Last day to win a copy of Short Circuit

Today is the last day to enter a competition to win a copy of the fabulous Short Circuit, the guide to the art of short story writing just out from Salt. Head on over to Salt's blog and get your entry in - it's a nice easy quiz for literary types! Here's Salt's information about the book:

Short Circuit is the first textbook written by prize-winning writers for students and more experienced practitioners of the short story. The 288 page guide brings together twenty-four specially-commissioned essays from well-published short story writers who are also prize winners of the toughest short story competitions in the English language, including five essays from winners of The Bridport Prize. There are interviews with Clare Wigfall, winner of The National Short Story Award — and with Tobias Hill whose short story collection won the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award.

I've contributed a chapter on the issue of turning real life into fiction, focusing on the story from Balancing on the Edge of the World, 'Condensed Metaphysics'. Editor Vanessa Gebbie had read the post on this blog about this story, and asked me to elaborate for Short Circuit, deconstructing the precise process whereby I turned a real-life incident into a fiction story. I'm very pleased to be in the book alongside such short story luminaries as Alison McLeod, Tania Hershman, Nuala Ni Chonchuir, Carys Davies and many others, and very much looking forward to reading their insights into the process of story writing.

And if you don't win, there's 20% off at the moment if you order via the Salt site.