In ‘Friendship: 12 masterpieces of short fiction’ for John McCarthy, Ryan Publishing Co. Ltd; First Edition edition (1990) Also collected in: “A Foreign Dignitary,in Best Short Stories 1989, edited by GilesGordon and David Hughes. 1989; as The Best English Short Stories 1989, 1989. Walking the Dog and Other Stories. 1994. A tricky one this. I have…
short stories
Daily Short: Ron Hansen- Playland – 1989
I had the idea of reading at least one short story a day. It sort of working and I have managed three so far this week. The first on Tuesday was Ron Hansen’s ‘Funland’ from ‘Nebraska’ a collection of short stories published in 1989. I purchased it at the time because of the cover which…
Short Story and CW useful links
‘I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately I am inspired at 9 o’clock every morning.’ William Faulkner Short Stops website http://shortstops.info/ Long Story, Short website http://longstoryshort.squarespace.com/ Blot the skrip blog ( Dr. Stephen Carver) http://blottheskrip.wordpress.com/ Lorrie Moore Interview Paris Review http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/510/the-art-of-fiction-no-167-lorrie-moore
Joseph O’Connor and Kurt Vonnegut on writing
Kurt Vonnegut Eight rules for writing fiction: 1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted. 2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for. 3. Every character should want something, even if it is only…
How Novelists Work..how mine don’t
The first fiction session last night and a shock to the Belcher system…(unecessary elipsis there) asI am not a practicing fiction writer. The samples (vignettes, prose poems) I offered for appraisal were three very old items that I happened to have. ( ellipsis attempted but stopped mid-dot….!) I quickly understood that writing fiction feels very…
Starting with short stories…
Decided to concentrate on short stories to start with…my favourite poets Burnside and Carver both write short stories too….some of these I collected 20 years ago…about time I read them! Thanks to Jez Noond for some more recent additions to the que including Grace Paley and Amy Hempel. Some obvious missing collections here..D.H.Lawrence..Richard Ford, Russell Banks,…
1985 Carver Short Stories……my most important purchase?
Some time in 1985 or 1986 possibly during a very cold winter, as I recall sheets of ice around a phone box on Plymouth Hoe, I purchased a new book in a Plymouth bookshop. This is significant because I very rarely purchase anything at full price having been trained in second-hand shops from art school…
The 10 books that left a lasting impression challenge….
1. The Victor Comic 1966 My step-grandfather was illiterate and had the Victor comic in his farm labourer’s cottage to help him to learn to read..I remember reading it to him when he in his sixties as he puffed clouds of tobacco around my head from his pipe….I was 7. 2.  Ian Allen Combined Locoshed Book…
Creative Writing M.A. starts Monday…
Well all change or rather back to where I was already…..after a 10 year pause. When I first moved to Nottingham in 2002 I came from a relationship and career (one Spanish the other Oxford University Boldeian Library) that had both broken….and after a disastrous sojourn in London I asked my best friend from school…
chalkfish and monkey
Chalkfish and Monkey She picked the fish out of the box leaving a pool of mucus and blood slowly congealing on the shelf and dripped it toward the kitchen table. Outside the wind lashed the tops of the poplar trees together and rain sprayed from the barn roof opposite. She guessed the river would be…