Spoken Ink guest-feature

The Rise and Fall and Rise again of the glorious short story; how new gadgets can save the genre

Download a free new story by Evie Wyld

Exclusive to Booktrust... 'The Whales' by Evie Wyld, as part of her writer in residence programme.

The Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award 2011

Entries are now closed for The Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award 2011- the world’s biggest short story award.

Seven motivational tools every writer needs

For years, the first thing I saw when my alarm went off at 5.57am was a photo of Haruki Murakami stuck to the side of my chest of drawers. He had a big speech bubble coming out of his mouth saying, ‘get up and write Adam’.

My Murakami alarm was motivational tool number one. I’ve developed lots more since then.

Five mistakes I made while trying to get published by Adam Marek

Of course I’ve made a lot more than five mistakes (like the time I stepped in dog poo on my way into a Royal Society of Literature party at the house of Michael Holroyd and Margaret Drabble), but these are the ones that I learned from and might be useful to you.

Literary Deathmatch

Literary Deathmatch is the brainchild of sartorial Todd Zuniga, editor of Opium Magazine. Having spread the word around the US, he has now set up a UK franchise in London's fashionable Shoreditch.

The Winter House... a new kind of short story

'The Winter House' is a new short story film and website that has been designed by Naomi Alderman who won the Orange Prize for New Writers in 2006 for her novel Disobedience.

Writing tips from David Vann

Acclaimed author of the brutal and compelling Legends of a Suicide, David Vann has kindly supplied some handy writing tips for short story writers. This will be the first in a series of tips from writers about the power of short stories.

The Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award winner was announced on 26 March 2010

New Zealand author CK Stead has won The Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award 2010

The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award shortlist is announced

The shortlist for The Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award was announced on Sunday 7 March 2010. Six writers are competing for the £25,000 prize for a single short story. The winner will be announced on 26 March 2010.

'I love when the story takes over, when the patterns and meaning are subconscious'

Not quite a novel, but not quite a collection of short stories either, Legend of a Suicide takes a pivotal moment in one family's life – the death of the father 'by his own hand' (as they used to say) – and reworks it over six chapters/stories.

We Are the Friction

Words and pictures have a glorious punch-up. Everyone wins.

Now here's a neat idea. An anthology of 12 short stories by 12 different writers, each of them illustrated by a different artist.

Park life

‘Miss Simkin’s favourite bench, to which she had repaired every clement weekday lunchtime for fifteen years, had old-fashioned spiral arms and weathered slats, and was shadowed by a glorious elm.’

Back in print

Bracing, blackly comic and utterly modern: the stories of W Somerset Maugham

On paper, W Somerset Maugham appears to be one of the most established and successful authors of the last century.

Kikinda short story festival

Vanishing Polish girls

In 2008, authors Clare Wigfall (winner of the 2008 BBC National Short Story Award), Peter Hobbs and Paul Ewen were invited to Serbia by the organisers of the Kikinda Short Story Festival to read from their work and meet local writers.

Author interview

'The dramatic potential of weddings is obvious'

Tom Lee must be a happy man. His debut collection of short stories, intriguingly entitled Greenfly, has just been published in hardback (no less) by Harvill Secker (no less).

In a nutshell

Alex Clark, former editor of Granta, waxes lyrical about short stories.

Short story radio

www.shortstoryradio.com was created by Ian Skillicorn with the aim of promoting the short story genre and writer. 

Author interview

'I always dreamed of moving away and never coming back'

Don Pollock's debut collection of short stories is named after, and set in, the (real) town of Knockemstiff, Ohio, where Pollock grew up.

Advice

Hard work, persistence, luck ... and a bowl of fruit

Vanessa Gebbie is the author of Words from a Glass Bubble. Here, she offers some thoughts and advice about entering short story competitions.

John Waddington-Feather: an appreciation

William Ruleman, Professor of English at Tennessee Wesleyan College, has contacted Story with a personal appreciation of the short stories of John Waddington-Feather.

Aesthetica magazine

In its five-year history, Aesthetica Magazine has published over 130 short stories and offered exposure to thousands of casual browsers in bookshops around the UK.

Translated fiction

Global stories: women's writing from around the world

Hikayat; Galpa; Povídky; Katha; Scéalta; Dinaane; Qissat; Afsaneh – these evocative words from other languages conjure up images of far-flung countries and cultures.

Translated fiction

Tales from ten cities: short stories in translation

Independent publisher Comma Press has launched a translation imprint dedicated to delivering the best in contemporary short fiction, as part of its ongoing mission to champion the short story as a unique and divergent literary form.

2007 Edinburgh International Book Festival

Stories with eggs: Tessa Hadley and Claire Keegan

Few writers explore the workings of the human heart and the complexities of emotion more deftly than Tessa Hadley and Claire Keegan.

Short story journal

Defining a vision: Birkbeck College's literary magazine

The Mechanics' Institute Review editorial team reflects on the experience of putting together a literary magazine.

2007 Edinburgh International Book Festival

The laureate of small things: Ali Smith on Tove Jansson

Moomins be damned – this lively festival event was all about much-loved Finnish author Tove Jansson’s writing for adults, and no one could have done a better job at singing its praises on a dull wet day in Edinburgh than Ali Smith.

Live literature

Glass eyes and slippery eels - the launch of X-24: unclassified

It’s an old and time-worn phrase, but nothing describes editors Tash Aw and Nii Ayikwei Parkes’s new anthology of stories so much, nor so well, as ‘labour of love’.

Author interview

'Wackjob stories I thought no one would want to read'

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Karen Russell’s debut collection of short stories, is certainly the most arresting title of the year so far, but luckily the content more than fulfils the promise of the name. St. Lucy’s is crazy but thoughtful, absurd yet disarmingly real.

The story of Seven Days

The aim behind this publication was relatively simple: to provide something for everyone.

Online writing

The Edit Red writing community

Back in 2003, freelance journalist Alan Emmins, literary reviewer Sean Merrigan and creative writing teacher Chris Lee Ramsden started an online literary journal called Spoiled Ink.

Author interview

'I�m definitely the kind of guy who sleeps next to those who�ll push him out of bed.'

Israeli writer Etgar Keret has written two collections of short stories, both of which have been praised for their wit and imagination. Here he talks about his new collection, Missing Kissinger, a heady mix of the surreal, the violent and the compassionate.

Live literature

Love, Hate and Race in the UK

Cocooned in the faded splendour of London’s Café de Paris, actors Ian Hart, Lucy Brown, Ray Panthaki and Richard Schiff read stories by (respectively) Adam Marek, Rose Tremain, Gautam Malkani and Michel Faber.

Short stories for football fans

It's a grand old team to write for

Paul Cuddihy, the editor of Celtic Football Club's official weekly magazine, explains why for the last four years he has published short stories by some of Scotland's finest established and up-and-coming writers.

Villa Gillet short story conference, Lyon, France

Le choix des histoires courtes

The short story, an already popular and widespread literary genre in anglophone countries, is becomingly increasingly in vogue among French writers. Why?

Author interview

Black juice and good deaths

Black Juice by Margo Lanagan is an extraordinary and hard-to-pigeonhole collection of short stories set in worlds that are similar but subtly different to our own. Here, she talks about her writing and inspirations.

Author interview

The dignity of rarity

Thomas McGuane, novelist and author of the short story collection Gallatin Canyon, talks about the Midwest and the state of modern American fiction.

Glasgow 2020

Why stories make the world go round

"The aim was nothing less than to contribute to the reimagining of a city through the stories people tell about it."

Gerry Hassan, Head of Demos Scotland 2020, explains how the ambitious Glasgow 2020 project came about.

Small Wonder Short Story Festival

Talent spotting: the Small Wonder short story slam

Sophie Lewis, slam virgin, throws herself in at the deep end

2006 Edinburgh International Book Festival

Town mouse and country mouse

James Smith discovers that although Edgardo Cozarinsky and Per Petterson may never be able to live together, they share common ground when it comes to writing.

2006 Edinburgh International Book Festival

Roundabouts and sofas

Bernard MacLaverty weaved a magic spell at Edinburgh. James Smith was there.

2006 Edinburgh International Book Festival

James Lasdun interview

"The short story should be the natural form for our time-poor, hardworking times." Sophie Lewis of Prospect Magazine talks to James Lasdun, winner of the inaugural National Short Story Prize.

Scotsman & Orange Short Story Award

Russian dolls

Clio Gray obsessively files away facts, then turns them into prize-winning fiction. David Robinson on the emerging writer who's won the Scotsman & Orange Short Story Award

2006 Edinburgh International Book Festival

The thoughts of small men

Only when he read the reviews of his new book did Adam Thorpe realise that all the stories in the collection were about so-called small men and their struggles with the modern world. James Smith reports on a lively morning with the author in Edinburgh.

Small Wonder Short Story Festival

Limeys v Yanks: Short Stories and the Great Atlantic Divide

Is America the birthplace of the short story, and are American stories still the best in the world? Do British stories still come second or are they starting to match up to their heavyweight rivals? Sophie Lewis summarises a lively debate