Category: Audio

Willesden Results and Awards Event on YouTube (slideshow/audio)

A happy and peaceful Christmas, Hanukkah and general winter wingding to all who love short stories. This is our gift to you! Willesden Herald Short Story Competition 2022 Results and Book Launch.

Short clips for those in a hurry? Step right this way…

One minute: intro to Jarred and cheer for the Willesden Writers’ Group
One minute: the verdict: first prize goes to…

Want to play the whole one and a half hours and have done with it [because it’s so entertaining – Ed.]?

Willesden Herald in association with Liars’ League presents
THE WILLESDEN SHORT STORY PRIZE 2022

With Special Guest
CLAIRE LACEY

Introduced by
KATY DARBY – www.katydarby.com

In association with Liars’ League – www.liarsleague.com

Slideshow and complete recording of the event, with story excerpts, results and prizegiving

“Who will take the coveted one-off Willesden Herald inscribed The Willesden Short Story Prize 2022? All will be revealed on the night. Plus ten cash prizes to the writers of the stories in New Short Stories 12. From The Performance Space, upstairs in The Library at Willesden Green.”

Buy! Buy! [Bye Bye! ed] New Short Stories 12

New Yorker Fiction: “The Depletion Prompts” by David Means

A series of paragraphs in the form of suggestions about how to write this story itself, complete with an audio reading by the author. David Means was a judge for our short story competition one year.

The world’s best writers reveal their favourite short stories…

Sunday Times / Audible – Writers’ Picks

“Some of our great writers – from Elizabeth Strout to Mark Haddon – nominate what their favourite short story is, and tell us, in this intimate series, why they love it so much. You can watch the series here, with new choices every week”

Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award website

New Yorker Fiction: A rare prose poem

In a change from the usual New Yorker long short story genre, the 20 April 2020 issue features a self-described prose poem by Ben Lerner. It’s a marvellous jumble of words and thoughts in search of something.
Want to know more after reading “The Media”? Here you go…

Liars’ League: Keep Calm & Read On (500 Stories / Videos)

The mighty archive of short stories discovered by Liars’ League, as presented by actors at their lively literary evenings. LiarsLeague.com

The New Yorker: “Are You Experienced?” by David Means

Means is the author of the novel “Hystopia” and five story collections, including “The Spot” and “Instructions for a Funeral,” which was published earlier this year.

The New Yorker

Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 7

We never miss the chance to plug our own anthologies. So, we have to tell you now that David Means was the judge for the 2013 Willesden Herald international short story competition. The prize mug went to a story by Danielle McLaughlin, which you can read in Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 7.

BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University 2019: “The Invisible” by Jo Lloyd

“WELSH WRITER JO LLOYD WINS THE 2019 BBC NATIONAL SHORT STORY AWARD WITH ‘TIMELESS’ AND ‘DEEPLY TENDER’ STORY INFLUENCED BY BREXIT, SOCIAL DIVISION AND FOLKLORE” (BBC Radio 4)

“Welsh writer Jo Lloyd has won the fourteenth BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University 2019 (NSSA) for ‘The Invisible’, a distinctive and compellingly original story. Inspired by the life of an 18th Century woman from Carnarvonshire called Martha who claimed to be friends with an invisible family living in an invisible mansion, Lloyd discovered her story by chance in the online Dictionary of Welsh Biography. Set in a close-knit community, the story is both timeless and universal, and resonates profoundly in an age where fear of outsiders and social division is rife.”

Listen: Aimee-Ffion Edwards reads “Jo Lloyd’s hypnotic tale about the fantasies people embrace to make life bearable” The Invisible by Jo Lloyd.

Read: “Welsh writer takes £15,000 prize for The Invisible, based on a real 18th-century woman who spread tales in her village” Guardian report including the text of the short story.

Interview: Jo Lloyd on Winning the 2019 BBC National Short Story Award (Wasafiri)

This news continues a series of successes this year by previous Willesden international short story prize winners. Jo Lloyd won the Willesden in 2009 with her story “Work”, which you can read in New Short Stories 3.

New Yorker: Louise Erdrich reads her short story “The Stone”

DonErdrich at the 2015 National Book Festival.‘t forget the new Twitter version provides a facility to “bookmark” tweets for later. This can help if you haven’t got time to read just now or have used up all your “free views” till next month. Direct link to text and reading: The Stone by Louise Erdrich.

Photo: “Author Louise Erdrich reading at the 2015 National Book Festival. Erdrich won the 2012 National Book Award for Fiction for her novel The Round House.” (Wikipedia)

The New Yorker: “She Said He Said” by Hanif Kureishi

“Hanif Kureishi wrote the screenplays for My Beautiful Laundrette and Le Week-End, among other films. He has published eight novels, including, most recently, The Nothing.”

The New Yorker online

Text and reading by the author in The New Yorker (limit on free access applies)

“Second Best” by DH Lawrence (audio)

“A disturbing and powerful story about growing up and coming to terms with life’s realities. Read by Carolyn Pickles. Produced by Simon Richardson.” (BBC Sounds, Summer Stories)

A typical (and typically wonderful) Lawrence story linking human desire to the relentless struggle, conflict and pathos of animals in nature. A powerful but deathly joy found in embracing the second best available mate. Listen

The New Yorker Summer Fiction Issue 2019

The flagship annual summer feast of fiction that keeps readers and writers delighted and hopeful respectively. See This Week In Fiction for many more short stories, interviews and readings.