Short Story Event Ticket Giveaway!

I will no longer be chairing this event due to the loss of my beautiful cat, but please do go, she is a wonderful writer.

I am incredibly honoured to be "in conversation" at Jewish Book Week in London on Feb 27th with renowned American short story writer Edith Pearlman, whose 4th collection, Binocular Vision, was published in 2011 - and was reviewed by Sarah Hilary on The Short Review. I've just republished the review on the site as part of our From the Archive feature. Sarah says of the collection:

On the middle shelf of my bookcase I have two piles of books, side by side. One is two feet deep and represents twelve novels I’ve yet to read. The other pile is for short story collections, and has just one book at present: this one. I’ll have read more stories, met more characters, laughed and cried and sighed more often reading this one collection than all the novels put together. Such is the skill of the author.

I whole-heartedly agree. I love this book - all her stories, actually. Edith should be far far better known worldwide - but this is her first UK event, and frankly it is unmissable for anyone who loves great stories, of all lengths. I can't wait to ask her questions about her writing and chat about stories!

And for you, my dear blog readers, I have one FREE ticket to give away! All you need to do is express interest here in the comments section and I will pick a winner on Feb 20th, giving the lucky winner a week to make travel arrangements and the rest of you time to get your hands on a ticket. If you want to read one of Edith's stories, try Capers, published in Ascent. Hope to see you on the 27th!

Guest editor for the next issue of the Ilanot Review

I have just been asked to be guest fiction editor for  the next issue of the excellent Ilanot Review, an Israeli journal of creative writing in English that is calling for international submissions which are right up my street. Please do send me something to read! Here are the details: 

The theme of our Spring/Summer 2013 edition is:

Sentences

Submission period: February 1, 2013 – April 30, 2013

We are looking for hybrid literary texts: flash fiction, prose poems, stories and memoirs in verse, lyrical essays, graphic poems, and mixtures of your own creation. This issue views genre as an affiliation, rather than a fixed point of identification. We are interested in works which, rather than replicate existing literary structures, take features from multiple literary genres and subvert them in order to create a new entity.

The malleable territory of improvisation, self-invention and disjunction of texts that are “neither this nor that,” or rather, “both this and that,” has long been used by writers whose identity cannot be defined by one single category alone. The term “hybridity” describes the dislocation of the subjective “I” in the world of the twenty-first century. Hybrid literature speaks to the increasingly heterogeneous nature of countries and societies. It invites a diversity that celebrates dialogue and exchange across checkpoints, national boundaries, languages and disciplines. We look forward to discovering the way this theme inspires you, and to reading your work.

We welcome submissions of the following:

(but only one submission (for poetry – this means up to six poems) per genre)

• Poetry − up to six poems –Please submit all work + bio in a single Word file. Submit up to six poems, with one poem per page. Poets: Please include your name and contact information on each page.
• Fiction – up to 5000 words
• Creative non-fiction – up to 5000 words

We also welcome translations of original work, providing the translator has obtained permission from the author. Previously unpublished translations preferred. Be sure to include the original poem/story in Word format. 
Please Note:

• Do include a short bio (50 -75 words) with your submission.
• We will consider simultaneous submissions provided that you indicate this upon submission and retract your work immediately if it is accepted for publication elsewhere.

We are now using an online submissions manager.
To submit your work, click here: Submit to The Ilanot Review

Writers and Artists Yearbook Short Story Competition

I am honoured to be the final judge of this competition on the theme of "freedom" - closing date Feb 15th so get your skates on! You know what I like. Great stories. Of all shapes and stripes, voices, sizes. Surprise me. 2000 words is the MAXIMUM but short short is always sweet sweet. The comp is in association with the fabulous Liars League live lit night, and League actors will also be performing the shortlisted entries at the prizegiving in March.

Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2013 Short Story Competition

  
                          For published and aspiring writers alike - enter the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2013 short story competition and you could win:

• a cash prize of £500

• a place on an Arvon Foundation residential writing course of your choice*

• publication of your story on the Writers' & Artists' website

We're offering you the chance to win £500, plus a place on an Arvon writing course of your choice! All you have to do is enter a short story (for adults) of no more than 2,000 words, on the theme of 'freedom' and email it to  shortstorycompetition@bloomsbury.com

with "WAYB13 competition" as the subject line.

The closing date is 15 February 2013.

The Arvon Foundation runs four historic writing houses in the UK, where published writers lead week-long residential courses. Covering a diverse range of genres, from poetry and fiction to screenwriting and comedy, Arvon courses have provided inspiration to thousands of people at all stages of their writing lives. Find out more and book a course online at www.arvonfoundation.org Don't forget to read the full details, terms and conditions before you enter. Please remember to register on www.writersandartists.co.uk before submitting your entry. Good luck! 

Bits of news, interview and poetry

Quick check-in, I haven't been much in a blogging mood recently, but do have something I want to discuss, when I have mulled it over. In the meantime, some tidbits: I'm interviewed over at the excellent UK Booktrust reading and writing charity today. Their tagline is "inspiring a love of books" and they do such great work, please take a wander around their site. I'm chatting about short stories, poetry, writing. Here's a snippet;

I read everything. EVERYTHING. As a kid I read the backs of cereal packs during breakfast, I couldn't stop reading. If it is well-written, I'll read it (okay, cereal boxes not so much): fiction, poetry, non-fiction, whatever. But for me only the short story is actually capable of perfection, and I know that because I have read many stories I consider perfect. They cause me physical pain when I read them, and that's what I want from great writing. To be shaken up, to be a different person, when I finish reading a story, even if that story is half a page long. And the best short stories do that, again and again and again. Who wouldn't be addicted to that kind of experience? I tell anyone who says that short stories leave them unsatisfied, wanting more, that they clearly have never read a really great story, because they wouldn't feel like that. No way. 

 On the subject of poetry, I have two poems in the British poetry journal Tears in the Fence, which is my first appearance in a print poetry journal, I feel like it's a really momentous event for me. The poems are a sort of sequence (can two be a sequence?) which is also a first, and they are imaginatively titled "1" and "2". Must get better at titles. So, the year of poetry is going very well.

I wanted to leave you with this, which is part of what I want to talk more about, but here, watch this video for a start, maybe this will kick of a discussion:

And We Were Hungry Short Story Contest

I received an email from these nice folk asking me to give them a shout-out on the blog. While I can't vouch for them, I have no connection to the magazine or the competition, it does sound interesting, and with no entry fee and a large prize, I will leave it up to you to decide!

AndWeWereHungry, a new online arts & literary magazine, seeks literary prose (fiction, nonfiction and essay), poetry, photography and artwork for debut issue & calls for entries to its short story competition!

The debut issue and short story contest (four winners shall share a total prize fund of $5000), is sponsored by "Ashes & Snow" artist Gregory Colbert. Debut issue & contest submission theme or creative prompt is "And we were hungry. . . .," or more broadly, "HUNGER." For after all haven't we all experienced hunger? And isn't it, in the words of Ray Bradbury, that very "lack that gives us inspiration?"

Consideration for contest's top prize of $2000 is reserved for stories that connect the theme with nature. Contributors are encouraged to otherwise freely interpret the theme. Submission deadline is March 31, 2013. Submission Guidelines, more info and themes & deadlines for future issues are found at http://andwewerehungry.org. While there are no contest entry or submissions reading fees, we are not a paying market at this time.

Poetry longlisting!

So, my year of poetry is going pretty well - my poem Me and Elvis Presley on Dartmoor, has been longlisted for the Gregory O'Donogue poetry prize! Congratulations to the winner, Judith Barrington, the other prize winners, the commended and the longlisted, I am in fine company!

Overheard Launch Video

So I am only just getting used to, well, appearing on film! And I thought I wouldn't want to watch the video made of the launch last week of the excellent Overheard anthology of Stories to Read Aloud (Salt Publishing), but actually, it's great, and I think I did okay, so here it is! I'm 29 mins in, but don't skip those 29 mins, such a fabulous range of stories, from the editor Jonathan Taylor, and contributors including Vanessa Gebbie, Micheline Wandor, Katy Derby, Ailsa Cox, Gemma Seltzer, Felicity Skelton - and and so many others...




Buy the book here!

Literature for Social Change

I wanted to direct your attention towards a blog post by my wise and talented friend Sue Guiney. It's a reprint of her article in the recent issue of "The Author", the magazine of the UK's Society of Authors, and its subject is literature for social change. What Sue wrote really made me think, and her topic is an important one, especially in this strange time here in the UK where the new school leaving exam seems to be dropping Arts subjects. Here's a taster of what happened after Sue's 2nd novel, A Clash of Innocents, set in Cambodia, was published:

I am a writer. I write stories about people I make up. So that should have been the end of it, right? Wrong, because the best part of the story was yet to come.

Many of us are lucky enough to go off and be inspired. Some of us can then create something out of that inspiration. But I realised I was one of the happy few who could bring the fruit of that inspiration back to the people who inspired me in the first place. And so I connected with a shelter in Siem Reap called Anjali House, which provides support for street kids and their families, and through them I founded a writing workshop for their teenagers. There I teach them to write poetry and stories in English, we publish a literary magazine, and then we hold a party where the kids stand up in front of a room of supporters and read from their work. I am now committed to running this programme three times a year, once on-site in Siem Reap, the other times via the internet.

When I came back to London from Cambodia after first setting up the workshop, everyone congratulated me. ‘What an incredible thing you’ve done!’ they all said. ‘How did you ever think of it?’ Everyone was amazed. But I was amazed by their reaction. I didn’t do anything special. I didn’t believe there was anything unusual about me that led to this attempt at social change.

... Read the rest of Sue's article here, and leave your thoughts on writing and social activism, it's something really worth discussing.

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.

Holiday MMWAUP offer

Okay, so, the thing is, I find it much easier to promote and gush about other people's books rather than my own (I'm working on that, I feel another blog post coming on) but if you did fancy buying a copy of My Mother Was An Upright Piano: Fictions for this holiday season, I have a special offer for you: for just the cover price (£9.99) + postage, I will not only sign the book for you, I will handwrite an extra 57th story (not about Heinz beans...) into the book! How does that sound?

If you'd like to take up this time-limited offer (see, I'm getting into the sales lingo), you've got til Twelfth Night, January 5th... All you need to do is email me at tania@taniahershman.com and a unique copy will be winging its way to you, your loved one or someone you are taking revenge on through very short fictions... Okay? Right. Job done.

Bookish Gift Ideas...

So, I've been immensely honoured over the past few years to be asked to contribute an endorsement to a range of wonderful books. I take the task of blurbing very seriously, it takes me a long time, for me a blurb is almost a story in itself, and as I've seen from the amazing  blurbs I was lucky enough to get, they can really give a great impression of what is in the book. So, if you're looking for presents to buy this festive season, here are all the books - in no particular order - that I've blurbed, with my blurbs - I highly recommend them all!

Dot Dash by Jon Pinnock

In these wonderful short, very short and very very short stories, Jonathan Pinnock takes aim at all the foibles and vanities we think we succeed in hiding. Not content to just pull back the curtain, Pinnock sets fire to it and chuckles as it blazes. Yet he also executes something of a conjuring trick, making us laugh, but also making us feel, think. Like Nana, whose granddaughter recreates Cairo in her bedroom for her before she dies, we fabricate our own reality: we see and hear what we want and ignore what we don't. Dot Dash is sending us a message, and yes, it may be through yellow plastic ducks, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't listen. 

Beneath the Liquid Skin by Berit Ellingsen

Berit Ellingsen is no ordinary wordsmith but a weaver of silken tapestories, lush and burning with both ancient ache and postmodern playfulness. Mixing myth and astronomy, desire and other appetites, and dancing on the thread that slips between poetry and prose, Ellingsen stitches every word in perfect service to her utterly beautiful and dreamlike stories.

The Baghdad Fixer by Ilene Prusher

A journalist's fixer is a go-between in so many senses: linguistic, cultural. The fixer straddles borders and boundaries, helping each try to communicate with the Other. Ilene Prusher conjurs this so beautifully in her stunning, thrilling debut, as Nabil, an Iraqi English teacher with a poetic soul, is drawn into the unfamiliar, learning as much about his own country and people as about the world in which Samarra, the American journalist who has hired him, moves so easily. A unique novel, The Baghdad Fixer's compelling plot is combined with poignant and difficult insights into the life and tragedies of ordinary Iraqis during the war. This is not just a wonderful read, it is an important book for helping us, too, to begin to understand the Other.

Fakakt: Melissa Morris and The Meaning of Sex by Jasmine Schwartz

I love Melissa Morris. The most unlikely heroine of a murder mystery, she's insecure, worried about her failing love life, her job prospects and her fashion sense. Yet when, on a trip to Rome in pursuit of errant boyfriend Colin, she is wrongfully arrested for murder, does she sit in a cell, weeping? She does not. She promptly escapes to track down the real murderer and clear her name. In a city she's not familiar with and a language she doesn't speak. That's more than plucky, and it makes for the unputdownable story of an amateur detective who could be any one of us, stumbling around atmospheric Italian streets trying to piece the plot together. I dare you not to fall in love with Jasmine Schwartz's Melissa Morris too. She may believe she's "fakakt" but I think she's fabulous!

Enough by Valerie O'Riordan

Valerie O'Riordan puts to shame the puffed-up and the oversized with her beautiful, brief and brutal fictions. Each word is worth a hundredweight, each story a full world. O'Riordan is a true original, fierce and fearless, she will travel anywhere for a great story. I can't wait for more!

Storm Warning by Vanessa Gebbie

Both haunted and haunting, Vanessa Gebbie's protagonists in these unsettling stories move through the present but remain always tethered to the past. No war stories these, but explorations of what it means to “survive” the conflicts and horrors created by humans across centuries and continents. Like Pat Barker, Gebbie gives voice to those who cannot forget, even decades later, who was taken and and what was lost in the blood and mud. Gebbie's strength lies in her poetic and poignant combination of reality and dream, the weaving together of outer experience and inner turbulence, and the small sparks of hope even in the darkest corners.

Hot Kitchen Snow by Susannah Rickards

The stories in this quietly powerful collection are populated by characters you care about from the opening sentence, children and adults whose lives you slip into in the midst of action. For Rickards, action is something as ordinary as a mother wondering whether to leave her children alone for five minutes or a dog-food salesman looking for meaning in his life; as magical as the father who kidnaps the moon for his daughter; or as quirky as the overweight dance administrator persuaded to put on a sari and take an Indian dance class. Whatever the context, Rickards’ stories grip and flow onwards, tiny twists and revelations exposing the undersides of life, both glowing and dark. This book will entertain, provoke, shock and surprise you in all the ways a great short story collection should.

In the Spirit of Phineas McLata by Lauri Kubuitsile

Lauri Kubuitsile's stories are sweet, salty, colourful, hot, and unforgettable. Botswana-flavoured and pregnant with atmosphere, Kubuitsile's writing slips easily between the real and the magical, between death and life, love and sex, humour and darkness, friendship and family. Just as McPhineas Lata wove his seductive spell on the village women, so too will these stories bewitch and enchant.

Housewife With A Half Life by Alison Wells

AB Wells is not only a supremely talented writer but also something of an alchemist. Housewife With a Half Life is wondrously original and imaginative, combining the travails of domesticity with glorious scientific allusions and illusions in a fast-paced and sparkling tale of a wife and mother who discovers she is losing herself, and the stranger from another dimension who turns up as she's cleaning the bathroom to make sure it doesn't happen. A wild ride, this nuclear fusion of a novel is, underneath it all, the story of relationships, of family, of what it means to be a mother, a wife, a woman, and, ultimately, a human being. Move over H.G., A B Wells has written the time-travelling tale for the 21st century!

Veronica Britton by Niall Boyce

I could say that Niall Boyce's fiction is X meets Y meets Z, but that would be doing it a severe injustice because it is a fabulously imaginative and unique combination of elements. Here we have historical fiction meets science fiction meets fantasy with a dash of philosophy and a sprinkling of feminism. I was captivated by chronic detective Veronica Britton and her sidekick, superheroines in every sense of the word, saving the world time and again, in and out of time. I was only sorry when I turned the last page and had to leave their exploits. Am eagerly awaiting the next one!

All the Bananas I've Never Eaten by Tony Williams

Tony Williams has a special talent for assembling the magical out of the mundane - whether that be pub carpets, satnavs, mattresses or bananas. These short short stories often deal in pain, in death, in loss and loneliness, in absence, in anger and in shame, but Williams always makes sure that fragments of hope emerge, like the music of an oboe, that short burst of happiness that lights up the dark.

I hope I haven't forgotten anyone! Right, that's your lot, something there for everyone, I think!

The Book Stops Here Tomorrow Night!

I am so excited about reading at The Book Stops Here tomorrow night in London - because alongside me (or rather, above me) on the bill is ALI SMITH. Ali Smith, author of many award winning short story collections and novels... and one of the two main reasons I started writing short stories in the first place. Her stories and Roald Dahl's. That was what did it for me. Roald Dahl's stories when I was a child showed me the power of what can be done in a few pages, to shock and surprise. Then, years later, Ali Smith showed me the more intimate side of the short stories, ones that don't need blood, murder and policemen in order to be just as powerful, often as shocking. 

She has also been personally very supportive - I was taught by her and Toby Litt on an Arvon course in 2006 and she basically said what you would imagine in your wildest dreams that one of your gurus would say to you: "You are a writer. You can do this". Talking about permissions in an earlier post - what could be a greater permission than that - not just permission, but instruction!

Anyway, I am blogging about this in advance to try and reduce the chances of me being all fangirl-ish tomorrow night, must remain professional. Ha! Also on the bill are Joe Stretch and Essie Fox, whose writings I am not yet familiar with, I can't wait. Do come! Here are the full details

On Monday, December 10 we’ll be bringing you a very special festive* episode of The Book Stops Here (*readings may or may not actually be festive).

ALI SMITH, whose latest book Artful is part essay, part lecture, part genre-bending fiction and a loving ode to everything from Oliver Twist to Wislawa Szymborska. Daniel Hahn in the Independent on Sunday raved that it’s “Smart, allusive, informal, playful, audacious. (It’s true. I think I am in love with Ali Smith.)” Join the club, Dan. Join the club.

JOE STRETCH, reading from The Adult, which is part hilarious novel, part ode to a 90s childhood – “I knew from the first page that this was going to be a very funny book, but I didn’t realise it would have so much heart and be so beautiful” says TBSH favourite Evie Wyld.

TANIA HERSHMAN, a contributor to the STILL anthology and the latest issue of Five Dials, reading from her new collection, My Mother Was An Upright Piano – praised last week by the TLS for its “quirky, often funny focus on small-scale human oddities, anxieties and misunderstandings.”

And ESSIE FOX, the brains behind the Virtual Victorian blog and author of two Victorian novels, The Somnambulist and her most recent, Elijah’s Mermaid, which the Guardian compares to Wilkie Collins AND early Sarah Waters and says “the glee with which Fox approaches her material is infectious.” So get ready to be infected!

With books and holiday spirit. 7.30pm for drinks, 8pm for the good stuff, on Monday, December 10 at the Alley Cat bar, 4 Denmark Street.

Jon Pinnock on Writing & Place

I'm delighted to welcome the excellent and talented Jon Pinnock to the blog today. Jon is the author of one of the few books that has ever had me laughing out loud, Mrs Darcy Versus the Aliens, a hilarious (and erudite) mashup of, well, Jane Austen and extraterrestrials! Jon and I chatted about that book here. Today, Jon is here because he has a brand new book, his first short story collection, Dot Dash (Salt Publishing). Congratulations! 

I was honoured that Jon asked me to provide a "blurb" for the book, and here's what I said:

In these wonderful short, very short and very very short stories, Jonathan Pinnock takes aim at all the foibles and vanities we think we succeed in hiding. Not content to just pull back the curtain, Pinnock sets fire to it and chuckles as it blazes. Yet he also executes something of a conjuring trick, making us laugh, but also making us feel, think. Like Nana, whose granddaughter recreates Cairo in her bedroom for her before she dies, we fabricate our own reality: we see and hear what we want and ignore what we don't. Dot Dash is sending us a message, and yes, it may be through yellow plastic ducks, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't listen.

 
I recommend this collection highly, as you can tell. Very highly. I thought as part of Jon's virtual book tour, I'd ask him my Writing& Place questionnaire, and he could use that to tell us a bit more about his writing. Here goes:

View from Jon's Window

Tania: Where are you? 
Jon: I live in a converted windmill in deepest Somerset. On a good day, I can just about see Glastonbury Tor from my office window. On other days, I just, like, feel the vibes.

 

T: How long have you been there?
J: We moved here about six months ago after a long and sustained campaign by my wife to get me to realise the merits of living in the country. Having finally made the move, my only regret is that I didn't give in years ago.

T: What do you write? 
J: I mainly write short stories and poems, and my first short story collection, "Dot Dash", was published by Salt in November. A couple of years ago, I did also somehow manage to complete a novel, Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens, and that was published by Proxima in September 2011. I've also recently completed an offbeat non-fiction memoir-type thing that is currently out on submission. As a writer, I'll try my hand at almost anything, mainly just to see if I can. Among the various projects languishing at the back of an old sock drawer are a very strange ultra-short radio play that earned me an interview in Broadcasting House in 1992 (which I completely failed to capitalise on), as well as several failed attempts at kids' books from the same period. One of these days, I'll find one thing to do and give it 100% focus. Although it will almost certainly turn out to be the wrong thing.

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

Another view from Jon's window

J: Very good question. Usually I would say that most of my writing process goes on in my head, uninfluenced by my surroundings. However, over the last six months, the fact of having moved house has had a massive effect on my writing, in that I've spent an inordinate time unpacked boxes and sorting out stuff INSTEAD of writing. However, once everything's nice and settled, I'm hoping that the fact that we're surrounded by fields will provide ample opportunities for taking long walks and getting inspired by Mother Nature. Alternatively, it may simply provide ample opportunities for taking long walks instead of writing. Basically, the jury's still out.

Thank you so much, Jon, what a view! Dot Dash, was published by Salt in November - buy the paperback here, find out more on the book's website and more about Jon on his. And if you are of the ebook persuasion, Dot Dash is available for only 0.77p for your Kindle today! And you can read other authors' Writing & Place interviews here.

Congratulations, Vanessa!

I can't resist talking about my very talented friend, especially since she is offline right now at a writing retreat... so it's up to me to say

CONGRATULATIONS

to Vanessa Gebbie, already a prize-winning short story writer and novelist, for winning FIRST PRIZE in the Troubadour Poetry Competition! Is there no end to her talents? I suspect there isn't! I'm so proud of her, she's only been writing poetry for a few years, and this prize comes with a very nice cheque for £2,500, which will buy quite a bit of cake when she and I next meet for a writerly chat! She's a true inspiration, I'm raising a glass! Cheers! Read her winning poem here.

Here's the full list of prizewinners, congratulations to all!

• First Prize, £2500: ‘Immensi Tremor Oceani’, Vanessa Gebbie, East Sussex
• Second Prize, £500: The Teenage Existential, Paul Stephenson, London
• Third Prize, £250: Explaining the Plot of ‘Blade Runner’ to my Mother who has Alzheimer’s: C.J. Allen, Notts

and, with prizes of £20 each:

• Horse As Accordion, Nicky Arscott, Powys
• A Tale from the Town Maze, Mike Barlow, Lancaster
• East 17th Street or How I Met My Husband, Mara Bergman, Tunbridge Wells
• The Third Umpire, Judy Brown, London
• The Ledge, Miles Cain, York
• Brood, Claudia Daventry, St. Andrews
• The Language of Memory (The Bees), Gerrie Fellows, Glasgow
• Lost, Rebecca Goss, Liverpool
• When Jesus Played the Piano, David H.W. Grubb, Henley-on-Thames
• Woman on a Cliff, Peter Gruffydd, Bristol
• X-Ray Vision, Alex Josephy, London
• Woolpit Child, Gillian Laker, Kent
• October 1962, Shelley McAlister, Yarmouth
• Burning the Clocks, John McCullough, East Sussex
• HazMat, Dawn McGuire, Orinda, California
• A Psalm for the Scaffolders, Kim Moore, Barrow in Furness
• The Mercedes, Helen Overell, Surrey
• The Scarlet Lizard, Caroline Smith, Rickmansworth
• Underworld, Judi Sutherland, Berkshire
• Peter Doig’s Studio, Betty Thomson, Co. Wexford

The White Review Launches Short Story Prize

Really good to hear about a new UK short story prize for writers who have yet to secure a publishing deal - it's open for entries now, good luck to all! Here's the announcement:

THE WHITE REVIEW SHORT STORY PRIZE
supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation 

We are delighted to announce the inauguration of the annual White Review Short Story Prize, judged by a panel including Booker Prize-shortlisted author Deborah Levy and awarded by Tom McCarthy.

Made possible by the generous support of the Jerwood Charitable Foundation, the prize awards £2,500 to the best piece of short fiction by an unpublished writer resident in Great Britain and Ireland. The competition will open for submissions on 1 December 2012. The deadline is 1 March 2013. The prize will be awarded at a ceremony in March 2013. 

The judges will be looking for short stories that explore and expand the possibilities of the form. We encourage submissions from all literary genres, and there are no restrictions on theme or subject matter. The only emphasis is on ambitious, imaginative and innovative approaches to creative writing. We hope that the award will demonstrate the vitality of a form too often neglected in Great Britain and Ireland.

Novelist Tom McCarthy, author of Men in Space, Remainder and the Man Booker-shortlisted C, will announce the winner at a prize-giving ceremony in London in April 2013. In addition to the £2,500 prize, the winner will be published in a quarterly print issue of The White Review. The winner will also have a chance to meet with Karolina Sutton, Senior Agent at Curtis Brown, to discuss their writing, plans for future work and possible routes to publication. Up to six shortlisted writers will have their work published online and receive feedback from the editors of The White Review.

For more information, please contact editors Jacques Testard and Benjamin Eastham on editors@thewhitereview.org.  

---

PANEL

Deborah Levy writes fiction, plays and poetry. Her work has been staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company, and she is the author of highly praised novels including Beautiful Mutants, Swallowing Geography and Billy and Girl. Her latest novel Swimming Home was shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize.

Alex Bowler is editorial director at Jonathan Cape. He has edited Tom McCarthy, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes, Audrey Niffenegger, Kevin Barry and Grant Morrison.

Karolina Sutton is a senior agent at Curtis Brown. She notably represents Siri Hustvedt, Haruki Murakami and D. W. Wilson.

The Jerwood Charitable Foundation is dedicated to imaginative and responsible revenue funding of the arts, supporting artists to develop and grow at formative stages in their careers. They work with artists across art forms, from dance and theatre to literature, music and the visual arts. For more information on the Jerwood Charitable Foundation visit: www.jerwoodcharitablefoundation.org

The White Review is now a registered charity (Charity Number: 1148690). It is devoted to promoting the arts and literature for the benefit of the public by the publication of an arts and literary journal and the organisation of artistic and literary events specialising in artistically or educationally meritorious works of new or emerging artists and writers.

Arvon and Permissions

I just got back from the most wonderful week tutoring a short story course, together with the fabulous Adam Marek, at the Arvon Foundation's heavenly Totleigh Barton centre! There is always something magical about an Arvon course - after so many years they just have the formula right, the combination of a small group, a focussed five days of workshops and one-to-one meetings, the constant supply of food, including dinner cooked by a different quartet of participants each night, and the remote setting with gorgeous views!

But this time there was an extra special dash of fairy dust - maybe something to do with the group being particularly serene, creative, curious and willing to do any of the crazy things Adam and I asked of them! Many many new stories were begun last week, by the two of us too. And the staff - Claire, Olly, Steph, Eliza, Bridget, Caroline, Huxley - making us feel so at home. And the luminous Helen Dunmore, our special guest, talking to us so candidly about her life and work.

 

Adam's written a brilliant blow-by-pasty account of our week here, (how did I miss the pasties?) so I won't go over that, but I wanted to talk about one concept that kept coming up during the course: Permission. Permission to write about anything you want, in any style you want. And where does that permission come from? 

I have seen this in my own writing career - I can almost pinpoint other people's work that has opened my eyes and allowed me to try something I'd never tried before. Never thought of before.(All Over, a short story collection by Roy Kesey, was a revalation in 2007).

And it really hit home to me, how important this is - and, thus, how vital it is to read everything you can get hold of - when I was talking to undergraduates at Bath Spa Uni, my old alma mater, recently. I talked, of course, about using science as inspiration for fiction. Someone put their hand up and said, "So, do you think it's okay to use anything as inspiration, science, or maybe history?" I said Yes, I do, I think everything is up for grabs, and it wasn't until afterwards that I realised that perhaps I had just given that questioner permission he might have needed, that he hadn't just taken it as a given that a fiction writer can scavenge from anywhere. That really made me think.

This came up in an article in this weekend's Guardian review, a profile of Gerard Woodward:

At the same time, he was encountering the two authors whose work would mold the tone and temper of his own. "I was reading Updike and Nabokov for the first time. Updike showed me it was possible to write in a realist way, with a poetic approach. I'd never come across his blend of poetic sensibility and prosaic imagination in realist fiction before. Nabokov blew me away for the same reasons; not quite as down to earth, but he has the same qualities of poetry and playfulness. I found reading them both incredibly liberating, and permission-giving for what I wanted to do. They were the presiding spirits when I was writing August [the first novel in the trilogy]. Everything fell into place, after years of struggling both with novels and autobiography in poetry. I thought, at last I've found a way of writing about autobiographical material that works for me."

[Read the full article here.]

What has given you permission in your writing? Care to share? A person? A book? A film? A TV show? I'd love to have a discussion about it! The flipside of permission is taboo, and I planted this thought in our Arvon participants' minds on Day One: What wouldn't you write about, whether it's something that society considers taboo or it's personal? And what might be a taboo for you in how you write? No writing from the opposite sex, for example, or the 3rd person plural?

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.

The Verb - Tonight!

The episode of Radio 3's The Verb that was recorded at the BBC's Freethinking Festival last Saturday night - and on which I am reading two brand new flash stories on the subject of editing - will be broadcast on Radio 3 tonight, at 10pm UK time. It will also be available online through the iPlayer for 7 days afterwards. I think it was a fantastic programme - with poets Don Paterson and Tony Harrison, Granta editor Laura Barber, and music from The Lakeside Poets! Do tune in, let me know whether my "editing" stories chime with your experiences ;) More information here.

Radio 3!

Just a very quick blog post as I pause for a moment on my travels to say that I will be live in Gateshead tomorrow night at the BBC's Freethinking Festival, reading two newly-commissioned flash stories on the subject of editing on The Verb - in the exalted company of Don Paterson, Tony Harrison and Laura Barber of Granta. Am a little nervous... I believe the program will be streamed live on the Internet from the event, and then broadcast on Radio 3 next Friday night, Nov 9th, The Verb's regular slot. I am really looking forward to meeting the host, Ian McMillan - last time I was on, in July, I did it from a distance, from Bristol. I loved hearing him say "My Mother Was An Upright Piano" in that wonderful voice of his, can't wait for a second one! Wish me luck...