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 →

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 17^th 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 17^th 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.

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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 →

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 →

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 →

Our eleventh international award is open today, Thursday 14th December. We welcome short stories by writers from around the world on all subjects and themes. Closing date, Monday 15th April 2024, midnight BST. Continue reading →

We were delighted to read the news today that Patrick Holloway, first prize winner from our 2023 Award, selected by Farhana Shaikh is one of two winners of The Paul McVeigh Residency Prize. Many congratulations to Patrick! Paul judged the BSSA a couple of years ago and this prize he initiated looks very special. Read more about it below and on the Harrison Hotel website.

“The Harrison has become a mecca for visting artists, musicians and writers to stay while in Belfast. When Paul McVeigh enjoyed a stay here at the beginning of lockdown he spoke with our owner Melanie Harrison about doing something literary here and the seeds of the residency were planted. Once a residency was settled upon, Paul made a list of everything he thought would help an emerging writers go to the next level and went about getting it for the lucky writer. He thought about writers who couldn’t physically travel or take the time off work or family or carer commitments and came up with the idea for another winner who would receive an at-home residency with as many of the same benefits as possible. The Paul McVeigh Residency at The Harrison was born”

And this is what Paul had to say about the winning submissions:

“I was astonished at the standard of the entries, some of which I read over and over again unable to find any flaws. In the end, the work that Hilary and Patrick sent in kept rising to the top. I predict these two authors will have major work published in the not-too-distant future and we hope to help make that happen.”

We’re looking forward to reading Patrick’s first prize short story win, ‘The Language of Remembering’ in our 2023 anthology published before the end of the year and wish him all the best for the novel he is writing, which we believe came out of this winning story.