George Saunders on short stories

I just read a short story by one of my favourite authors, George Saunders -  the sublime The Semplica-Girl Diaries in the New Yorker, and am now reading an interview with George (I hope it's okay to call you George, George!) and I really love what he says about writing:

One thing I always feel in the midst of trying to talk coherently about a story I’ve finished is that, you know, ninety per cent of it was intuitive, done at-speed, for reasons I can’t quite articulate, except in the “A felt better than B” way. All these choices add up, and make the surface of the story, and, of course, the thematics and all that—but I’m not usually thinking about any of that too much, or too overtly. It’s more feeling than thinking—or a combination of the two, with feeling being in charge, and thinking sort of running around behind, making overly literal suggestions, and those feelings being sounded out and exercised and manifested via heavy editing and rewriting (as opposed to, say, planning and deciding). The important part of the writing process, for me, is trying to make choices that push the story in the most interesting direction, by which I mean the direction that causes the story to give off the most light. The story’s goal is to be fascinating and stimulating and irreducible; the writer’s job is to micromanage the text to make this happen.

Isn't that lovely, "the direction that causes the story to give off the most light"! I am going to remember that and read that out to people when I run workshops.  Do go and read the story first, then read the rest of the interview, which gives away a lot of the plot! George has a new collection out very early in 2013 and there are rumours he's coming to do events in the UK. Can't wait!

My Recent Trip to the WW1 Battlefields of the Somme and Arras

My friend and fellow writer Vanessa Gebbie recently invited me to join her and a few other friends - mostly writers too - on a weekend trip to the World War 1 battlefields in France, along the Western Front. This isn't something I ever thought I'd want to do. But it was an immensely powerful experience, something I don't think I've even begun to process. We were guided by Jeremy Banning, an immensely talented military historian who has written an excellent and detailed blog on our trip here. Vanessa has blogged about her thoughts here, with wonderful pictures, and poet Caroline Davies wrote several blog posts about our trip here. I can't add to that yet so I invite you to read their blogs. Sorry for the cop-out. I am hoping life will slow down soon and I will have time to blog properly.

Live lit & other news

Just a very quick post, so much going on, it's hard to know where to start! Well, firstly, I am reading at Ragged Stone tomorrow night (Tues 16th) in Portishead - come, sign up for the open mic and read too! I'm also reading at the Bristol Lit Fest Flash open mic on Saturday 20th at 4pm at the Hooper House cafe, in the excellent company of Sarah Hilary, Valerie O'Riordan, Kevlin Henney and more...! Then, a few hours later that same day, you've got me reading again (different stuff, I promise) at the Unputdownable Speakeasy, with  Nikesh Shukla, Valerie O’Riordan, Sanjida O’Connell, Miles Chambers & Maria McCann. Do come if you're in the area, it'll be a great party!

Next Tues Oct 23rd, I'm delighted to be one of the two guest writers - along with Kerry Hudson, who I interviewed on my blog here - at Stories Aloud in Oxford. Actors will be reading our work and then we'll be answering questions, probably about what our favourite fonts are! If you need to know, then come along.

In other news, I'm thrilled beyond words to have been shortlisted for the poetry section of the 2012 Bridport prize - my first time entering a poem! The full shortlists are here, great to see so many familiar names, congrats to: Martha Williams, Jon Pinnock, Roshi Fernando, Josephine Corcoran, Afric McGlinchey, Joanna Campbell, Kay Sexton, Cassandra Parkin, Kerry Hood, Dave Swann and Barbara Leahy! And my friend Sandra Jensen, who was highly commended in the short story section!

Sorry about all the exclamation marks. Overexcited.

Sarah Salway on Writing & Place

I am delighted to be hosting Sarah Salway on the blog today - poet, short story writer, novelist, writing teacher, blogger extraordinaire and a provider of inspiration in so many ways! Not one to stand still, Sarah has just launched a new website, Stories from the Garden: "This is a website for garden visiting with a difference. Instead of collecting plants, my garden visits are all about collecting stories – those contained within the garden, those told about the garden and those written in the garden." And you can catch Sarah talking all about "A Garden Journey" at the Canterbury Festival next Wednesday, October 17th, at 8pm (see here for more info). 

It seemed appropriate then, given that her new venture is about stories in different places, to ask Sarah my writing & place questionnaire. Here are her answers!

Where are you?

I live in Tunbridge Wells in a very old house that was once Beau Nash’s illegal gaming rooms. The builders we had swore there are ghosts here, but if there are, they feel very happy to me. I like to think of them playing poker.

We moved as a family from Edinburgh when my husband got a job in London. We had no idea where to live and so I was travelling round Southern England looking for places we might call home – a surreal experience.

Tunbridge Wells wasn’t even on the map for us, but on one of my ‘tours’ of Kent, I met up for lunch with two writer friends there and fell in love with it. Out of interest, I called in at an estate agent that afternoon and found the house we moved into just three months later.

Interestingly, one of my lunch companions, Dan Rhodes, moved to Edinburgh about a year later so you could say, we swapped.

How long have you been there?

Ten years. Whether we’ll stay here for ever, I have no idea.

Now our children have left home and we’re not tied to schools etc, I fancy moving far out into the country and becoming a hermit with chickens and pigs.

However, I also fancy moving into the centre of a really busy city and going to the theatre every night. Not sure the two are compatible!

What do you write?

I write in several genres.

I trained as a journalist straight from school, and I still love doing features and interviews – that chance to dip in and out of a subject and ask all the questions you want without seeming too nosy!

Then I did a creative writing drop-in class at Edinburgh University and fell in love with fiction. I started with the short story (perhaps because it felt the same shape as a feature?) and I was lucky enough to be asked to expand one of my short stories into what turned out to be my first novel, Something Beginning With.

I’ve now written and published two collections of short stories (one with Lynne Rees) and three novels, and this year, I’ve published my first poetry collection, You Do Not Need Another Self-Help Book.

Sometimes I worry that I’m just distracted writing so many different things, but mostly I feel lucky to be able to follow what I feel passionate about.

At the moment, through my role as Canterbury Laureate, I am working on my first piece of public site-specific writing, doing what we’re calling ‘interventions’ in four of the public parks in Canterbury – changing the municipal signs, recording monologues of park users, turning one space into a meditative spot for letter writing. It’s been a totally amazing opportunity and I think it may have changed my writing practice for ever. I have been so used to thinking of writing as something that appears between the covers of a book that I only just got over asking if this is something I’m allowed to do!

However, for the first time in several years, I do have a novel in my head that is starting to shout that it needs to be written. I’m getting rather excited about disappearing into that fictional world.

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

That’s a really interesting question. I am originally from the Fens and recently, I have discovered that several authors I really enjoy – Trollope and the much more contemporary, Sonia Overall and Katherine Pierpoint for example – are also ‘flatlanders’. However, this isn’t made obvious in their books themselves so I wonder if it’s something in the atmosphere, or language, that I’m picking up. It’s something I’d love to look into more.

I have done three writing fellowships in America now, one in Iowa and two in Virginia, and I can spot the American influence on the work that I’ve produced there, not in terms of content, but as one friend said, ‘they’re more spacious’ than my ‘normal work’. Again, it could be all the flat lands and the skies!

I think I’m more influenced by the landscape than the people, certainly. And by the everyday more than the spectacular. Although I’ve done some epic walks, including up Kilimanjaro, they don’t appeal to me as a topic to write about. The walks I go on around town during the day though, peering into people’s houses, overhearing conversations, or just being on my own in the streets, fill my notebook.

I do write in cafes, but I love writing in libraries more. I once had a week’s ‘holiday’ writing in a different London library every day – the one at the V&A, the Wellcome Institute, the Royal Institute of British Architects. Anyone can walk in and get a day ticket, and it was absolutely fantastic. I guess my favourite travel will always be on the page! 

Thank you, Sarah! Invite me round for tea, I need to see the illegal gaming rooms! Check out Sarah's new website, Stories from the Garden, and if you are near Canterbury (or willing to travel, which will be worth it!) go and hear Sarah talking all about "A Garden Journey" at the Canterbury Festival next Wednesday, October 17th, at 8pm (see here for more info).

Story Fridays in Bath Wants You!

I got this email from the wonderful Clare Reddaway and she asked me to pass on the following:

It's that time again! I'm looking for stories! Story Fridays at the Museum went well, with interesting and varied stories on The Fall. We had a new venue, and I'm pleased to say that the Museum is happy to host us again for the next Story Friday on November 16th.

November's theme is Sparks, and I am looking for writer-performers and their stories. Please interpret the theme any way you like - emotional sparks are as good as physical ones! As always, I am looking for short stories or monologues, fact or fiction (but mainly fiction) that would be 15 minutes or under when read, so absolute maximum 2,300 words. That is a maximum though - we had some lovely flash fiction last time, that was much appreciated by the audience.

The event will be held on Friday 16th November. Please do bear this in mind before you submit as you need to be available and willing to read your piece if it is selected. If I haven't worked with you before, I would like to rehearse your piece with you before the event.

The deadline is 5th November - a perfect inspiration for a sparky piece of story telling? At the moment, this is an unpaid opportunity. Do email me at clare.reddaway@btinternet.com or give me a ring on 01225 428 469 or go to the website www.awordinyourear.org.uk if you'd like any more information.

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.

Plymouth & Cork...

I'm not a very good blogger these days, I am sorry. If you take a look at the previous post you'll see what's keeping me busy - and there are other things i'm doing that aren't on the list too, a bit of a whirlwind time right now. But frankly, it's all writing-related, and it's ALL good! Last week I had the honour of having my own event at the brand-new Plymouth International Book Festival, in its first of what I hope will be many many years.... I chatted for about an hour, interspersed with reading some of the stories from MMWAUP, and I did worry that I was talking about myself too much. (A worry I have often). But the audience were just lovely, asked some great questions, and then came and chatted to me afterwards and bought books. It was great to talk to people, find out if they're writers, readers, what they're writing. It gives me such a boost, doing events like this, talking about the short story without anyone asking me to "defend" it, because I don't believe the short story needs defending...!

The next day I rushed straight off to Cork for the heavenly short story festival, my fourth time at the festival, a highlight of my calendar. This time, though, I was being worked very hard - teaching a 4-day flash fiction workshop, for three hours each morning, then reading from my new book, together with the wonderful and fellow flash-brained Nick Parker, author of The Exploding Boy and Other Tiny Tales (see left). Nick, my great mate Nuala Ni Chonchiur and I were then invited onto a panel entitled, somewhat controversially in our opinion, "Is Flash Fiction a True Literary Form or Just Something for Chancers" - luckily the large audience in Cork library seemed to agree with us that it didn't matter at all what a piece of writing is labelled as or how long or short it is. Phew!

I had the enormous honour of being the one to introduce and moderate the session with two new and instant favourite writers: the inimitable Canadian author Zsuzsi Gartner, author of two collections (Better Living Through Plastic Explosives and All the Anxious Girls on Earth) and the excellent English author Sarah Hall, whose first collection (finally, after four award-winning novels!) is The Beautiful Indifference. I was nervous about introducing them properly, because at first glance you might superficially assign their stories to very different genres, labels... But their stories are unlabel-able both because they are unique and because they have a lot in common, despite very different styles. I hope I did them justice - go and read their books, their stories will slay you. I love being slayed by a short story.

And then... yes, there's more! Later that night, much later, I was the first to read at a brand new event for the Cork fest, the Flash Fiction Rapid Fire, where writers literally queued on the stage and read their tiny stories, 500 words max, in quick succession! I was extremely proud that 7 of my 10 workshoppers read that night, many of them for the first time ever. I felt quite parental!

The next day was our last workshop day, and then an afternoon of events including the sublime Lydia Davis, certainly proving that word length has no bearing on story substance ... and then the final day of the festival we listened, spellbound, to Frank O'Connor award-winner Nathan Englander reading one of his stories and talking so wisely and enthusiastically about writing. A real real treat and a worthy winner!

To get back to the workshop, I felt like I learned so much from spending 4 days talking, reading and writing flash fiction with my group. I experimented on them and they were so receptive, no-one refused to do anything, and I think we all had a lot of fun. We batted around thoughts of what flash fiction might be, then let go of the need for definitions and just got on and did it. A fantastic group, they shared their work, and it was all so great, I expect to see their names gracing the pages of lit mags and competition shortlists very soon. 

If you fancy trying your hand at some flash fiction for the reduced time commitment of only 2 hours (!), there are still some spaces left on my workshop at Mr B's Emporium in Bath on October 11th. Visit Writing Events Bath to book.

Nuala is a much better blogger than me, she deserves her shortlisting for the Blog Awards Ireland - she has a lengthy blog post about the festival, with pictures. Read all about it here! Also, the phenomenal lit magazine Five Dials has put together a special Cork-festival-themed issue with contributions from many of the authors who were there. It's so big it's been split into two! Read Part 1 here, with stories by Lydia Davis, Kevin Barry, Nuala, Joe Dunthorne and more - I have a new short story (over 2000 words long!) coming in Part 2.

Around and About for the Next 8 weeks

By the time this blog post goes up I will be in Plymouth for my event tonight at the Central Library as part of the first Plymouth International Book Fest - do come if you are in the area, we kick off at 6.30pm!

I am around and about a lot over the next 8 weeks and I wanted to list all my events here, and if any of you can come to something, it would be great to meet you. But before that, if you're in the vicinity of Bath this Friday, head over to Story Friday from 7pm to hear my friend Sarah Hilary and five other writers read their short stories inspired by The Fall. Wish I could be there but I will be...

Sept 19-22nd: running four flash fiction workshops, Cork International Short Story Festival in Cork, Ireland, and reading from my new collection. Booking now open

Wednesday 26 Sept reading at the launch of the STILL anthology, Foyles, London, Event Facebook page, 6.30pm

Thursday 11 Oct running flash fiction workshop for Writing Events in Bath, at Mr B's bookshop, Bath, 6.30pm-8.30pm. Booking now open

Saturday 13 Oct Interviewing novelist James Long about his long-awaited sequel to Ferney at Unputdownable Bristol Festival of Literature, Waterstones, Bristol Booking now open

Tuesday 16 Oct reading at Ragged Stone, monthly open mic night, Portishead

Saturday 20 Oct Reading alongside Nikesh Shukla, Valerie O’Riordan, Sanjida O’Connell, Miles Chambers & Maria McCann at Unputdownable Bristol Festival of Literature, Left Bank, Bristol. Booking now open

Tuesday 23 Oct guest author, with Kerry Hudson, at Stories Aloud, Oxford

Thursday 25 Oct Doing workshop for creative writing undergrads, Bath Spa University, Bath

Saturday 27 Oct taking part in the Lit Up Write Now! one-day conference, Bournemouth. Booking now open

Monday 29 Oct reading at the Bristol University Staff Creative Writing Club, Bristol.

7 Nov guest at Swansea University creative writing seminar

19-24th Nov Co-tutoring an Arvon Foundation short story course with Adam Marek, and special guest Helen Dunmore, Totleigh Barton

After that...I will be having a rest!

Flash fiction tours South Gloucestershire

I wanted to give a shout-out to my friend and writing colleague Pauline Masurel, who is doing the wonderful job of bringing more flash fiction to South Gloucestershhire over the autumn!  She has organised a display of flash fiction books to browse and borrow which will be doing a tour of a number of libraries in South Glos this autumn.  Its itinerary is as follows:   

Bradley Stoke Library  -  10-15 September    

Patchway Library  -  19-28 September    

Filton Library  -  29 September-9 October   

Emersons Green Library  -  11-23 October 

Winterbourne Library  - 26 October-3 November

Also, Pauline, an excellent writer of the short and very very short, will be running a couple of free, informal workshops to introduce flash fiction, share some of her own tiny and magical stories and invite participants to write their own.  These will be taking place:

7-8pm on Thursday 18 October @ Emersons Green Library  

6-7pm on Friday 2 November @ Winterbourne Library

(Please note that the event at Winterbourne requires booking, which can be done at www.eventbrite.com)

The display and workshops are part of South Gloucestershire Council's 'Discover Festival' and further details of all events in the festival can be found at: www.southglos.gov.uk/discover.

If you are in the area, I highly recommend you checking out both the displays and Pauline's workshops, we could all do with more tiny fictions, something small and perfectly formed, in our lives, no?

On BBC Radio Bristol!

I was interviewed by the delightful Steve Yabsley - a fellow short story writer, it turns out! - on his show on BBC Radio Bristol yesterday. You can Listen Again to us chatting about short stories and me reading two from my collection on the show for another 6 days, til Friday 21st, here. I arrive 32 minutes in. Thanks to Steve for having me!

STILL anthology launch & short story competition!

This gorgeous creature arrived in the post this morning - ain't it beautiful? Of course, STILL is an anthology of short stories inspired by Roelof Bakker's photographs, so aesthetics are to be expected!

I'm delighted to have a short short story in there, Switchgirls - and I'm in great company, alongside Richard Beard, Andrew Blackman, SJ Butler, Myriam Frey, SL Grey,  James Higgerson, Justin Hill, Nicholas Hogg, Ava Homa, Aamer Hussein, Nina Killham, Deborah Klaassen, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, Claire Massey, Jan Van Mersbergen, Barbara Mhangami-Ruwende, James Miller, Mark Piggott, Mary Rechner, David Rose, Nicholas Royle, Preeta Samarasan, Jan Woolf, Evie Wyld and Xu Xi. I can't wait to read the anthology.

STILL will be launched at Foyles bookshop in London on Sept 26th - I will be reading my story, as will many of the other authors, so please do join us! Here's the event's Facebook page. Foyles will also be exhibiting the photographs with story excerpts.

Now, you too have a chance to be part of this wonderful enterprise - Foyles and Roelof are running a competition:  write a short short story of no more than 500 words inspired by Roelof's photograph here, deadline Oct 10th.

The winning story will be displayed in the Gallery at Foyles, a week after the competition closing date, alongside the exhibition, which runs from Monday 17th September until Tuesday 30th October, as well as on the Foyles and Negative Press London websites. In addition, the winner will receive a copy of Still, a signed 30 x 30cm print of the 'The Stage (Piano)' and copies of Nicholas Hogg's The Hummingbird and the Bear and Evie Wyld's After the Fire, A Still Small Voice. (The competition will be judged by Roelof, Nick, Evie and Foyles Local Marketing Manager, Lisa Bywater)

Find out more details on the Foyles website - the photograph that is your inspiration is just stunning, like all Roelof's images. Go for it - good luck! Hope to see you on Sept 26th.

A new "book trailer" for MMWAUP!

I have some lovely friends... here's the gorgeous "book trailer" my very talented pal, Ilene Prusher (whose excellent first novel, the Baghdad Fixer, is out in November) made for me. Cute, eh?

Waiting on our doormat

We just got back from holiday and here are all the goodies that were waiting on our doormat! So thrilling are they that I thought I'd give them all a shout out. So, we have...

Regular reads:

• New Scientist with its intriguing cover promising "Food for thought"
• The New Yorker, my staple weekend read, including a short story by Thomas McGuane
• Poets and Writers magazine, which I love every few months, not just for the competition deadlines but great articles about many aspects of writing
• Sentence, the annual journal of prose poetry, which I find enlightening and inspiring, sitting on the blurred boundary between prose and poetry. 

New arrivals:

• The first issue of The Liner, a brand new transatlantic and very gorgeous lit mag from both London and Los Angeles. It features a poem by Blake Morrison, among a great roster
• The first issue of Black & Blue magazine, also very good looking, and featuring a story by Angela Readman, so it's already impressing me!
• The first pamphlet in my subscription to The Cupboard Pamphlets, which publishes a pamphlet of creative prose every quarter. It's a gorgeous tiny object: Our Commutual Mea Culpa by Chanelle Benz.

Books

• Crime and Guilt by Ferdinand von Schirach - a collection of two collections of short stories by a German lawyer, bought because of Scott Pack's excellent review of one of the stories over at Me and My Big Mouth: Shorts.
• Lightning Rods by Helen DeWitt, the latest book in my subscription to And Other Stories, who supply me with fantastic literature every few months, including the stunning, Booker-longlisted, Swimming Home by Deborah Levy. I trust that this book will similarly enthrall. 
• Elsewhere, from Cargo Publishing - a volume of four collections which is  a joint production between the Scottish publisher and the fantastic McSweeneys, featuring 50 authors. Can't wait to get stuck inhere. 

 And finally, to entertain me when I need to give my eyes a rest from all this literary feasting... my new favourite find (thank you, BBC 6 Music!), Matthew E White's new album, Big Inner. So I will leave you with a treat, his song, Big Love. It's soooo good. Got to go, I've got reading to do!

Interview with Anthony Doerr

There's a lovely interview with one of my new favourite writers, Anthony Doerr, over at r.kv.r.y magazine - do check it out. A little excerpt:

I am very interested in how stories and novels can transport, and transport absolutely.  I’m very much a believer in John Gardner’s notion that fiction writers stitch together dreams, and that we don’t want to unconsciously break those dreams and wake our readers up.  So I spend lots and lots of energy trying to make my sentences as sensual and grounded and seamless as they can be.  And the best way to do that–the best way to transport a reader into another place, another life–is through moment-by-moment sensory detail: through the mouth and the nose, as Mc put it.  The path to the universal, I tell my students, is through the individual.  You reach for the stars by playing in the gravel.

Read the rest of the interview here >>

A quick roundup

So, a brief roundup of a few things - I am interviewed over at the Negative Press blog about my new story, Switchgirls, which is to be included in their anthology, STILL (Sept 2012) inspired by the wonderful photographs of Roelof Bakker, alongside these amazing authors:

Richard Beard, Andrew Blackman, SJ Butler, Myriam Frey, SL Grey,  James Higgerson, Justin Hill, Nicholas Hogg, Ava Homa, Aamer Hussein, Nina Killham, Deborah Klaassen, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, Claire Massey, Jan Van Mersbergen, Barbara Mhangami-Ruwende, James Miller, Mark Piggott, Mary Rechner, David Rose, Nicholas Royle, Preeta Samarasan, Jan Woolf, Evie Wyld and Xu Xi.

Launch event will be on Sept 26th at Foyles in London, more on that soon!

Flash fiction workshops:
There are still places left on the 4-day flash fiction workshop I am running at the excellent Cork International short Story Festival in Cork, Ireland, Sept 19-23rd. It's going to be a wonderful workshop, looking at flash fiction from many different angles and writing many new pieces ourselves, do come and join us! Whether you want to write very short stories or longer works, the tools for writing flash fiction are incredibly useful. More information here.

If you are nearer to Bath than Cork, and have an evening rather than 4 days,  booking is now open for the flash fiction workshop I am running on October 11th, 6.30pm-8.30pm, at the fabulous Mr B's Emporium bookshop. Contact Writing Events Bath to secure your place.

That's all for the moment!

It took three years but...

Today a short story I started working on in 2006 is published! Yes, the story may "only" be 800 words, but it took me three years to get those 800 words the way I wanted them. The story, Under the Tree, was accepted by Electric Velocipede at the end of 2009 - and today it's published in Issue 24. (The story is also included in my new collection, with Electric Velocipede's permission.)

I wanted to share a few words about the story, but SPOILER ALERT stop reading now if you'd prefer to just read the story.

Okay. It started with an image in my head: a mother watching her son sitting under a tree in his own garden. And I couldn't figure out - nor could she - what he was doing there. I got very bogged down in trying to find an explanation. Then I took the story-in-progress, which was written quite traditionally at that point, to a workshop run by the wondrous and inspiring Aimee Bender in June 2007. She encouraged us not to look for direct causes for our characters' behaviour, pointing out, quite rightly I think, that we humans very rarely have one cause for our actions and we often have no idea what has spured us to do something. Let go of cause and effect. Great. This began to release something in me ...

The next step which helped me progress with the story was reading two short story collections: Roy Kesey's All Over and Paddy O'Reilly's The End of the World. Roy's was the first example I'd seen of minimalism and experimentalism and that inspired me to move away from the traditional, take some risks, make the reader work. And Paddy's collection had a story in it (completely different from mine) which was divided into sections which each had section headings - and suddenly, using this structure, my story began to fall into place. Someone said once that sometimes structure can ride in like a knight on a white horse and save a story - and that certainly was the case here. It all started to come together.

Anyway, if you'd like to, you can read the finished story, all 800 words, here. I hope you enjoy it!

The Englishman by Helena Halme

Very interesting discussions still ongoing in the comments section of my previous post, and I am going to do a post summing up what we were talking about, but in the meantime I want to introduce you to Helena Halme and her debut novel, The Englishman. I've known Helena since we both did the MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University in 2003, and am so thrilled to be talking about her new book here today. Isn't it a gorgeous cover?

The Englishman is subtitled "Can love go the distance" and it is quite the page-turner, I've had difficulty stopping myself from devouring it. It is the story of Kaisa, a young Finnish girl who meets and falls in love with Peter, an English naval officer. As the blurb says:

"At the age of twenty, Kaisa has her life mapped out. After university in Helsinki, she’s going to marry her well-to-do fiancé, Matti, and live happily ever after. But in October 1980, she's invited to a British Embassy cocktail party, and meets a dashing Naval officer. In the chilly Esplanade Park the Englishman and Kaisa share passionate, secret kisses and promise to meet up again. But they live thousands of miles apart – and Kaisa is engaged to be married.

At the height of the Cold War the Englishman chases Russian submarines whilst Kaisa’s stuck in a country friendly with the Soviet Union. Will their love go the distance?"

Helena, who lives in England and is married to an Englishman, has made no secret of the fact that this novel has its roots in autobiography - in fact, it started life as a series of blog posts called How I Came to Be In England. But what she has done here so well is to completely fictionalize the story and provide all the required tension that keeps you reading and reading. All the small details about Finland and Sweden give the book such colour, and I love seeing England through Kaisa's eyes!

Helena and her book seem to lend themselves well (who doesn't?) to my writing & place questionnaire, so I asked her a few questions:

Where are you?

Helena

I live in Crouch End, North London.

How long have you been there?

I was born in Finland and moved to the UK some 25 years ago. Because my husband served in the navy, we move about a lot, finally settling down to Wiltshire where we lived for 15 years in a very rural setting. Some two years ago we decided we’d had enough of country life, upped sticks and moved to the city. And haven’t looked back.

What do you write?

Helsinki

I write fiction, mainly novels set in Finland and Sweden, where, as a child, I lived for a short while. My stories vary from romance (The Englishman) to family sagas (Pappa’s Girl, out in September), to spy thrillers (The Red King of Helsinki out in October). I also write a blog, Helena’s London Life, about my new surroundings.

How do you think where you and where you've been affects what you write about and how you write?

The Real Englishman: Helena's husband David

My origins have everything to do with what I write. I love describing life in Finland or Sweden in my books, as I think most people want a story to take them somewhere, not just emotionally but also geographically.

My latest novel, The Englishman, is set in Finland in the 1980’s and was inspired by my own story of how I met my husband and moved to the UK. It’s my third novel, but the one which is most closely based on my own life.

Sicily

But I am also hugely affected by my immediate surroundings. A few years ago, when we rented a villa in Sicily, I began a novel after watching a group of local boys dive into the sea from high rocks. Seeing them hurtle down time and time again, not looking where they were jumping, made me fear that they’d hurt themselves. I recalled how my husband had told to me many years previously about a young sailor jumping to his death on a day out by the coast of somewhere. In the story which I started (but haven’t yet finished) a boy plunges to his death from a rock. This story keeps haunting me, so I am sure one day a scene like this will turn up in one of my novels.

Thanks so much Helena, it's going to be a busy year with two more books coming out! You can buy The Englishman  as an ebook on Amazon (current price 0.77p!) or Smashwords ($0.99), find out more about the book  on Facebook and its blog and follow Helena on Twitter to keep up to date with this and her other books.  Good luck with it all, Helena, I am off to find out what happens with Kaisa and Peter....!

What if no-one sees short story collections?

This was going to be another mini-rant in the style of last year's complaint about some literary agents who have a "no response means no" policy, but then I started thinking. Over the past 8 years or so I've been in touch with maybe 20 literary agents, in the UK, US and Canada, and heard about many, many more from writer friends, and the refrain is always the same:

[I really like your writing but] I can't sell a short story collection (or novella), publishers don't want them; come back when you've got a novel. 

This week I had a slight variation on that theme in a reply from an agent (to whom I am very grateful that she replied and so quickly!):

Come back when you have a full length novel. 

While I'm not exactly sure what the requirements are for a full-length novel, this is not what I wanted to discuss. The thought suddenly struck me that if agents are blocking us at the first hurdle, publishers never get offered short story collections (or novellas). They never even see them. So how are they supposed to know whether they want to publish them or not?

Of course, it may be that the publishers are sending instructions to the agents along the lines of: Don't bring us short stories, poetry, novellas, science fiction, paranormal detective fiction, novels under 150 pages etc..etc.. etc.. and the agents are just acting as their gatekeepers. But with such gatekeepers, who aren't prepared to even try and fight for something that's slightly off-message, what are we to do, and, more importantly, what does it say about the state of mainstream publishing?

Once again, I give thanks for the many amazing small independent presses - Salt and Tangent Books in particular, on a personal level - who publish whatever they like, whatever they love, with not much thought of breaking even let alone profit. But is this the situation the major publishers want to be in? Do they not want to be persuaded - and in turn attempt, using their marketing wizards, to persuade a public that does, it seem still remain hungry for some novelty - by something different, something that isn't a novel?

I would love to hear from literary agents and publishers here - please pass on this blog post and see if anyone will comment. Am I not thinking commercially enough? Where is my thinking going wrong here? Be honest with me, am I being clouded by my own failure to find representation?

My life in short fiction

Dan Powell - a fantastic writer and short fiction champion whose short story, Half-Mown Lawn! is included in Best British Short Stories 2012 - asked me some of the hardest questions I've ever been asked to do with short stories, and it took me three months to answer them! They are now live on his excellent blog, part of his My Life In Short Fiction series - this way>>

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.