Lydia Davis

I can't tell you how thrilled I was to hear that one of my favourite, favourite writers, Lydia Davis, has won the International Man Booker Prize, given for a body of work rather than one particular book. She is a writer of short and very very short "things" - are they stories, poems? As I said in my Litro blog post - Who the hell cares, really? They're sublime, funny, dark, moving, insightful, memorable.

For a taste of her writing, listen to the excellent James Salter read a story here on the Guardian podcast, I found it immensely moving. And you can read my review of Lydia Davis' Collected Stories on The Short Review. It's a must-read for anyone who loves words, rhythms, wordplay, stories, the dark and light of life.

More permission...

Following on from the previous post about permission & taking risks, two things have occurred in the past two days that I want to talk about in terms of where I get permission from. Now, I did stop for a moment and wonder about writing this, since it may just come off as boastful self-promotion, but it's an important part of my writing life and my career as an author, and that's what this blog is supposed to be all about, so I decided to do it.

What occurred were two absolutely amazing reviews of My Mother Was An Upright Piano: Fiction, published both published on Friday. Before I go into that, I want to first say that even now, after quite a few years of having short stories and other work published in literary magazines, after having two collections published, I still think it's quite miraculous that the result of the bizarre workings of my mind, the combination of words I've put on a page, in any way connects or speaks to anyone else, anyone outside of my mind. And, as I mentioned in the previous post, thanks to the permission gifted to me by other writers' work, I have been taking more risks in my own, and to me my stories have been getting odder and odder.  (My mother is in the habit now, when I send her a new story, of saying "Darling, I really enjoyed it, even though I had no idea what was going on.") Even more surprising then that anyone "gets" what I think I may have been trying to do (which I don't always know, either).

So, you can imagine that the fact that these two reviewers did is incredibly moving to me. Here is Martin Macaulay writing for Sabotage Reviews, who shortlisted my book for their Saboteur awards short story collection category:

Hershman writes with a lyrical precision that slices apart what it is to be human... My Mother was an Upright Piano is more than the sum of its parts. The book is structured into seven groups of six and two groups of seven, bonding this collection together as tightly as a chemical compound. It’s a solid, unbreakable and inspiring collection. Hershman creates worlds with depth and heart. She shows us lives soaked in loss; some with glimpses of hope, others dystopian.

And here is Kerry Shadid in her review in World Literature Today:

Her presentation of the tragedy and the oddity of our human lives is the typed equivalent of a performance artist at MOMA: strange, unfamiliar, captivating. ...The universe’s dark energy palpitates on Hershman’s pages; she gives emptiness form. Characters struggle to communicate, to make themselves known to others. Hopes for the world to be other than it is are met with silence. Longing blankets the text. Sentences stop before they reach their conclusion, words omitted by the author in sympathy with the reticence of her fictional creations. The unsaid contains both dagger and salve, and Hershman’s silences both break and heal the heart. 

It's hard to tell you how I feel just re-reading these two excerpts. It's like I've been heard, at a very deep level. It feels like a blessing, to be read so closely. And what's also wonderful is that they both feel that the book - whose stories were all written with no thought of being collected - works as a whole, somehow.

I had said to myself when the book came out that this time I wouldn't read reviews. Because whatever they say, they stick in your mind. Generally the less positive bits! But I couldn't help myself because I think, with these stories more than those in The White Road, I didn't always know myself what it was I was writing about, I had let go of that knowing, thanks to permission from others. And so I was curious to see what others think they are about.

I didn't think that these and other reviews would give me permission to keep doing this - and to take it further. But they do. Especially references to things I consider very odd, like leaving sentences unfinished. That's okay, says this review. And not only that, it actually means something.

Of course, there is the flipside to this, because there is no guarantee that every review will be favourable. I was delighted to be reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement, thrilled beyond belief, but the reviewer seemed to be telling me what my stories are not, and I wasn't entirely sure what to make of that.

Right now, though, I am feeling very "permitted", these two reviewers have given me a great gift, an unexpected gift. I want to thank them, and everyone else who takes the time to read my book and share their thoughts. I don't take that for granted. I will never take that for granted. Thank you.

Nice way to start 2013...

... My Mother Was An Upright Piano: Fictions is reviewed in the latest issue of Flash: The International Short Story Story magazine, in the excellent company of Nick Parker's The Exploding Boy, the Flash Fiction Day anthology Jawbreakers (in which my story Stopwatching gets a kind mention) and collections by Etgar Keret and Jon McGregor.

In her review Louisa Yates says:

"A worthy successor to her 2008 debut... MMWAUP is at its strongest when dealing with matter, whether it takes the form of Google hits, neutrinos or moth's wings... As an assemblage of particles and people, Hershman's latest collection is a refreshing take on the brief meetings, one-off connections and partial viewpoints that are so often the subject of very short fictions."

I had said that I wasn't going to read any reviews but it's really fascinating to me how each reviewer sees different things, I love Louisa's talk about matter and particles in relation to my fictions, and it's always such a privilege when someone engages so deeply with my writing, it's a joy. 

Flash is a great magazine, available in print only, do go and get a copy, there are many excellent stories such as Husbandry by Eliezra Schaffzin, very short and very powerful, as the best flash fiction must be. A great read.

Reviewed in the TLS, oh my!

So, after some scouring of newsagents in North Devon - where we are currently located for a bit of peace and quiet - we finally tracked down a copy of the new issue of the Times Literary Supplement with the review of My Mother Was An Upright Piano. I was pretty nervous, I made J read it while I watched his facial expressions. I had so many worst case scenarios running through my head. It's the TLS, for goodness sake!

Turns out the worst case didn't happen. Firstly, I am delighted that the reviewer at the TLS to whom I sent the book (after he'd briefly mentioned me positively in a review of Lee Rourke's A Brief History of Fables, which features a few of my flash stories) didn't just toss it aside, but took the time to seriously engage with my writing, even putting it into historical context. He must have so many books he might review, that to be singled out is an immense honour. It's worth saying again, that for a short story writer with no literary agent, published by a small press, to be noticed is immensely heartening. And a note to all your unagented writers published by small presses - I took the initiative here, so don't be shy, just do it, give reviewers a chance to consider your work! (Yes, it turned out to be fairly scary, but worth it!)

OK, so here's the review. Your thoughts? Can you read it?If you right-click on View Image, then you can zoom in, I hope.

Some bits of news...

First, Happy National Short Story Week! Check out their website for what's going on this week.

So, a little catch-up: if you'd still like to hear me, in the amazing company of Don Paterson, Tony Harrison, Laura Barber and the Lakeside Poets, on Radio 3's The Verb, it is available as a podcast, which should, I believe, be still there even after tomorrow night's new episode, maybe? It was a real thrill listening to it again, what fun!

Book news:
There's a lovely review of MMWAUP in The Bookbag this week: " It's said that the art of short-story writing is totally different from that of novels as the writer only has ten or so pages to accomplish what others do in two to three hundred. Imagine, therefore, telling an entire story in prose conveying depth and meaning in fewer words than this review. It may be difficult but, apparently, not downright impossible as Tania Hershman has nailed it with honours." You can read Ani Johnson's full review here.

Slightly scary book news:

And so it turns out that MMWAUP will receive a second review this week - in the Times Literary Supplement! Gulp. I don't know what the review says, but I see from the newly-released contents page for tomorrow's edition that it's sandwiched between reviews of Rose Tremain and JK Rowling! As an unagented author published by a very small (and wonderful) press, I think that's worth celebrating on its own, regardless of the content of the review - may it pave the way for many more such books!

Overheard anthology

Talking of wonderful small presses, my first publisher, Salt, has just brought out a fantastic anthology, Overheard: Stories to Read Aloud, edited by Jonathan Taylor. I have a very short story in the anthology, where I am in the excellent company of, among others, Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Ian McEwan, Blake Morrison, Louis De Bernières, Adele Parks, Kate Pullinger, Adam Roberts, Michelene Wandor, Vanessa Gebbie, Judith Allnatt, Jo Baker, David Belbin, Panos Karnezis, Jane Holland, Gemma Seltzer, Ailsa Cox and Will Buckingham. As it says on the tin, it's all about "reconnecting storytelling with its oral and performative roots. There are stories here for performance, stories which play with sound, stories which dramatise conflicting voices, and stories which are musical in style."  I can't wait for my contributor's copy!

And finally, I am delighted to announce that The Short Review is back! With a new look and a new format,  but the same high quality reviews of short story collections and anthology and author interviews that you've come to love over the five years (this month) of our existence. Go check out the new reviews and let us know what you think! Also on Twitter and Facebook, of course.

Bookmunch: Experimental Yet Accessible

Ebba Brooks has reviewed My Mother Was An Upright Piano: Fictions at Bookmunch, calling it "experimental yet accessible", which makes me happy. She says:

Short fiction apparently doesn’t sell perhaps because it is notoriously ‘difficult’. It’s stuff to be studied in universities, not read for pleasure. Or is it? Hershman’s fictions are experimental yet accessible, and their length acts in their favour in a world where we are all apparently time-poor and attention deficit disordered.

The title story is a great place to start. It showcases Hershman’s ability to extend an apt metaphor, and make it resound with meaning, humour and pathos in a minimum of words:

“My mother was an upright piano, spine erect, lid tightly closed, unplayable except by the maestro. My father was not the maestro.”

The whole story is barely more than a page long, but this first line takes you right to the heart of the issue. Getting the opening right is one of the big challenges of short form writing, and it’s one of Hershman’s real strengths.

Ebba ends by saying: "Good book for people with no time. Read on public transport, between meetings, when the baby’s having a nap. Recommended for aspiring short fiction writers. Read this and learn your craft."Thank you Ebba and Bookmunch! Read the full review here.

Happy 4th Birthday to The Short Review!

www.theshortreview.com

Happy birthday! This month The Short Review, the journal I founded and edit, turns four years old. In that time, 439 story collections and anthologies have been reviewed, by our forty or so reviewers worldwide, and over 250 authors interviewed... We all do what we do for love of the short story and to spread the word about as many short story collections as possible so readers can get hold of them, demand them from their local bookshops or libraries, buy them as presents.


 Four years on, we are so overwhelmed with offers of collections to review that we have had to declare a hiatus in accepting new review copies so that we can catch our breath! A good sign, we think. A very good sign! How could you help us celebrate our birthday? Tell someone about a short story collection you love. Tell ten people. Spread it around! 


This month's issue includes an unprecedented seven reviews of multi-author anthologies, which means that we are bringing you short stories by more authors than ever before! From women aloud to the bride stripped bare, the gold boy and the emerald girl, the best british and european fiction, what doesn't kill you if you're with the bears or on the Paris metro in nineteen seventysomething... and... ... 


Giveaways - In honour of our birthday - and of the UK's National Short Story Week - we are giving away NINE books: 4 of the books we are reviewing this month - and an extra 5 short story collections! You could win Best British Short Stories 2011, Best European Fiction 2012, the National Short Story Week charity audiobook anthology Women Aloud - and Affirm Press's Long Story Shorts set of six short story collections, which includes Barry Divola's Nineteen Seventysomething. Visit the Competitions page to find out how to win.

Celebrating the short story - The Short Review

Don't forget to sign the petition against Radio 4's planned cuts to short story broadcasts if you haven't already! Over 5700 signatures so far...

Today's short story celebration brings you the new issue of The Short Review -ten reviews of short story collections (this month all single-author, which is a first)

 
and a bumper NINE author interviews with a fantastic slew of writers: Anthony Doerr, Helen Oyeyemi, Gay Degani, Edith Pearlman, Courttia Newland, Emma Newman, Polly Frost, Carol Novack and Adam Golaski!  Read it all here: The Short Review

Short Story Month

(cross-posted with The Short Review blog)

May was declared National Short Story Month in the US by Dan Wickett of the Emerging Writers Network a few years ago, and, wonderfully, others have followed his lead. Doesn't matter whether you are US-based, here's a great excuse to celebrate the short story even more than we do already! A few links to get you started:

Emerging Writers Network - reviews and discussions of short stories

Fiction Writers Review - a giveaway in honour of SSM!

Canada's National Post's Short Story Month  - Q&As with writers

BookFox's Short Story Month posts - excellent short story discussions

NextRead - reviews of short story collections for Short Story Month


SeattlePI - article about SSM

Reading the Short Story - blog discussing short stories

Let me know if you've got another link for me to add...

And if that's not enough - just check out all the short story collections and author interviews we've amassed in 2 1/2 years over at The Short Review, of course!

What I love to read is not always the same as what I love to write

When I'm thinking about submitting a short story to a competition, I always try and find something the judge of the competition has written, as if that will give me an idea whether she or he will choose my story for glory! However, now that I'm honoured to be on the other "side" as one of the final judges for the Brit Awards (now closed), the Bristol Short Story Prize (get your entry in before March 31st!), and the sole judge reading all the entries for the Sean O'Faolain prize (just opened), I realised something: what I love to read is often very different from the sorts of things I love to write. I thought this might be useful for those of you who are entering.

I read a short story collection per month for review for The Short Review, and, after 2 1/2 years, I can see that if you look at my reviews, you would have a hard time pinpointing what exactly it is in a short story that thrills me. I have been bowled over by science fiction and thrilled by the highly experimental, deeply moved by realist stories, and blown away by tiny flash fictions and much longer stories. If you really want to get an idea of what I love to read, check out my latest review, of Janice Galloway's extraordinary and category-defying Collected Stories, and at the bottom is a list of all the reviews I have written.

So, to sum up: I can't sum up, and I am very glad about that. Yes, I love the very short, but I will also gladly be won over by a short story nudging the word limit if it justifies its length and each word is necessary. I am grabbed by characters with strong voices that jump off the page, but also by much quieter stories. Not much has to happen to impress me. It's not about plot. It's not about sudden twists, the dead rising, major revalations.

So, this is probably singularly unhelpful if you thought I might give you a hint as to what you "should" submit. My one criteria is this: I want to read a story that only you could write. All the story collections I have loved have struck me hard as being something that, yes, may have originally taken inspiration from previous greats, as we all do, but this author told their stories the only way they could. So here's my Great Advice: just send me a story only you could have written. No more and no less than that.

Lots of lovely short story related stuff

First, for all of those who are concerned about submitting to Southword because I know you - this is new for me too. I've never been in this position. I only have one issue to fill - the 2nd issue of the year publishes the winner and finalists of the Sean O'Faolain competition  - so I won't be able to choose every story that I love. I will have to reject quite a lot of fantastic writing, I imagine, because it's not about the "best" it will most probably be about the ones that fit "best" together in some way. Please don't let it put you off - no, it's not anonymous, and I would love to read your work. If you want, you can always submit under a pseudonym. Really.

Email me if you have any more concerns. Let's venture into the unknown together!

Next: my article on the joys of short stories, Stopping to Smell the Miniature Roses, is in the latest issue of Bellatrista. I was delighted, as always, to be asked to tell the world why everyone should read what we all know to be wondrous creatures. If this gets just one person into short stories, it'll be worth it all!

Finally - the new issue of The Short Review Jan 2010, with an interview with the fabulous A L Kennedy, THREE books to give away, and we are the latest stop on the Short Circuit virtual book tour. Here's the blurb.

2010 sees the launch of The Short Review 2.0. What does this mean? It means we want to hear from you. Let's talk: about reviews, interviews, short stories, writing... come and join in the conversation on our new discussion forum.

This Month: From flames to madmen, ruins, relics, Indians and happy shades - reviews of debut collections by Alice Zorn, Daniel A Hoyt, Midge Raymond, Andrew McNabb and Hassan Blasim (translated into English for the first time) alongside Alice Munro's first collection from 1968, and Sherman Alexie's third collection and A L Kennedy's fifth, Tales of the DeCongested's second anthology and the Atlantis Collective's first.

And interviews with A L Kennedy, Alice Zorn, Dan Hoyt, Midge Raymond, Andrew McNabb, Hassan Blasim...

AND

Competitions: 3 very different books to give away this month: The Madman of Freedom Square by Hassan Blasim, The Body of This by Andrew McNabb, and Short Circuit: A Gudie to the Art of the Short Story, edited by Vanessa Gebbie (see below). Find out how to win>>

And On the Blog: The Short Review is delighted to be a stop on the Virtual Book Tour for Short Circuit: A Guide to the Art of the Short Story. Says Short Circuit ed Vanessa Gebbie: "On one level, a reader looks for entertainment – to be taken out of themselves for a while, by following a complicated plot. The reader who actively seeks that experience, sustained for the length of time it takes to read a novel, who then switches to read a good short story, expecting it to deliver something similar, will be disappointed. " Read the rest of the blog post here >>

Fiction and science and science fiction...

I had a great meeting on Friday with a physicist from the Uni's physics department, briefing me on an upcoming physics conference which he is hoping will inspire me to write some fiction. (This is the first step towards the start of my writer-in-residence position which I will take up at the University's Science Faculty in January. What form it will take -and who will fund it! - is still up for grabs.)

It is always a thrill for me to go into a science department! But what was interesting about this visit for me, as someone who studied physics 20 years ago and really didn't have what it took to be a physicist, is that this time I was looking at everything differently. My "eye" has changed.

For example, someone was stripping posters off the walls in preparation for a new coat of paint. Something about the remnant (see pic left) spoke to me, but not because I understood the equations. It was something more aesthetic, less about learning and knowledge than about symbols, patterns, shapes, colours.

As we walked to get coffee in the common room (is that the term?) he showed me some of the posters on the walls talking about the team's current research. Wonderful terms jumped out at me: Catastrophe Optics! Quantum carpets! And while I am most definitely fascinated by the science itself, it was another part of me, the writer part, itching to take these phrases, to twist and turn them, to make them my own.

In describing to me the Aharonov-Bohm effect, whose 50th anniversary the conference is to celebrate, he drew this on the board:

My first thought? Not - Oooh, look at those magnetic fields! But: It's an eye. I am seeing things differently, and, more than that, I am now allowed to see things differently, to see them however I want. And that is truly thrilling.

The most moving part of the meeting was when we talked about my short story, The Painter and the Physicist. It was read out at a Liars League event, and you can hear the actress read it or read the text here. Now, I thought I had made this up. I did. I made it up. I had no knowledge of anything like this, of anything that concerned the thrust of the story, in which the Painter asks the Physicist what colour he imagines electrons, protons, neutrons to be. So - imagine my astonishment when this physicist said that he and his colleagues have spent much time discussing what colour they think an electron is! Chills went down my spine.

This has happened before, me making up a story and then someone telling me that it happened to them. And it's ALWAYS freaky. And yet, in some way, gratifying. I can't really say why.

Finally, today's lovely news: there is a story I have been trying to write for YEARS. I mean this (as Vanessa and others can testify.) It is basically about a mother dealing with her son's very bizarre behaviour. I tried it in so many ways, coming at it realistically, trying to find out why the son behaved the way he did, showing it to many, many writing groups. Never hit it. Then I was inspired by reading Paddy O'Reilly's wonderful short story collection, The End of the World (my review here) to try a brand new structure, and suddenly a new language appeared, something more experimental, more visceral. Aha!

This happened after my book was finalised, so I held on to it. And now it has been accepted for publication by Electric Velocipede - a (paying) print magazine that wanted something "a little weird" and that I have been wanting to make it into for quite a while. Stories published in  Electric Velocipede and the magazine itself have won Hugo and World Fantasy Awards - THE  awards for so-called "genre" writing, (sci fi, fantasy, speculative, steampunk and other categories) which actually, I have found since setting up the Short Review, reward some of the most wonderfully-written and imaginative fiction I have had the pleasure of reading.

Reviewing the Logorrhea anthology (edited by Elec Velocipede's editor, John Klima) shattered my shameful misconceptions of "genre" fiction, and it has been a dream of mine for quite a while to cross this artifical divide myself. I liked to think I was writing "literary fiction" and aimed my stories at lit mags that fit this  - but once I released myself from these self-imposed restriction, I discovered a whole new world. I now subscribe to Interzone, the UK's leading sci fi magazine and love it. Open your mind!

Now EV's 4 issues for 2010 are full already, so my story, Under the Tree, won't be published til 2011. That's something to look forward to.

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.

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.

Keep Helping Salt - Reviews

Salt's Just One Book campaign (see Twitter) to boost its sales so that my wonderful publisher can survive did definitely help! But there's more to be done. This is the latest from Chris Hamilton Emery:

Trade Summary

June's UK trade figures are in from our distributor, Gardners — 47% of our UK trade sales are now with the Waterstone's chain, 21% with Amazon. We had no sales at all in June from Borders. Trade sales for the first six months of this year are still down 4% on 2008, but we are beginning to close that gap. Total trade figures for June were up 21% on the previous June (the summer months are often exceptionally tough for Salt), growth was largely driven through the JustOneBook campaign. But conditions remain extremely difficult in the trade. 8% of turnover was library sales. Independent book shop sales accounted for less than 7% of trade turnover, very disappointing after a big sales push with the indies and three separate promotions.

The Challenge

Our challenge is to grow our trade sales over the coming months to keep the business on track. We need to find better ways at reaching the indies as we're still convinced that they are good partners for Salt's list. Despite the success of the JustOneBook campaign, this month's trade sales will be critical. We could easily eat into the revenues we've raised from sales made direct to our fans. One bad month in the trade can wipe out our campaign.

So.... this is the important bit. Listen closely:

How You Can Help Us

We need to keep Salt in the public eye. Here's how you can help. If you've bought a book from Salt and you enjoyed it please continue to support us by doing two important things (they're both free):

1. Firstly, tell your friends about the Salt title you enjoyed. Recommend it to them. Tell your friends on Twitter what you thought about it. Blog about it, if you like. Pass it on in anyway you can. Spread the word.

2. Secondly, please post a brief review of the book on Amazon to help the author. Amazon reviews do work.

Thank you for all your support. It really does matter.

Very best from me and Jen
Chris

Ok, you know what you need to do. I'm not talking about my book, please recommend and write reviews of any Salt book you've enjoyed, be it short stories or poetry. To get you started here's the link to a search for Salt Publishing on Amazon UK. This doesn't work on Amazon US (lots of books on saltwater fishing!) so here are a few choice links to start you off there:

Vanessa Gebbie's Words from a Glass Bubble. (Read The Short Review's review)

Elizabeth Baines' Balancing on the Edge of the World (Read The Short Review's review)

Charles Lambert's Scent of Cinnamon (Read The Short Review's review)

Carys Davies' Some New Ambush (Read The Short Review's review)

Alex Keegan's Ballistics (Read The Short Review's review)

The White Road and Other Stories I think I may have already mentioned!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your support!

Updates - and The Short Review July Issue

First, apologies for my silence, it's been several weeks of no Internet or - gulp - dial-up, and not much time while we travelled to sit down and focus on writing a blog post. I had also hoped to be able to announce that nice news I keep blathering on about, but.... nothing yet!

I had a very promising second meeting with an agent yesterday, the upshot of which is that I need to keep writing but she likes what I've done so far. Good news, more work ahead. And we've found a lovely place to live in Bristol, which will be our new home from end August, with the ideal studio workroom for me already set up and separate. Even better than a shed - if I am allowed to say that!

Also:

The July Issue of the Short Review is out. First, congratulations to the six short story collections shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. See the Short Review blog for the shortlist.

With this month's issue, we bring you the most authors we have ever reviewed - with anthologies containing stories from up to 50 authors outnumbering single-author collections. There is a plethora of criminal behaviour, nostalgia for the era of punk, tales of those in waiting, a little erotica and more. Interviews with Daniyal Mueenuddin, whose collection we reviewed in last month's issue, Mary Akers, Jason Allan Cole, Mark Illis and Alex Keegan. Find something to read.

Also on the blog: Ailsa Cox takes us behind the scenes of the Edge Hill Short Story Prize, whose winner will be announced on July 4th. Read more.

Happy weekend of short stories! More from me when we get back home on Sunday.

New issue of The Short Review

I'm popping off abroad today, but in the meantime, why aren't you reading? New issue of The Short Review is hot off the press today - with this issue we welcome TSR's new deputy editor, Diane Becker, very glad to have her!

And in a bumper issue this month (well, ok, it's the same size, but packed with goodness!)....Reviews of:

(click on the pic to read the review)

as well as interviews with Matt Bell, Mathias B. Freese, Josephine Rowe, Anne Donovan, Barry Graham and Pat Jourdan. Could you want more? I don't think so.

May is Short Story Month at EWN

May has been declared Short Story Month over at the fabulous Emerging Writers Network blog always a lively place for a literary discussion and ideas for something great to read. Recent posts include Helen W. Mallon's review of Louise Erdrich's collection, The Red Convertible. Says Mallon:

I used the collection in my spring writing workshop, and the students pined when we moved to another author for a week or two. Erdrich is one writer whose language is accessible as popcorn--which makes her popular--yet wildly original in its beauty. Her plot twists are sometimes roll-on-the floor funny, but they never hammer you with the predictable. Her characters also slap you, when you least expect it, with the mystery and profundity of life.

EWN is posting a myriad of short-story related posts daily in May: check out what would be on short story "mix tapes" by Dawn Raffel and John Fox, John McNally on why anyone writes short stories, Gabriel Welsch on George Saunders' sublime Civilwarland in Bad Decline and Jonathan Baumbach on "fictions, short and long, that redefine possibilities".

This is just the tip of the short story iceberg, there is so much more that I am exhausted just thinking about it - visit the Emerging Writers Network and raise a glass for Short Story Month.!

Source of Lit & National Poetry Month

One of the things that helps me when I am feeling anxious*, as I seem to be a lot these days, is reading. Reading fiction, or non-fiction, immersing myself in someone else's world. And the effect lasts after I stop reading, it is most definitely a calmative, so I thought I would bring you a couple of things I have been enjoying reading lately.

National Poetry Month begins today in the US and I've been thinking a lot about poetry lately - reading it and writing it so I'll start with some of that:

A Brief History of Time is Shaindel Beers' new collection (published by Salt), and this woman is a poet after my own heart, combining science with the human condition in original, surprising, wryly amusing and exquisitely painful ways. From the title poem:

I’m sure it’s an electrical impulse that travels
our most twisted neurons, axons, and dendrites — or
why would we fall into the trap of doing the same thing
the same way and expect different results, which is
one definition of insanity ? This would explain why my father is
still married to my mother, even after she tried to knife him
just days after coming home from jail
for two other attempted murders.

Shaindel is currently doing a virtual book tour, On the Hood of a Cutlass. The interviews are fascinating, illuminating. Check it out.

Ink, sweat and years is the online poetryand prose journal Ink, Sweat and Tears' first annual print anthology and I am delighted to be included with my first ever poem. Apart from that, it's a wonderful read, with excellent contributions from my writer colleagues Frances Gapper, Sarah Hilary, Alex Keegan and Nuala Ní Chonchúir.

Alex Irvine's story, The Truth About Ninjas, in Barrelhouse's latest issue, issue 7, with its eye-catching red and black cover, just blew me away - both utterly mad and completely sane, a philosophical treatise. With ninjas. Brilliant!

Pank magazine's annual print edition, Pank No.3, looks so gorgeous, it's a little hard not to be dazzled, but the writing is just as dazzling. A combination of poetry and prose, it includes such gems as Ten Things I've Told People About Daschunds Sure They Cared, by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz and Because Magicicadas Have No Eyes by Rosanne Griffiths. I have only just started reading it, am restraining myself so I can savour it slowly.

Thirty Years of Prosperity for Every Fifteen Years of Hard Work by Matthew Derby was published in Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, Issue 45, which arrived in my mailbox a few weeks ago, along with issue 46, a bonus for entering (and definitely not winning) their short story contest! I had never read the Columbia journal before, but when I saw that the contest was being judged by Diane Williams, whose collection, Excitability, I am reading and loving its experimental and often surreal prose, I knew this mag was for me. Matthew's story bore that out, both odd and poignant, or perhaps oddly poignant. Once again, am trying to read these slowly... so much to read, so little time.

I have been dipping my toes into the waters of science fiction and fantasy with a subscription to Interzone, the UK's SF&F magazine, and have found a lot to love in the issues I've received so far. A story that stands out from the April 2009 issue is A Clown Escapes from Circus Town by Will McIntosh, which once again challenged my shameful preconceptions about what SF&F is. Moving, surprisng, and highly imaginative. This is just great writing, no matter what genre shelf it is shoved onto.

On the non-fiction front, Slightly Foxed arrived this week, what an interesting journal. It is comprised of articles which are sort of book reviews, but are actually much more than that. Slightly Foxed is, in their own words: "a rather unusual kind of book review, informal and independent-minded, and its readers tend to be independent-minded too –people who don’t want to read only what the big publishers are hyping and the newspapers are reviewing. Each issue contains 96 pages of personal recommendations for books of lasting interest, old and new, both fiction and non-fiction – books that have inspired, amused, and sometimes even changed the lives of the people who write about them." I am really enjoying it.

And finally - tomorrow I have the honour of hosting Sue Guiney's Space-Time Virtual Book Tour to celebrate the paperback release of her excellent novel Tangled Roots, which gets better every time I read it. We will be talking physics, physicists, fiction and what we can learn from the characters we create. Prepare your questions please, and come back same time tomorrow. Thank you.




*If you are a writer and anxiety is something you are familiar with, there is a new private Facebook group for people like us to discuss it. Message me through FB for more info.