Writing Inspiration: Read short story titles!

Section of Jude’s short story book shelves

I’ve been with groups of writers many a time in a social situation when someone laughs and says, what you just said would make a great story title. Sometimes people do write the story that goes with what they said in conversation. Often they don’t. But as well as finding titles in conversations with friends, it is fun to read titles in published short story collections for inspiration. Continue reading →

How to …


Once upon a time I told my dad I was going to be a writer and he bought me one of those Dummy Guides. It had a bright yellow cover and practically guaranteed I’d produce a bestseller, fast. After a few weeks Dad asked how I was getting on? Had I worked my way through the chapters yet?

Reader, I had not.

He shook his head sadly. Dad was an autodidact who’d taught himself to play the piano, speak three languages and produce a passable watercolour. Surely anyone willing to apply themselves, could learn the ‘rules’ of writing? It’s a question I think about quite a lot, especially as a teacher and mentor. Wouldn’t it be great, the theory goes, if there was a map to follow, a class to take, a video to watch, some instructions we could stick to that would get the story written!

Well, no, actually! Isn’t that the fear of AI? Where would the personality, individuality, oddity and beautiful imperfection be in a creative work written by rote? Following the rules can certainly polish a piece of writing, but can they make it sing? Continue reading →

Review of A Tricky Dance, By Diane Simmons

Diane Simmons was an initial reader for Bath Short Story Award for several years. She is now more involved with National Flash Fiction Day, which she co-directs, writing flash fiction and judging flash fiction contests. A Tricky Dance, published in January 2024 by Alien Bhudda Press, is the third novella-in-flash she has published since 2019. You can find out more about the others, Finding a Way, and An Inheritance on Diane’s website

For those unfamiliar with the form, a novella-in-flash has short flash fiction stories as chapters, which are often, but not always self-contained and together form a narrative arc. A Tricky Dance is the story of Elspeth, a Scottish school girl from a single parent family in the 1980s, who is trying to fit in with her school mates but hampered by a lack of money. Continue reading →

Every Picture Tells a Story

‘Northolme’ by Michael Adams

I was going to call this Pic Fic but, on checking, found that’s already a registered title for an X -Files archive and this blog is definitely not that. I’m not sure if there’s an actual genre for stories inspired by paintings but certainly the visual arts have rippled across literary sands, occasionally making big waves as the works of a particular artist or school have popped up over the years.

Vermeer and Dutch paintings of the 17th Century became a focus in the 90s through the novels of Tracy Chevalier and Deborah Moggach. Girl with a Pearl Earring  (the title of Chevalier’s book as well as Vermeer’s painting) mixes a smidgen of fact with a rich imagining of the identity of the enigmatic subject and her relationship with her master Vermeer. It was a commercial success globally and predictably a film followed. In Moggach’s Tulip Fever  the characters are fictional but the subject is real: tulip mania, which saw the price of tulip bulbs soar until the speculative bubble market crashed. This is the backdrop to the story but Moggach’s inspiration for her tale of love, beauty and the payback for greed was a painting by a very minor 17th Century Dutch artist that she bought at auction and, in the narratives of both Chevalier and Moggach, the world of dark Dutch interiors is illuminated on so many levels.

Continue reading →

Walking familiar paths with freshly curious eyes

I walked for several hours today, in the surprisingly warm sunshine, because I couldn’t settle and I’d spent hours doing admin jobs and rearranging my notes. It’s been a worryingly recurrent feature of the last few months, and I’ve tried to confront it with my usual tricks (star charts, targets, treats, journaling, reading, essay writing, editing etc) but to no avail. Creatively I feel paralysed, the world overwhelming, my expectations of myself and what I should/could/ought to be writing derailing me before I begin.


I set off on my usual route but when I came to the first fork in the path, this way or that, I stopped and thought about what would make me feel better, rather than just move forward on auto pilot or along a predetermined route. None of these paths are new (sorry Robert Frost!), but today I looked for where there was more sunlight, more snowdrops. I chose woodland tracks over tarmac because I wanted to be amongst trees. I walked up a hill to get the view. As I walked I let each previous choice inform the next one and the next until, almost by accident, I left my gloom behind and felt invigorated. Continue reading →

Review of The Naming of Moths by Tracy Fells

Tracy Fells was the 2017 Regional Winner (Europe and Canada) for the Commondwealth Short Story Prize. Her short fiction has been widely published in print journals and online, including Granta and Brittle Star. Her debut novella-in-flash ‘Hairy on the Inside” published by Ad Hoc Fiction in 2021, was shortlisted for the Saboteur Awards in 2022 and the International Rubery Book Awards.

Review

Tracy Fells has been a first reader for the Bath Short Story Award for many years, frequently selecting stories from the entries that go to to be shortlisted or to win a prize. It’s a pleasure now to write a short review of her new short story collection, The Naming of Moths. which was published by Fly on the Wall Press late last year and is available from them or from Amazon.

In their guidelines for submission Fly on the Wall Press state:

“We prefer writing with a sprinkle of social consciousness and political engagement. This encompasses terms such as social commentary or observation, as well as more overtly political storylines. We believe, sometimes, our very existence in a certain setting is political and a story can be political simply in viewpoint.”

Tracy Fells,is a writer who, I believe, exactly fits Fly on the Wall Press’s brief. Her stories are rich with social commentary and observations on how people navigate life in (usually) the present day UK, whether they were born in this country or have travelled from elsewhere. . Continue reading →

Political writing: The ‘The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher – August 6th, 1983’ by Hilary Mantel

In the eleven years we’ve been running the Bath Short Story Award, we’ve been treated to over 12,000 stories on a wide range of themes and genres, presented in a variety of styles. Our anthologies have showcased some 210 of those wonderful stories, many of which have induced tears of sadness, recognition and laughter. But in all the years I’ve been part of the BSSA reading team I can’t remember coming across an overtly political story, say, one just about Brexit, party political shenanigans, or the reality of a protest march.

Of course, stories that deal with topics such as war, refugees, pandemics, homelessness, crime and the climate, for example, will naturally be political in the broad sense and will probably be richer and more textured for it, but one specifically pinning its colours to a ‘party political’ or an issue-specific mast?

Perhaps, there’s a dearth of such stories? And then you come across ‘The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher – August 6th, 1983’ by the late Hilary Mantel. It was the title story in Mantel’s second collection, published in 2014; she has been more highly acclaimed for her long historical narratives but the collection, as a whole, bears her trademark style of framing moments in disquieting prose. In 2015 it was selected for the BBC National Short Story Award and generated a huge amount of publicity, with the Daily Mail calling it ‘warped’ and ‘a distasteful fantasy.’ The subject matter was certainly shocking as the highly divisive former Prime Minister had only been dead for a year when the story was first published. Continue reading →

Interview with Patrick Holloway, the 2023 BSSA First Prize Winner

Patrick Holloway

Hi Patrick!

Q. We were delighted when Farhana Shaikh chose The Language of Remembering, as our first prize winner. It’s a beautiful, haunting story about, amongst other things, memory, language and grief. Could you tell us a little about the process of writing this story. It’s genesis and iterations? The use of second person is so powerful here, I wondered if you landed on that straight away for the story or found your way there? Continue reading →

Judge 2024

Sophie Haydock is a journalist (Sunday Times, Financial Times, Guardian), editor and author, based in Folkestone, Kent. Her debut novel, The Flames, was longlisted for the Historical Writers’ Association Debut Crown Award and won the Impress Prize for New Writers. The Flames has been translated into seven languages and named by The Times as one of the Best Historical Fiction Books of 2022.
Sophie has interviewed leading authors, including Hilary Mantel, Maggie O’Farrell, Bernardine Evaristo, Sally Rooney and Amy Tan. Passionate about short stories, Sophie worked for the Sunday Times Short Story Award and is associate director of the Word Factory. She is a judge for short story awards and her own story, Mudlarks, is available to listen to on BBC Radio 4.

Sophie’s second novel, Madame Matisse, about the women who were integral to the life of the French artist Henri Matisse, will be published by Doubleday in 2025.
Her Instagram account @egonschieleswomen has a community of over 110,000 followers. For more information, visit: sophie-haydock.com Continue reading →