Paul McVeigh in action
How to enjoy the London Short Story Festival? The novel approach – a full 3 days to linger in Waterstones Piccadilly, flitting between five floors to drop into c. 27 events, browse books and enjoy meals in a choice of cafes. Or go short story: compressed, intense – 6 events in 10 hours. The Jude and Jane way.
Congratulations to Joanna Campbell, our local prizewinner in 2013 with the poignant ‘Fragments Left behind.’ Her debut novel ‘Tying Down the Lion’ has just been published by Brick Lane and she will be at Waterstones, Bath at 6.30 pm on July 9th for the launch.
“The Beautiful Thing’, by Kit de Waal to be broadcast on Radio 4, 22nd March
We’re delighted to announce that Kit de Waal’s story ‘The Beautiful Thing’, which won second prize in The Bath Short Story Award, 2014, is going to be broadcast on Radio 4. Produced in BBC Radio Bristol by Mair Bosworth you can hear it on Sunday 22nd March 0.30 am (Effectively, Saturday night) and it will be available on iplayer for 30 days. We will add the link to the website when it is up shortly. A lovely treat for the beginning of Spring! Continue reading
A book to buy! The BSSA team is getting one. And if you’re quick you might win a pre-publication copy. (see below) We love Emily’s compelling short story Zoom, which is published in our 2014 Bath Short Story Award anthology (Buy now from this site for £5.00)
“Myriad’s first publication of 2015 is Emily Bullock‘s debut novel, The Longest Fight, a beautiful and brutal story set in the gritty world of 1950s boxing. Throughout January, Goodreads are offering readers the chance to win one of ten exclusive, pre-publication copies of the novel. Bestselling Writing magazine has published a profile interview with Emily in their latest issue where she offers her ‘top tips’ for writers and discusses her journey to publication, as well as the challenges of writing her novel as part of her PhD.”
Emily won the 2011 Bristol Short Story Prize with her story My Girl, which was also broadcast on BBC Radio 4. She worked in film before pursuing writing full time. Her memoir piece No One Plays Boxing was shortlisted for the Fish International Publishing Prize 2013 and her short story Zoom was longlisted for our 2014 award. She also won the National Writers in Education Conference (NAWE) Short Story Competition in 2013. She has a Creative Writing MA from the University of East Anglia and completed her PhD at the Open University, where she also teaches Creative Writing.
It’s so inspiring when authors are successful in several different fictional forms. In December 2014, we announced that our 2014 second prize winner, Kit de Waal secured a three book deal with Viking beginning with her novel, ‘My Name is Leon’.
This week, we learned that Anne-Marie Neary, whose short story’ Gon-Do-La’ is also published in our 2014 Bath Short Story Award Anthology, and who read at our 2014 anthology launch at Mr B’s bookshop back in November, has secured a deal with Hutchinson for her novel ‘Siren’, which will be published in spring 2016. Another of her novels will be published in 2017. Senior editor from Hutchinson, Emma Mitchell says of ‘Siren’, ” This brilliant novel grabbed me right from the dramatic opening scene. Anne-Marie is an outstanding story teller and builds the tension, page after page to an an exhilarating denouement. ‘I’m delighted to have her for the Hutchinson list”.
Both Anne-Marie and Kit have won awards for short and longer fiction and there’s further inspiration from authors on the Interview page on this site. We interviewed the wonderful award winning novelist and short story writer Antony Doerr in March 2013. His novel, ‘All the Light We Cannot See’, published in May 2014 in the US, was an instant New York Times best seller and one of four finalists in the US National Book Awards. It’s one of Jude’s current recommended novel reads and her interview with Antony Doerr is back at the top of our interview page on this site There’s some great advice for short story writers in this interview, particularly on final edits.
It’s only the beginning of January and Kit de Waal our second prize winner in the 2014 Bath Short Story Award, who we interviewed last month has won second prize in The Bare Fiction Prize from Bare Fiction Magazine www.barefictionmagazine.co.uk/competitions/results/ for her Flash Fiction story, “I am the Painter’s Daughter”. Anne Corlett, our local prize winner in BSSA 2014, has won third prize in the short story category of the same competition with her story ‘Clay Baby’. Many congratulations to both writers. You are an inspiration!
You can buy the 2014 BSSA anthoogy containing the stories by Kit and Anne and eighteen other winning stories here
The anthologies are also available at Mr B’s Emporium Bath, and Toppings Bookshop Bath. In Bristol they are at Durdham Down Bookshop, North View, Bristol and in Frome they are at Hunting Raven Bookshop.
Many congratulations to the following writers, published in our 2014 anthology, who have had further 2014 writing successes since our results were announced in June. We may not have everyone listed here – so writers, do let us know your news.
Kit de Waal our 2014 second prize winner for her story ‘A Beautiful Thing’, won the 2014 Bridport Flash Fiction competition with her story ‘Romans Chapter 1, Verse 29’, her work, ‘Blue in Green’ won the Reader’s Choice Prize in the Sl Leeds Literary Prize 2014 and her debut novel, ‘My Name Is Leon,’ is to be published by Viking after a recent 6-way bidding auction.
Roisin O’Donnell one of the commended writers in the 2014 Award, was shortlisted in the Wasafiri New Writing Prize for her story ‘Infinite Landscapes’ and her first published poem ‘The Lighthouse Keeper to his Daughter’ has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize by Structo Magazine.
Sophie Hampton, shortlisted for her story ‘Ghost Bike’ in our award, was also shortlisted for her story ‘The Tower’ in the Bristol Prize 2014. This story is published in Bristol Prize 2014 anthology.
Ken Elkes’s longlisted story ‘Greta Garbo and the Chrysanthemum Man’ is published in our anthology. He also won the Prolitzer Prize 2014 for his short story ‘Anyplace Is Paradise’. He was a winner in the Aestthetica Creative Writing Compeition 2014 and was first prize winner in the 2014 Brighter Writers’ flash fiction competition He was also shortlisted for another story in this same competition, received an honourable mention in the 2014 Yeovil Short Story Prize and was shortlisted in the Exeter Short Story Prize 2014
Anne-Marie Neary’s longlisted story ‘Gon-Do-La’ is published in our anthology. Her story ‘Upstairs’ won the 2014 Michael Mclavety Award, her story ‘Remote Control’ was one of four runners-up in the 2014 Sean O’Faolain short story competition and will be published in the Winter 2014 edition of Southword. Her story, ‘One Day In Sarajevo’ was one of three finalists in the inaugural KWS Hilary Mantel short story competition 2014, judged by Hilary Mantel and organised by Kingston Writing School.
News items 2013 – June 2014
London Short Story Festival 2014
June 20th – 22nd
My bag’s not yet packed but tickets are booked and I’m ready to go to the inaugural London Short Story Festival for a day of literary treats. Launched by Spread the Word and Waterstones Piccadilly, the festival showcases some of the most exciting talents in the cosmology of condensed prose. Taking place over the weekend of June 20th – 22nd it’s the perfect midsummer night’s dream list of inspiring events and outstanding writers such as M.J Hyland, Jackie Kay, A.L. Kennedy, Alison Moore and Helen Simpson.
I’m doing the Saturday so it’ll be an intensive day of six events, kicking off with ‘The Weird and Wonderful World of Short Stories’, a conversation between Dan Powell, Robert Shearman and Adam Marek, chaired by Tania Hershman. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Adam whose stories, recently broadcast on Radio 4, kept me entertained and sane during hours of mindless admin.
And ‘What is it about the Irish?’ – at this event the cream of the green crop discuss why the Irish are considered the best short story writers in the world. With my Welsh heritage, I battle with this galling but inescapable ‘truth’ as once more I turn to Joyce, Trevor and currently Claire Keegan. Claire is a luminary in the world of literary short stories so I’m looking forward to hearing her in discussion with Paul Mc Veigh the Festival Director, blogger extraordinaire and everyone’s friend on Twitter.
Two writers I’m really excited about are Colin Barrett and Anna Metcalfe, both ‘Young Guns and Hot Shots’ but I have to confess to a bias. Following the publication of his remarkable collection ‘Young Skins’, Colin agreed to be interviewed for our website and gave some brilliant and insightful advice. Anna, too, has shared her thoughts with us and her wonderful story Flight, shortlisted for last year’s BSSA award, is in our 2013 Good Reads Anthology; more recently she became the youngest writer on the shortlist of The Sunday Times EFG Award and her success was announced with the headline ‘Ingenue shakes up story prize.’
The weekend promises to be a dynamic mix of workshops, author readings and panel events as well as the launch of a new competition – the London Short Story Prize. Another fantastic opportunity for writers to hone their skills and possibly achieve publication – one of the main reasons we founded the Bath Short Story Award last year.
So buy your tickets now –the workshops are selling out fast. Jude from the BSSA team is also planning to come and we hope we’ll meet as many of you as possible – old friends and new from the writing community.
Jane Riekemann
Useful links:
http://www.spreadtheword.org.uk/events
@LSSFest #LSSF
www.facebook.com/londonshortstoryfestival
December 2013.
Congratulations to Anna Schlesinger, one of our BSSA team. She has just published her novel ‘Paradise and Back’ on Lulu. The novel tells the fascinating story of Josie, brought up in wartime Thames Ditton and part of bohemian London in the 1950s and 1960s. Wanting to escape from her demons, Josie travels to Samoa with her partner and young sons. But paradise is not all it seems. A gripping read. Buy now for £9.99 from Amazon on the following link.
http://www.lulu.com/shop/anna-schlesinger/paradise-and-back/paperback/product-21320005.html
November 2013
We are very excited about our on-line anthology of twelve stories from the 2013 Bath Short Story Award. Published by Hearst under their Good Reads imprint and edited by Emma Dally, Group Director of Books at Hearst Magazines UK it is available to buy for £3.99 from Amazon, Kobo and Apple. Links to these sites on our home page. The anthology is promoted by Good Housekeeping Magazine (link below). We are grateful to Caroline Ambrose, one of our original team, who has now left BSSA to run the Bath Novel Award www.bathnovelaward.co.uk. Caroline made the initial contact with Emma Dally and we are very pleased it has had such a brilliant result.
There’s details of all our authors on the Good Housekeeping site and a great blog post about writing by Eamon Griffin, who wrote ‘Anna’, one of the published stories.
http://www.goodhousekeeping.co.uk/news/bath-short-story-award
JUST PUBLISHED ‘While No-one Was Watching,’ by Debz Hobbs-Wyatt, winner of the 2013 Bath Short Story Award. A Psychological Thriller set at the time of the Kennedy Assassination and published by Parthian Press www.parthianpress.com/
HOW TO WRITE A PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER, workshop with Debz Hobbs-Wyatt on Tuesday November 19th 2013 6.30-8.30 pm at Mr B’s Emporium of Books Bath. Cost £25. More details on our sponsor’s wesbsite. www.writingeventsbath.co.uk
EVENT WITH NOVELIST CATHERINE O’FLYNN Wednesday 20th November 2013 (Costa prize winning author represented by our short list judge, agent Lucy Luck). Catherine will talk about her new book, ‘Mr Lynch’s Holiday’. More details and how to book on our sponsor Mr B’s website www.mrbsemporium.com/
OCTOBER 2013
CONGRATULATIONS TO SARAH HALL, WINNER OF THE 2013 BBC NATIONAL SHORT STORY AWARD WITH HER STORY, MRS FOX
Read what she has to say about writing short stories on our INTERVIEWS Page.
