collection. I never know what people will make of the stories. I guess I still never do afterwards – it’s hard to discuss stories with the writer of them – but friends and other readers etc are generally quite positive. To my face at least!

I love having a new book – it’s the reward after years of writing.

T: Did you write with the "nude" theme in mind or did you just wake up one day and realise that you had a set of stories where nudity was, if not a theme, then something that is glimpsed in each story?

N: It was the latter, really. I’m fairly obsessed with visual art and I’ve collected postcards of the nude in art for years – people send them to me from their hols and I buy them in galleries. I made a notice-board of nudes for my wall and began to write poems and stories around some of them. It wasn’t deliberate but I think it works well as a linking motif. in the book. Not all of the stories feature art so it’s not some sort of false imposition of a theme. Some of the nudes are lovers and their unclothed bodies are incidental; some – like the boy modelling as the young Jesus in Jackson and Jerusalem – are more central.

T: You say, "If I was any good, I’d like to have been an artist." I say: you are an artist, a word artist. What draws you to the visual image that you don't think you can get from words, either writing or reading them?

N: "Word artist" – that’s cool! I’m pretty awed by people who can paint or sculpt well. I love the way they can have an idea and translate that into the visual; I’d like to have that gift. I can get a lot of visual stuff from words but a beautiful painting is a different thing. Plus it doesn’t feel like stealing to write about a painting, whereas it can to write about/from someone’s words.

T: Also, I am intrigued that you don't show your fiction to anyone until it's published. Why is this? Were you burned by bad or useless critique? Or is it just a part of your process? Does this mean that publication is the tool you use to gauge if your story is "done"?

N: I just don’t feel the need to show it; I am fairly confident in my abilities in fiction and don’t really want input from others. Though I do attend the odd workshop or master-class and they can be fun.

I have a note on my notice-board: "The story you’re writing is a secret." I think I picked that up from a Jack Heffron book. I’d consider it good advice – if you constantly let other people into your story before it’s finished it could get messed around and muddled. I’d hate that. I have enough trouble trying to figure out what’s going on myself without other writers fiddling with my story.

Poetry is different – I like to get critique and feedback on that and I find it helpful. It’s easier to critique poems, probably because they are short and ‘visible’. My first writing group was a poetry one, so I guess it just became my modus operandi to keep my stories to myself.

I usually know myself when a story is done; it’s when I’m happy enough to send it out.

T: Thank you so much, Nuala, it was an honour and a privilege to have you stop by on your way around the (virtual) world. Best of luck with the book.

N: Thanks a million, Tania, for having me at your lovely blog. Next week, on my virtual tour, I'll be stopping off at writer Colm Keegan's place, Uiscebots Blog. Do stop by to eavesdrop on a little chat between two Dubliners.


For more on the virtual book tour, visit Nude Not Naked. To buy Nude, click on the link. You won't regret it, it is a moving, entertaining and vital addition to every bookshelf. A writer to watch, but more importantly, to read.

Reminder: today is the last day to win one of three signed copies of my book in my First Birthday Giveaway! Leave a comment on the First Birthday Giveaway blog post to win!

The Short Review Sept 2009

Well, couple of rejections this week (Tin House, who held on to my story for 6 months while others were being rejected, so that was some consolation, despite the form rejection!), but cheered, as always, by this month's Short Review. What's in it, you ask??

In this month's issue, we bring you false relations, damaged goods, repetition patterns, quick repair, stories like donut holes, stories named for rivers, things that are cold to the touch, people who always want something, the collected stories of the Armitage family, and our first review of an ebook which leaves the reader, Radiohead-style, to decide what they'd like to pay. And, as ever, author interviews with almost everyone we review.

Controversially, perhaps, we've added the Literary Fiction category to the Find Something to Read By Category page. Difficult one, this. Might cause trouble. Who is to say what is Lit Fic and what isn't? Hmm. What do you think??

Also: Surprise yourself! Check out our non-complete list of short story collections published in 2008 and so far this year (almost). More than you thought, eh?

Pop in and have a read. Also: 4 more days to shout "pick me!" for your chance to win a signed copy of the White Road and Other Stories. Read about it here.

First Birthday Book Giveaway

It's The White Road and Other Stories' first birthday today. Wow. What a year! And here I am, sitting at my new desk in my new study in our new city. Who would have thought?

My great writer/blogger colleague and friend Nik Perring. has interviewed me about that first year over at his blog. A few tantalising snippets, and then down to the Free Book stuff...

Because I am published by a small press, Salt, even though they are amazing and they made me this beautiful book, most of the marketing and promotion was and is down to me. And I have no clue about selling a book! Well, perhaps now I have a bit more of a clue. So, basically, I made it up as I went along. I built a website for the book, I set up a Facebook Page, I organised a hectic 11-stop Virtual Book Tour where I was interviewed on 11 blogs over 11 weeks about everything from my love for science to writing and religion.... I cajoled as many people as possible into writing reviews....I obsessively checked my Amazon rankings, searching for some indication of whether what I was doing was working. And whirring through my mind, all the time, was: “How can I sell the book? How can I sell the book?”

To find out the biggest surprises of the last 12 months, and more, pop in to Nik's blog. And thanks to Eco-libris, I have planted a tree for every copy printed, which is more than I expected (mother buying 100+ 10 friends!) although not quite a forest yet.

FREE BOOKS!

Ok, in celebration, I am giving away THREE signed copies of The White Road and Other Stories - to anyone, anywhere in the world. If you'd like one, just leave a comment here saying "Pick me!" (inspired by Caroline!) or something similar. You have until Sept 8th, and then I'll pick three winners out of a hat.

Happy birthday also too to Nuala Ní Chonchúir's wondrous short story collection, Nude, which is published today by Salt! Nuala's Nude Not Naked Virtual Book Tour kicks off today, and I will be hosting her here next week, Sept 8th, talking about writing, art, and perhaps a little about nudity!

So, anyone want a free book??

We've landed

Yes, we're here! And we have Internet, which arrived the day after we did, miracle of miracles. Bristol is lovely, although rather damp and half the temperature (celsius) of where we moved from. It's delightful, confusing, disorienting, I am finding that my English isn't quite what I thought it was... they say that after 5 years in a country where your mother tongue isn't the native language, you are no longer a native speaker of that language. I can understand that now. I like to think it makes my writing more "colourful"!

I won't write too much more now, just to say that it is lovely to be in a place where people's default expression when they meet you on the street is a smile. I like that. I am sure there will be other things I find harder, and many aspects of Israel that I miss. Give me time, I will moan. And will take pictures of our new home when our stuff arrives on Tuesday.

Other things to report: got a rejection from the New Yorker, there's a surprise. Also, deadlines tomorrow for Norton Hint Fiction and the Juked short story and poetry competition, so get your entries in. And congratulations to Petina Gappah, whose short story collection, An Elegy for Easterly, is shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. (See the Short Review blog for more, including a link to my review of the book.)

And... and....

It's the 1st birthday of The White Road and Other Stories on Sept 1st! (Did I mention the book at all, at all, all the time...??!) One year. I can't believe it. In celebration, I will be reflecting on the year-that-has-been over at Nik Perring's blog, and also giving away several signed copies of the book here, should you need some reading material for your loo, or an Autumnal gift for a loved one, that kind of thing.

OK, off out to experience a real Sunday. In Israel, Sunday is the first day of the work week, something you almost never get used to, coming from a weekendy kind of culture. We will seek out brunch, armed with large newspapers with many sections.

Moving Day

Today is the day. Wow. Both cats in their cat carriers after hair-raising 2am crash as Cat No 2 pushed his way through the defenses blocking the cat flap from BOTH sides and vanished. By 8am he was back, thank goodness. Now he is singing to us of his displeasure as we do the last bits of tidying up. New country, soon, and I think he'll prefer the cooler temperatures. Well, something like that!

I don't know when I'll be online again, a few days I hope. Somewhere else. It's all very exciting. In the meantime here are two flash stories published in the latest issue of The Pedestal magazine, in the wonderful company of Stefanie Freele, among others. See you on the other shore!

Cats - an update

So, for those of you concerned about how our Cats-Prepare-For-Flight day went, I will tell you, and it has its poetic moments too!

First, we remained calm yesterday morning in the face of one cat being too clever to be duped into his cat carrier and vanishing over the garden fence. And in he trotted, just at the right minute, and was sufficiently impressed with my non-stressed demeanour that he allowed himself to be grabbed and bundled in.

Our first hurdle, with two wailing cats in their way-too-big British-Airways-approved cat carriers in the back of the car, was to find the office of the Jerusalem district vet during the 1.5 hours he turns up in the city every week. Inside the same building as the Israel Antiquities Authority, a very ancient structure itself, we waited as Mr District Vet was late, trying to keep the dog in front of us in the queue from hassling the cats, and all the time worrying how we would get the cats out of the cat carriers for the vet to check them and then back in.

We didn't have to worry. A lovely Brazilian man, he was far more interested in discussing the finer points of English spelling and saying how much he preferred British accents to Americans (he had problems understand some Texans recently). He peered at the cats sitting warily in their carriers, and then filled out the forms we needed, while telling us that in 9 years he had only seen a few people who were taking pets to England, despite the harsh quarantine. But rather than telling us off for putting our cats through that, he felt it showed that we really love them and we aren't prepared to abandon them. "Ah," he sighed. "Sometimes I wish all my neighbours were cats and dogs." Pause. "And my work colleagues too!" And then, as we stood up to leave, he gestured to the heavens and said: "If there is someone up there, he's smiling down on you." Well.

The cats safely back in the car, we grinned all the way down the motorway, or at least until the first crazy driver overtook on the inside and crossed 3 lanes of traffic. The cats didn't enjoy the journey either. And once in the airport, we got a bit lost in "Cargo City" (this, in a country of only 6 million people...) But I tracked down the British Airways office ("Ah, the cat lady!" they said) and from then on it went swimmingly. A room full of strangely polite and friendly Israeli men in BA attire peered into the cat carriers. "Isn't he big!" they said. "He's a tiger!" Zac sat, unperturbed. Or perhaps deeply traumatised, who knows? We didn't think he was so big. Maybe a little tall for his age.

I signed the forms and then the moment we had been dreading: transferring the cats from the carriers they'd fly in to their much smaller regular cat carriers so airport security could hold onto the bigger ones. "Stand back," I told the strangely polite and friendly Israeli men in BA attire. "We'll give you privacy," they said seriously. And yet...

.... we put one cat carrier facing the other, and both cats just quietly strolled from one to the other.

Not a wail. Nothing.

Well, relief. The friendly BA men seemed a little sad at the lack of drama. They assured us they'd watch the cats as we took the big carriers to security. And as we left the room, I saw one of them peer down into Zac's carrier and say "Meow." That made my day!

Security was fine, the cats were totally peaceful all the way home, and when we let them out of their cages there were no dirty looks, no punishing hours-long absences. As if all was normal. It wasn't until a few hours later, at our wonderful friends J & H's glorious wedding, that J and I confessed that we only realized afterwards how much we'd been stressed about it all! The cats, it seemed, had no problem at all.

Next week: the cats on the aeroplane. Fingers crossed they enjoy their in flight entertainment and those little nuts they give out with the drinks.

A little radio silence

This may be the longest break I've ever had between blogs - 7 days. Wow. Just shows how hectic it is to move countries. We are busy packing, selling, giving away, storing... and trying to do everything as normal so the cats don't know what's about to befall them! Right now, one is wailing in her cat carrier, and the second, the one with the most suspicious nature, has disappeared - and we need to take them to the vet! Trying to keep calm. Calm. Calm. I'm sure he'll be back. Even TUNA, the big treat, didn't work. Too clever.

In the meantime, I have nothing writing-related to talk about, except that I haven't been able to concentrate long enough to do much of it. So here are some links:

• Margaret Atwood is blogging about her upcoming world tour for her new book, Year of the Flood - we will be seeing her in a few weeks. Apparently she is setting off today and traveling from Canada to the UK by boat:

"Packing for departure for the UK — Graeme Gibson and I are crossing by boat, thanks to Cunard, and I will preview The Year of the Flood during those days. The first dramatic and musical event is in Edinburgh on August 30 — Orville Stoeber the composer will perform in it. Then comes Manchester — two stars from Coronation Street are in the event! — and then London, Bath, Bristol, Ely, Cardiff, not in that order. All are fundraisers for the RSPB and for BirdLife International — It’s wonderful how people have been helping out. Click The Tour on this website to see all stops — the countries are different colours. Kingston Ontario is poised to go — September 23 at the Writers’ Festival — they have thrown themselves into the spirit, and are even designing recycled newspaper shoes, says Rumour! I will post updated info on the UK tour next."

• A new literary magazine is always welcome! Check out The Collagist's fiction and poetry.
  

Ok, must deal with feline-related matters. Wish me luck!

Quick roundup

We're away overnight, getting away from all the packing up still left to do before moving countries in 13 days, so this is just a quick announcement of some nice news:

• Two of my flash stories have been accepted for Pedestal Magazine's flash-only issue in August, an older flash and a brand new one, which is lovely - and they pay! I believe there are still two more days left before submissions close, so send yours off.
• I am thrilled that PANK magazine have nominated my flash story, Missy, which was published in their Jan 2009 issue, for the Best of the Net anthology! You can read the story here (scroll down). Congrats to my fellow nominees: Catherine Zickgraf, Caitlin Johnson, Lauren Wheeler, Brad Johnson, Stephen Mills, Peter Schwartz and my Zoetrope mate Tim Jones-Yelvington. Links to all their pieces on the PANK blog.

I've never been nominated for anything like this before, it was a wonderful surprise to wake up to this morning. Thanks, PANK!

Interesting short story discussion

There's an interesting discussion over at The Rumpus, where a blog post entitled "More Crappy News for Short Story Writers" brings us more of those quotes we short story lovers and writers have become used to hearing, from an agent writing in response to being sent a short story collection:

Publishers don’t like to publish short story collections in general unless they are VERY high concept or by someone very strange or very famous or Indian. In the current climate, it is harder to publish even those. Some of the authors I represent have story collections I have not been able to talk their loyal publishers into publishing. I can’t in good conscience encourage you to send them to me. It will just make both of us feel bad.

What is "VERY high concept"? And... he actually said "Indian"???!!

The writer of this post, Seth Fischer, argues wisely that

"The form of the short story collection is so uniquely well-suited to the Internet age. A good short story should grab you by the junk and make you yelp in that first line. So should good web copy. A good short story should be no longer than it need be. So should good web copy. I could go on. There are many very important differences between the two types of writing, but the publishing houses could be taking advantage of the similarities to develop a model that could turn a profit."

Exactly. He ends:

It seems to me that all it would take is a tiny bit of ingenuity to make money off the right short story collection. Why aren’t the publishing houses trying it?

I have been saying for a while that I see this attitude from mainstream publishing houses towards short story collections as a singular failure of imagination. If they have a marketing department that believes it is fairly talented at getting people to buy books, then why do they believe there is a whole swathe, no a whole world of books that they just cannot persuade anyone to buy?

The comments on this post are pretty interesting too, especially the comment that begins: "Could the problem be that many short stories are boring?" I encourage you all to go over there and weigh in....!

My Writing Routine

Until the editor of the excellent Branta: the might of write asked if I'd like to contribute a post about my daily writing routine, I didn't think I had one. Then I pondered for a few weeks, observed myself, and discovered that I do! It's all here, and I am a little embarassed by it... I feel I come across as insane! Please go have a look and tell me that I'm not, I'm really not...! Please...

Ending the day on a high note

I just found out, and it's crazy for me to even write it...that The White Road and Other Stories is current Salt's bestselling book. Number 1. Madness. Not sure what time period this refers to or anything... Of course, I took a screenshot...


can you see? Click on it to get a larger pic. There's Shaindel Beers' wonderful poetry collection, A Brief History of Time, at Number 3, Luke Kennard's excellent The Migraine Hotel at #4, and Alex Keegan's stunning stories, Ballistics, at #20. And 16 books that I have yet to read and love...And a gorgeous photo of Nuala and her brand new short story collection, Nude, which you will hear more about here shortly.

This most definitely is the result of Salt's Just One Book campaign, so many people rallied round, thank you all so so much for supporting Salt - and thank you to those of you who showed their support by buying my book. It is really moving and thrilling, I never thought I would find myself at this point. But please: don't stop. Salt is doing alright for the moment, but this needs to continue. There are new titles being published, and a wealth of existing titles that are excellent, both poetry and short stories. Have a wander, all books are 33% off for the whole of August (enter the coupon code HU693FB2 at checkout)... or sign up for the Story Bank or Poetry Bank and get sent beautiful books on a regular basis. What better present for a reader?

Ok, off to bed now with a big grin.

A L Kennedy, We Love You

Fiction writer and stand-up comic A L Kennedy's blog posts on the Guardian are always a great read, but this time I found her words even more poignant and hitting-home (is that a phrase?) than usual. She's talking about reviews, apropos her new short story collection, What Becomes, which comes out on Aug 6th and which I am eagerly awaiting! She says:

[B]ook reviews are odd things. They emerge months, if not years after the book is done with, so they're not that much use to the author. If the book's a car crash, it's already happened and we've walked or crawled away long ago. They are usually written (and should really be written) for readers, but may on occasions wander off and end up being about the reviewer's idea of the author, or a literary theory, or even some kind of personal issue the reviewer is working through. (This seems to be quite common in US reviews.) Yes, I personally want feedback on my work, but I get that from my editor and my agent (who used to be an editor) and from readings of work in progress and (extremely) occasionally from people upon whom I inflict sections of whatever heaving mess I'm wrestling with at the time. I get opinions from people I trust whose judgement I know and understand.

I rather like the point she makes at the end, that she doesn't look to reviews to give her feedback on her own books, she has people who do that. She continues...

And just try writing a book of short stories. (I mean that rhetorically – obviously there are very few commercially- or personally-viable reasons for your writing a book of short stories. Unless, of course, you harbour a love of the form, you foolish and adorable moppet.)

(We foolish adorable moppets love you, A L K!)

But if you did try it – and my first ever book was a collection of short stories – imagine how utterly bloody confusing the reviews are bound to be. First opinion – "Story A is rubbish, B is okay, C is middling." But then you read, "Story C is transcendent, A's okay and F should be illegal." And on and on it goes. It's incredibly difficult to review short stories without mentioning individual stories and opinions will differ and multiple reviews will simply confuse the young and tender brain of the scribbler concerned.

Tis all true, and I say this as reviewer and reviewed. This is why reviewing short story collections is completely different skill from reviewing a novel. As editor of the Short Review, I receive a whole range of different types of reviews, but I find the most useful reviews are those that rise above the "I liked this story but this one didn't work" and attempt to capture something book-sized, threads that run through a writer's work that perhaps they are not aware of, or were certainly not aware of when they wrote each individual story, something bigger that informs their writing. I also want to read some of the writing, to hear the voices, the styles, the wordplay across different stories.

But, in the end, what does it all come down to? A L Kennedy sums it up perfectly for us:

.. review quotes are cut out and arranged in ways that will make the paperback jacket read as if the Archangel Gabriel came down to earth and produced the volume in question with his very own heart's blood and anyone who doesn't buy it is not only crazy, but possessed of a leprous soul and likely to bite the heads off kittens. Sadly, every other book jacket will read like that, too – reducing the reader to a guilty, cognitively dissonant mess on the floor of Waterstone's café.

Exactly! What is the message we should take from A L K's blog post, as writers and as readers? Don't trust a single review to tell you everything you need to know about a book, and don't let reviews of your own work make you believe or disbelieve anything about your own writing. Be open, keep writing, and buy A L Kennedy's book. I think she'd agree with me on that.

The Short Review August 2009 Summer Reading

Find some air conditioning if you're in temperatures like mine (sorry to those of you in the southern hemisphere, don't mean to make you feel bad - stay warm) And then grab yourself a book. Want some reading ideas? The latest issue of The Short Review has plenty:

First, we have not only a review of Chris Beckett's Edge Hill Prize-winning short story collection, The Turing Test (written by me - I loved it!) and an interview with Chris about the book, but a special interview with Chris on The Short Review blog, where he talks about his 20 year relationship with UK science fiction magazine, Interzone, whose "constructive rejections" spurred him on - something all writers wish we had, eh?

The rest of the issue? Reviews of new new writing from New Zealand and from Birkbeck College, debut collections from across the globe featuring elegies, liars, the turing test, life in the universe, nature's magician, floating orders, stories from the west's wet edge, and classics by Oscar Wilde.

And, as ever, author interviews with as many as we can track down. A taster:

Petina Gappah, author of An Elegy for Easterly:

"My rather lofty idea then was that the main character in the collection was the country of Zimbabwe itself, and I wanted the reader to see it grow or regress through each story. But that approach was too artificial, too forced, and in the end, the stories simply fell into place on the basis of which one I managed to finish editing first .."

Alan McMonagle, author of Liar, Liar:

"Stories are revelations, discoveries, confessions, little explosions. They attempt to be of reality and, at the same time, to stretch reality. ... Many of my efforts eschew the classic moment of epiphany. So early into a writing career I'm happy for my characters to "emerge." It's that Flannery O’Connor thing of people being the way they are despite what has happened as opposed to because of what has happened.."

Michael J Farrell, author of Life in the Universe:

"I am immensely grateful to the people buying my book. I am puzzled by the huge popularity of chick lit. I don't think this attitude is snobbishness or envy. The law of averages would indicate some people ought to like chick lit. But so many? It must surely make a difference to a population or a civilization that so many like, nay love, this level of writing, and are to that extent usually turned off by other forms of literature"

Read it all and more right here.

25 Hours of no Internet...

I have the computer switched off on Shabbat, from sundown Friday til sunset Saturday, and switching on the computer to see what's come in is always fun - 25 hours of no Internet is an utter joy and very relaxing, but enough is enough! So, tonight Gmail brought me:

• It Begins with Birds in Flight, my second published flash story in Metazen this week.
• A totally love email from organisers of a competition that I didn't win, just to let me know that one of the judges has said: "Wow--interesting! One of the only entries that I felt compelled to read twice. Odd, quirky, entirely original (and it's so hard to be original these days!). Her writing has such a nice, natural flow to it." That left me very warm and fuzzy and almost almost made up for not even getting an honorable mention :) Same story is out at a few other places, not comps - and delightedly is in the "hasn't been rejected yet" situation. Fingers crossed!

Together with my amazing deputy editor, Diane, we are working hard on the August issue of The Short Review, due in the shops (ok, on your screens) in the next 48 hours. Gonna be a good one, with a special interview with Chris Beckett, winner of the Edge Hill Prize, talking about his 20-year relationship with science fiction magazine Interzone, whose "constructive rejections" spurred him on.

Also: huge congratulations to the winner of the Guardian Weekend Short Story competition, Lisa Blower: this is her first published story. Lovely! Read stories by her, the runners up (Andy Knudson, Poornima Manco, Bernard O'Leary, Dan Purdue and Roger Stephens) and others in the Guardian's Summer Fiction Special.

Early morning post

I don't normally blog in the morning. I don't normally do much in the morning, but this one started off so well I thought I'd jot it down. First, I wake up, open Facebook, and see a lovely status update from a new writer friend, Nicola Morgan, who "doesn't normally read short stories", saying, to my delight, that she is "blown away" by The White Road and Other Stories! A convert... how fabulous. Once you start dipping into short-story-land, you're hooked.

Boyd Tonkin certainly is, bless you Boyd. In today's Independent newspaper, in an article entitled "Short-haul fiction, long-term benefits", he says:

Here's a star-spangled shortlist of leading writers who have published, or soon will publish, works of fiction since the last Man Booker contest: Kazuo Ishiguro, AL Kennedy, Ali Smith, Will Self, Chimamanda Adichie, Alice Munro. None of them could have featured on this week's long-list. Of course, the final name gives the game away. Canada's doyenne of the story that packs an entire life, and world, into 20 pages might already have won the Man Booker International Prize for career achievement. But the annual competition still shuns volumes of short fiction. Which means as well that first-rank debut collections, such as (this year) Daniyal Mueenuddin's In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, never stand a fighting chance. Should that rule now change?

Yes, Boyd, yes! And then, if it couldn't get any better, he says:

In the Manchester-based Comma Press and Salt Publishing in Cambridgeshire, Britain has two high-performing specialist imprints with a robust commitment to the briefer forms.

Oh, Boyd! Sending much love to the Indy today. I will leave you with his parting shot:

"The only rule is to write originally and well - whether the result takes two, five or twenty thousand words."

Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes. (New prize for 2-word stories, anyone??)
Read the full article here.

Small/Big Moments of Joy

This came in the post this morning from my delicious publisher, Jen, at Salt.

Can you see what it says at the top? It's the new print run, and it says "Commended by the Orange Award for New Writers 2009"! Click on the pic and you get the enormous version.

My little/big thrill of the day.

Wheee!