Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Red Room arrives


I've been away in Wales for three weeks (writing pretty solidly), and got back to find waiting for me my author's copy of Red Room: New Short Stories Inspired by the Brontes, edited by A J Ashworth (which I wrote about here). Very exciting - it's a lovely book. Yesterday I went to visit my mum and sister. After lunch when I visit they often ask me to read them a story I've recently written, and so I took Red Room and read my contribution, 'That Turbulent Stillness.' They laughed their heads off, and I have to say I didn't realise quite how funny the story was before I read it out loud to an audience. Or maybe it's just our family sense of humour: I guess I'll find out when I take part in two readings for the book in November. If any of you are in the vicinities on those dates and fancy coming along, it would be lovely to see you:

Portico Library, Manchester, Friday 22nd November. Doors open 6.30 pm. Other contributors include Vanessa Gebbie.

Blackburn Library, Wednesday 27th November, 7.00pm.  I'll be reading with two other contributors to the book, Carys Davies and Sarah Dobbs. Details here.

The book is available for pre-order at a discount from The Book Depository.

Friday, September 06, 2013

New story in The View From Here


The excellent online magazine The View From Here kicks off its autumn season today, and I'm chuffed to be in the fiction slot, The Front View, with a new story, 'Tides, or How Stories Do or Don't Get Told'.

I suppose you could say that 'Tides' is a bit of a metafiction, but I hesitate to use that word because it sounds as if the story is far more experimental, hermetic - whatever - than I think it is. A short while ago the reading group I'm in had a couple of writing-group sessions, and I brought this story and made the mistake of calling it metafiction, and I think it put people off and they approached it fairly critically. (I think they liked it in the end, though!). See, that's the danger of labels, yet they're what we're stuck with in this marketing literary culture...

Anyway, I'd be really interested to know what other people think. You can read the story here.

Many thanks to Kate Brown, Fiction Editor at The View From Here.

Crossposted with Fictionbitch.