I was born in Dublin and made my way to London on a bike in my mid-twenties. It’s where I can still be found though ever further out, most recently as far as Harrow. I no longer own a bicycle.
“That’s how we salvage the past, locating the small stories and passing them carefully into the future,” a grieving mother confides in “Stopping Distance.” At the same time, she continues, “The story of my loss isn’t something I want to pass on. The only thing I can pass on is the silence.”
Total: 371, ten of which will comprise New Short Stories 12 and one that will attract the one-off mug inscribed The Willesden Short Story Prize 2022, plus a certificate with no Staples A4 printer paper spared in its production. Thanks to all for the high standard of entries. Ed. pic.twitter.com/mk073Oa3Ma
August 29, Monday. Good morning! The total number of short stories in the inbox as of this morning stands at 279. [Ed.]
We're back with a competition for inclusion in Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 12. Closing date will be August 31, 2022. Entry fee £5. 10 prizes: 1st £300, 2nd £200, 3rd £100 and 7 x £50, plus copies of the book. (The prize details have been updated.) https://t.co/92maCxFF6H
Your forebears could hunt an epiphany through the great forest of Um without breaking a twig and spear it with words sharpened on the soles of their feet. Arise, put on your leotards and send in your short stories, ye of this century…(Enough, thank you. Get to the music. Ed.)
A guest story to cool the air this summer. Sean Brijbasihas kindly lent us this far out story as a reprint from his unknowed book of the same name. Sean is one of the unknowed people behind the Willesden short story competition. Please do not write in to tell us that unknowed is not a word! (Ed.)
… To my surprise, I received a response, stating that a vice admiral couldn’t be blamed for the consequences of my ingratitude. Such a knowing people, I thought. It was true. Lily had given me everything even when I didn’t ask, appearing with unexpected gifts even when I deserved nothing. She told me the most beautiful stories that I, in turn, told to others as if they were my own …
Sean Adrian Brijbasi lives in America.
Sometimes he writes.
“You get the feeling that NO ONE CAN SEE THE WORLD I LIVE IN by Sean Brijbasi is the kind of book inspired by people who will most likely never read it.” –Rail Drinks Magazine (?)
We’re delighted to announce that novelist and short story writer Jarred McGinnis has agreed to judge the Willesden Herald Short Story Competition 2022. An American abroad, his debut novel The Coward (Canongate, 2021) was a BBC2 national television “Between the Covers” recommendation. It is also about to be published in the US and in France, Italy and Spain later this year. He has many strings to his bow, including short fiction for BBC Radio 4 and much more besides, which you can read all about on his website. He is no stranger to our competition, having had a short story in New Short Stories 4. (Submit)
We’re back with a competition for inclusion in Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 12. Open to international entries. Closing date will be August 31, 2022. Entry fee £5. There are ten prizes, as follows:
Greetings to our friends in Ukraine and also in Russia. Here's a wish that your differences may be settled by diplomacy and not more war. I have to say something constructive when I'm about to share with you a short story in which a young woman asks, "Have the Russians won everything yet?" Ed.
“In the Soviet Union, with its ritual of daily obstacles and anti-Semitism, the U.S. had seemed a haven, a far-away hope of her life’s opposite. She was young when the exodus of Jewish refugees, as they were officially called, started in the 1970s, mostly to North America and Israel. Suddenly, everyone knew someone, or was someone, who was leaving. Her mother’s coworker. Her father’s cousin. The girl who sat behind her in school.”
Yelena Furman
Yelena Furman lives in Los Angeles, where she teaches Russian literature. Her fiction has previously appeared in Narrative.
“Maclaverty is the author of five previous collections of stories and five novels, including Grace Notes, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and Midwinter Break, shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. Born in Ireland, he now lives in Glasgow, Scotland.” (LitHub)