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.

Reviews and other news

First, one of the fictions from My Mother Was An Upright Piano, Manoeuvres (which I can never spell!) is included in a new echapbook anthology, "Found" from Wordrunner, alongside authors Susan Meyers, Tania Hershman, Mary McCluskey, Jeff Haas, and Lucille Shulklapper and poets Sara Toruno-Conley, Angela Corbet, Bianca Diaz and Victor Perez.Read it all here.

I am also very lucky that MMWAUP is getting some great reviews:

In her review in the new issue (No. 80) of the Frogmore Papers, Alexandra Loske says: " It seems that Hershman has achieved two things here: She has perfected the art of the very short short story, making it appear utterly appealing and perhaps one of the most appropriate forms of creative writing of our age. She has also managed to form a bridge between poetry and prose. At times it feels as if one is reading a very well constructed, witty, moving long poem, without the boring bits. Excellent." 

On the Thresholds Short Story Forum, Vicki Heath writes: "every word is perfectly placed as she explores the offbeat world we live in." Read the full review here. 

And my friend Jon Pinnock calls MMWAUP " the work of a grown-up writer who has gained the confidence to let her muse off the leash and to follow it wherever it goes, however unexpected that turns out to be. " Read his review here.

Three of the fictions from My Mother Was An Upright Piano: Fictions are featured on the excellent book review site bookoxygen, which describes the book as "56 short, strange fictions which arrive out of left field, bringing warmth, wit and a deliciously off-beat perspective." Read them here.

Sally Zigmund reviews the book on her blog, The Elephant in the Writing Room, saying: "I am sure that everyone who reads this collection will see different colours, shapes and meanings from the ones I have discovered. But isn't that the point? These stories are what the reader brings to them. Reading Tania's fiction is like a being overwhelmed by wave on a deserted January beach that takes you to places you never imagined.  Stunning." Read her full review here.

Over on Goodreads, Berit Ellingsen says: "there is no doubt that Hershman is an expert of the very short story. The themes in the collection are nicely cohesive and the voice and narrative structure well varied. I’ve had the pleasure of reading many of these stories in their individual publication, but reading them all together for a full impression of the author’s warm voice and deft descriptions, was even better." Read the full review. And Roxane Gay says  "The stories that were great ... were truly great. I particularly liked how she was able to warp reality and time in different ways. Hershman is not lacking in imagination and this is definitely a book worth reading." Read the full review. And Annemarie Neary says: "This is a beautifully produced book with an open, elegant feel. The fictions themselves are extraordinary - compact, resonant and highly original." Read the full review.

Thank you to all of the above for taking the time not just to read my book but to express your thoughts and opinions. It is much appreciated.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Short Review April 2009

A short interlude from the existential identity discussions - and back to short stories! I have just posted/published/made my eyes screwy to upload April 2009 Issue of The Short Review. Here is a little about what we have this month:

In Memoriam: The Short Review is deeply saddened by the death of J G Ballard, the author of 22 short story collections and 19 novels. For a taste of Ballardian wonders, read our review of the The Complete Short Stories.





Congratulations! To Elizabeth Strout, winner of this year's Pullitzer Prize for Fiction for Olive Kittredge, a collection of interlinked short stories.

We bring you reviews of ten more this month, from Babylon to big worlds, creatures of the earth, eclipses and unlucky lucky days which are nothing like an ocean, to last night, where our story begins, with a little Javanese and some gay romance.

And, of course, as many author interviews as we can muster - Mary Miller, Jim Tomlinson, Alix Ohlin, Daniel Grandbois, Kiril Bozhinov and Andre Mangeot, ! Happy reading

Reviews: Don't take them for granted

For an author, getting reviewed is not something to be taken for granted. Perhaps if you are published by a big-name publisher and have a great agent - but even then, review space is tight. If you write short stories, if you're published by a small press, unless you do the legwork you may not be reviewed at all, one of the reasons I set up The Short Review. So I am always thrilled when someone chooses to review my book, as Matt Bell and Sally Zigmond have done in the past two weeks. I know how much time it takes to read a book, think about it and then formulate your thoughts into something coherent, so the least I can do is give them a shout here.

What is also wonderful about reviews, as I am learning, is that everyone likes something different. For example, Matt Bell says:

"it's in the longer stories that Hershman's very fine gifts as a storyteller are most obvious. There are certainly exceptions to this observation--one of the strongest stories in the collection is the two-page "Exchange Rate," about a woman only a few pounds of flesh away from what she wants most--but too often the shorter pieces felt like they lacked the length to consistently rise about the admitted cleverness of their concepts."

Sally Zigmond, on the other hand, in a blog post entitled "A Series of Blinding Flashes," says:

"As I now read more novels than short stories, I had expected to prefer the longer stories in this collection to the flash fiction (as some reviewers have) but to me the longer ones were either too long or too short--not quite right for this Goldilocks. The flash fiction, on the other hand, I loved for its brevity, its inventiveness and its poetic quality."

Nothing could be greater for a short story writer, in my opinion, than reviewers who disagree. If everyone agreed that they liked some stories and others were, well... not enjoyable... then a writer might start trying to change what they write based on this, which is dangerous. If everyone finds something they respond to, and each responds to something different, this is exactly as it should be.

Of course, I musn't, as I have been cautioned, take reviews with more than a few pinches of salt. And the more there are, the easier that is to do. Also, the more I am immersed in current projects, the easier it is to simply appreciate the fact of being reviewed and be grateful. So thank you, Matt (whose own collection, How The Broken Lead the Blind, has just begun shipping) and Sally, both of whom regularly review books. We greatly appreciate what you do.

A bad few months made a little sunnier

It's not been a great few months, in fact this year started pretty badly, with illness and anxiety etc..., and has only got slightly better since now I have a space to write and the energy to actually do it, some of the time.

I was quite upset last week to discover, checking my book's Amazon page, that there was a negative review. Welcome to the real world! I hadn't yet experienced someone talking the time and effort to tell people what he didn't like about The White Road and Other Stories. Already not feeling so strong, I took it quite hard, all those initial urges to just burn every copy and disappear into a small hole. It took the help of a number of author friends, some with far worse experiences to share, to get me to calm down and see that the fact that he wrote at the end of the review " after the hype on the internet and in New Scientist, I was expecting something special" is a good thing - it means there was hype!

Ok, so, this morning's post brought me something to make my day a little brighter. Wet Ink, the Australian magazine of New Writing, agreed to review my book since I hold Australian citizenship. The editor, Dominique Wilson, reviewed it herself, and she said:

"This collection exemplifies everything that is best about the short story. With succinctness rarely seen in the work of someone new to fiction, Hershman extracts the very essence of a moment to reveal the poignant fragility of human relationships. ...Extremes of weather is a recurring theme, as is parenthood, but each story is so different from the next that you are tempted to read 'just one more' until you find you have read the whole book in one sitting....Read The White Road and Other Stories. You won't regret it."

Made my day, that has. Silly, of course, that one review can knock me sideways and another can make me grin like an idiot. I wish I could detach a little, but I can't. If anyone knows how, please tell me.

The Short Review February issue

(Cross-posted with The Short Review blog)


Feb 2009 Issue

Not so much love in the air as revenge, lovers' quarrels, and things that pass for love, but with one happy man who may have been kissed by....under the old devil moon. And some twisted tales, which may make you mad to live for one more year, or drive you to drinking coffee elsewhere.

To foreshadow March's Small Press month, seven reviews of collections from the independent publishers who keep the short story alive and deserve our admiration and support. More in March.

Reviews

Things that Pass for Love, by Allison Amend
Let's Call the Whole Thing Off, edited by Kasia Boddy, Ali Smith and Sarah Wood
A Happy Man by Axel Thormählen
One More Year, by Sana Krasikov
Old Devil moon by Christopher Fowler
Mad to Live, by Randall Brown
Kissed By, by Alexandra Chasin
Getting Even: Revenge Stories edited by Mitzi Szereto
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
Twisted Tails III: Pure Fear edited by J. Richard Jacobs
Interviews

Allison Amend, Randall Brown, Alexandra Chasin, Christopher Fowler, Mitzi Szereto and Axel Thormählen tell us how they write, what they might ask someone who has read their book, and what "story" means to them.

Head over there. Happy reading!

Tania

Two Short Review story collections in Top Ten Books to Talk About in 2009

(Cross-posted with The Short Review blog)

The first round of voting has ended and I'm delighted that two short story collections we spotted first, Alison MacLeod's Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction and Sophie Hannah's The Fantastic Book of Everybody's Secrets, are in the final Ten of Spread the Word's Books to Talk About. Two short story collections in the top ten is excellent news for short story lovers!

Now let's take it all the way...The second round of voting, to find The Book To Talk About for World Book Day on March 5th, is now open, so do go and cast your vote (again, if you voted in the first round). Links below to reviews of the two collections.

A New Review and... the Final Leg of My Virtual Book Tour!

The White Road and Other Stories has been reviewed by Jen Michalski in the Winter Issue of the JMWW Journal, and a very nice review it is too:

" Hershman's other strength is her ability to keep the reader on her toes. She weaves the warbly, neon threads of magical realism together with the steel rods of science, and the effect often is very satisfying."

Read the full review here.

And - I have arrived at the final stop on my Virtual Book Tour, at Debi Alper's blog (which I invite you to read more of, she is a very fine writer and very candid about her life and her writing).

Debi and I talk about living here in Israel, how where you live might affect your work, where and in what time I would liked to live if not now... and the often overwhelming pace of modern life. A snippet:

I have to say that I do have a yearning to be born at a time when I could be part of a writers’ group like the Bloomsbury group or any group who got together on a regular basis to thrash out ideas and inspire each other. And not just artists but scientists too. I remember visiting the Kafka museum in Prague a few years ago and being jealous of his particular set of intellectual buddies (I don't think there were any women). This doesn't happen any more, or not anywhere in my vicinity. Yes, there are blogs etc.., but I yearn for those dimly-lit, smoky cafes and intense discussions about philosophy, physics, creativity, art.

For the full interview, the last chance to hear me talking about me me me for a while (!), click here. Thank you to Debi and all the other hosts on my Virtual Book Tour who were curious and interested, asked excellent questions and gave their own thoughts. All the interviews are still online, just in case you missed one.

It's been thoroughly enjoyable... time to retreat a little from the spotlight, I am sure a writer is supposed to be doing something, now what was it..? Umm, ...writing? Ah yes.

The Short Review has gift ideas

(Cross-posted with The Short Review blog)


Need gift ideas for the holidays? Look no further, everything you need is in The Short Review's December issue: we have ten short story collections and anthologies to recommend, which wend their way from Cyprus to New York to North Dakota, from the past to the future, from music to magic, fantasy to erotica, monkeys, with much flash fiction and a helping of humour.

Reviews:
Ledra Street by Nora Nadjarian

The Past Through Tomorrow by Robert Heinlein

New York Echoes by Warren Adler

Dirty Girls edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel

The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke

Dial M for Monkey by Adam Maxwell

Space Magic by David D. Levine

Months and Seasons by Christopher Meeks

As in Music by Kathy Page

Night Train by Lise Erdrich

And seven author interviews, with
Nora Nadjarian
Warren Adler
Adam Maxwell
David D. Levine
Christopher Meeks
Kathy Page
Lise Erdrich

It's all here.

Happy New Year, may 2009 be filled with great reading (and many short stories!)

Tania

New Scientist Best Books of 2008

I found out yesterday that this morning The White Road and Other Stories was going to be reviewed in New Scientist's Christmas Books Special: Best of 2008. The print edition is in the shops today, it is also online. This is the whole review:

THE title story in this book is everything fiction should be: inspiring, moving, comical, provocative and heartbreaking - and all that in just seven and a half pages. The rest of the stories in this collection are similarly remarkable. Some are also remarkably short: Go Away is, essentially, a well-told joke (and laugh-out-loud funny). Hershman's economy with words cloaks her subtlety and power, though: a second reading uncovers hidden moments in each story. Inspired by scientific progress and science journalism, including articles in New Scientist, and driven by an author dripping with talent, this is as good as modern reading gets.

Those are my italics at the end. I won't rant on here, but this is for me the dream upon the dream coming true. First the book is published, then New Scientist, whose articles inspired half the stories, likes it and decides to reprint the title story. And now... they include it in their Best of 2008! And the reviewer, Michael Brooks, says crazy things like this is as good as modern reading gets.

I don't know what to say.

It is hard to accept that he is talking about my stories. But I will try hard to accept it. Or maybe I shouldn't. As a wise reviewer said to me, read the review, smile, let it go. Because otherwise I might just go wobbly. And how can I hold my (metaphoric) pen and write if I am wobbling??

Leaving France & Second Review of The White Road

I am leaving France today after my three week stay and so I thought I would write a little more about my experiences. I had high expectations, extraordinarily high, due to having been spoiled - twice - by my stays at the Anam Cara writers retreat. Compared to Anam Cara I would describe La Muse, which is in a beautiful setting, very isolated, amazing views, more as "self-catering accomodation for writers and artists", which is different from a cushioned and all-catered retreat. It's not a place where you can think only of your writing, your characters, your plot knots and tangles - there are fires to be lit to keep warm, and three meals a day to be thought out. I didn't "do" all the work I thought I wanted to, but I did sleep a lot, and meet four wonderful people, Cynthia, Adrian, Susan and S, and we five conjured up that magical space of creativity, inspiration, writing and reading, sharing and eating that is what this is all about! Thank you, all four of you, for co-creating this space, in which we cooked together, read to each other, did flash-writing sessions, laughed a lot, drank quite a bit (I introduced them to some great Israeli wine!), and gave the Scrabble board a strenuous workout! A retreat really is only as good as your fellow retreaters, and this really was a wonderful group.
Today I am leaving, and looking forward to reuniting with J, and to going to the Momaya Press short story awards in London tomorrow, and to meeting Sue Guiney on Wednesday, and to finding myself a cupcake, and to hanging out with my family members, and then, then, to be going home, via a convoluted flight plan which involves three take-offs and landings, but will be fine.
To speed me on my way, a second and cheek-reddeningly glowing review for The White Road and Other Stories, from John Lloyd at The BookBag.A little snippet:

There are small links and connections between some of the stories that can be found, if one wants to look for them, but on the whole the book is tempered by the author's excellent ability to bring the global down to a personal level. What is life but for us responding to human biology, the weather, the spirit and energy of the world? That's exactly what Hershman has done, and what she makes her characters do...this collection is one of those rare instances of a sustained brilliance, introducing to me a true artist with a high degree of quality control. I will be eagerly looking for more published works from her – of any length.

Read the rest of the review here on the The BookBag.

My first review: LabLit

I have been waiting eagerly for my first review, especially from a publication which deals with fiction and science, and here it is: Amy Charles on LabLit. And I must say I am thrilled. But not because it is universally glowing and positive (it isn't), but because it is a beautifully-written and thoughtful review that I can clearly see engaged with my stories and pondered them, the characters, the content, the settings, the structure, and put them in the context of other fiction/art, whether "science-inspired" or not. She says:

Take the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Doctor Atomic – it’s got an elaborate and very pretty backdrop, patterned on the boxes of the periodic table, with formulae scrawled in light on a scrim; but when I saw it in the New York Times’ video, I saw no particular meaning in it beyond “atomic science here”, and when I heard the director say “I know nothing about science”, I thought: “Science-decorator.” Tania Hershman does better. She’s not a scientist, nor a science-decorator. Instead she’s an interested, dreaming science observer who pays serious and at times myopic attention to sci-tech news stories and considers what they might mean, how people might live with them if handed them like a lump of clay.

While she enjoyed many of the stories, Amy Charles talks candidly about the ones she didn't connect with:

Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain blooms sickly with the living, dreaming meanings of tuberculosis, and of the tuberculosis patient; Thomas Pynchon's Gravity’s Rainbow turns the Poisson distribution into an object of sex-entangled terror. So is Hershman a new Mann? No; neither is she, I think, the new Atwood or Bradbury her blurbists claim her to be. The stories are uneven, and the workmanlike, deadline-driven reporter is still fighting with the poet. Too often she writes over the surface of the plot (this happens, then that happens, and y looks like z) without getting beneath to a transformative dream or an emotionally arresting moment, getting by on snap and rhythm. The stories take place in familiar but abstracted nowheres – a bedroom, an office, a hill – with the places in a story not necessarily joining at any seams, and this gives the strange, untethered effect of photo montage. Hershman gets by with it, but I get the feeling that the strategy is a workaround for having trouble setting short-short stories more concretely.

Interesting, the last point. I won't debate it, I will consider it for a while. She rounds off the review on a more positive note:

What saves most of Hershman’s stories is the fact that she writes well and with a coherent sense of dream, so that even the stories that most remind me of Mondino’s video of Bjork stabbing a doll (“Violently Happy”) are literate and well-made. ....Throughout the stories runs a novelty, a grown woman’s voice telling frank, taboo stories about motherhood and other facts of womanhood. They aren’t comic poses; they aren’t breathy sentimental vignettes. A woman hides from her son, whom she thinks stupid and dislikes. Narrators talk without any attempt at self-delusion or at ingratiating themselves of the burdens of sex, fertility, men, childrearing. As I read, I thought how well Hershman does it and how unusual it is, and what a pity that it should be so in contemporary fiction.

The whole review actually moved me, this is a reviewer who really took the time to look deeply into my stories, and I feel that she "got" what I was trying (consciously or unconsciously) to touch on, to get at, even if it didn't always move her. What I am discovering as friends tell me about their experiences reading the book is that every single story has at least one fan - everyone connects with something different. If there had been one or two stories that everyone mentioned as their favourites, I would worry. But every person who wants to talk to me mentions a different story. And who could ask for more than that?

What a wonderful first review to start me off. Thank you Amy, thank you LabLit. Read the full review here.

6 days to go...and I have found Wordscraper!

My most heartfelt gratitude and undying love to Sara, who introduced me to Wordscraper on Facebook, basically the Scrabulous' creators dodgy way to keep Scrabulous by another name, and slightly alter the rules. Yay! Distraction is back! Now I can write....I feel so relieved.

Just had an email from my lovely publisher, Jen, at Salt. The books arrive today, and she'll zip me over a copy so I can wake up with it on Sept 1st. Can't wait. It's real. It's really real. Ok, shut up.

I also sent her the list of 15 or so very wonderful people who have asked for/agreed to receive review copies in order for them to say something about my book, including the already-mentioned and always-fabulous Sara (Sara, today's blog post is all you you you). I am deeply thrilled at the prospect of reviews, but also curious and nervous to see what they might say. I don't expect all of them to like all of it, or even some of them to like all of it... I think I'd even be disappointed if the reviews weren't in some way less than positive. I encourage my Short Reviewers to be honest, fair, balanced, and several authors who have received these sorts of reviews have written to thank me, and the reviewer, for the honesty. I believe myself - pre-review - to be one of this kind of author, and would like the chance to find out. Bring it on!

The Short Review Issue 10 Aug 2008 - competition!

A truly international theme: three collections from Down Under, Chinese short-shorts in honour of the Olympics, stories of Filipino Americans. Also: two shots of science fiction, two authors with middle initials, a "bracing" anthology and a liberal sprinkling of fabulist fantasy. All available at The Short Review.

And here's your chance to win one of this month's books: Paddy O'Reilly's stunning debut collection The End of the World. Visit The Short Review blog for more details.

The Short Review Issue 8 June 2008

(Cross-posted with The Short Review blog)

Issue 8 June 2008 of The Short Review is now up - lots of ideas for summer reading if you're in the northern hemisphere and books to keep you warm in the winter months if you're down south.

This month's issue is brought to you by the numbers 3, 13 and 18. There are phantasms, bodies, apologies and meetings, a bumper seven author interviews, some lies, some truths, some very tiny gems, a little fantasy and a lot of great writing.

New Reviews:

You Have Time for This
a celebration of the richness that can be packed into the brevity of five hundred words or less...
ed Mark Budman

Ryan Seacrest is Famous
A successful blend of pop culture and lad lit.....
by Dave Housley

Balancing on the Edge of the World
A temperament both in control and struggling with private rage, corrosive humour, then a gentle, dry empathy....
by Elizabeth Baines

The Dream Lover
He describes the miserable burdens of humanity, but his approach is humorous, not grim – a bit like Graham Greene with jokes...
by William Boyd

How They Met
Teens fall in and out of love and lust while navigating the minefields of school, parental expectation and sexuality
by David Levithan

13 Phantasms & Other Stories
A smorgasbord of Blaylock's best short fiction
by James P. Blaylock

Apologies Forthcoming A sensual immersion in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, with stories that expose the everyday hardships of citizens...
by Xujun Eberlein

Bodies in Motion
The first collection I read for which the label novel-in-stories felt appropriate.
by Mary Anne Mohanraj

18 Lies and 3 Truths: 2007 StoryQuarterly Annual
An assortment of stories, some of which sparkled more than others, especially those from newer writers whose trajectories are surely on the rise.
ed by Tom Jenks, Carol Edgarian, MMM Hayes

The Cusp of Something
An original and often beautifully written collection, which challenges and occasionally frustrates readers with its lyrical prose and complex characters.
by Jai Clare

Author Interviews:

"I very consciously organized the order of the stories, with the one page fictions teaching the reader that Black Tickets was an unusual book"

Jayne Anne Phillips, Black Tickets

"I chose what I consider my best stories – and those with some kind of thematic development."

Jai Clare, The Cusp of Something

"I constantly worry about boring the reader. I think this psychology helps me developing a more captivating plot and pace"

Xujun Eberlein, Apologies Forthcoming

"When writing Bodies in Motion, my advisor, looking at an early draft, said that I seemed to be writing for white people, because I was doing a lot of explaining of Sri Lankan culture.That really startled me,..."

Mary Anne Mohanraj, Bodies in Motion

"It honestly blows my mind to imagine what my junior-year-of-high-school self would have thought had someone told him the story he was writing would be published twenty years later in a collection by Knopf... and that it would be his eighth book"

David Levithan, How They Met

"Jennifer [the publisher] also strongly encouraged me to make the story Bare the first story, so the first four words of my collection are 'I shaved my balls...'."

Dave Housley, Ryan Seacrest is Famous

"It was interesting to see the different ways in which my stories "talked" to each other according to the order in which I placed the rest of them – creating different rhythms of mood or style or situation.."

Elizabeth Baines, Balancing on the Edge of the World