Category: Fiction

The BBC National Short Story Award 2019 – Finalists

Image

The shortlist is:

  • ‘The Children’ by Lucy Caldwell
  • ‘Ghillie’s Mum’ by Lynda Clark
  • ‘Silver Fish in the Midnight Sea’ by Jacqueline Crooks
  • ‘My Beautiful Millennial’ by Tamsin Grey
  • ‘The Invisible’ by Jo Lloyd

The result will be announced on Radio 4 “Front Row” on October 1st.

Ref: Radio 4 British National Short Story Award

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)

Story of the Month, September 2019

The Willesden Herald New Short Stories Story of the Month

September 2019: Rip Rap by Dan Powell

“It is still dark when you finally arrive. A few streetlights set about the expanse of the cliff-top car park are dead, their bulbs ghostly and pale as blind eyes. All the parking bays are empty. The dim glow of the dashboard clock displays just after four, but like the speedometer, like the fuel gauge, like everything about the Astra, the hands are old and tired and worn and not to be trusted. It’s a miracle the car got this far.”

Dan_Powell_authorshot

Dan Powell’s prize-winning short fiction has appeared in the pages of Being Dad, The Lonely Voice, Unthology, The London Magazine and Best British Short Stories. His debut collection, Looking Out of Broken Windows, was shortlisted for the Scott Prize and longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and the Edge Hill Prize. He is currently working on a second story collection and a debut novel, is a First Story writer-in-residence, and a Doctoral Researcher in Creative Writing at University of Leicester. He procrastinates at danpowellfiction.com and on Twitter as @danpowfiction.

Continuing our retrospective series, “Rip Rap” is included in Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 8, together with stories by  Jo Barker Scott, Joan Brennan, Gina Challen, Nick Holdstock, CG Menon, Angela Sherlock, Megan Taylor, Medina Tenour Whiteman and Lindsay Waller-Wilkinson.

“Like Water and Other Stories” by Olga Zilberbourg

Olga Zilberboug’s short story “Love and Hair” took the Willesden Herald first prize in 2016, and is included in Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 9. We were very happy to see Olga in London to receive her award from judge Katy Darby. She makes a gracious acceptance speech at the end of this video from the event.

Pre-order “Like Water and Other Stories” direct from the publisher. Read the Moscow Times review.

The Sunday Times / Audible Short Story Award Shortlist, 2019

Read excerpts from the six short stories and bio’s of the writers, including Danielle McLaughlin who won the Willesden Herald international short story award 2013, when our judge was David Means. Link: Sunday Times

Story of the Month, August 2019

The Willesden Herald New Short Stories Story of the Month

August 2019: Dark Song by Roberta Dewa

“I slip into the water. I didn’t plan to swim, but there’s still static fizzing in my veins from last night’s concert and as the river laps me up I’m cooling down, the static disappearing into a string of bubbles streaming out all around me and rising up from the deep channel, like there’s a diver down there somewhere.“

Robie Dewa - Photo by Ursula Kelly Photography

Roberta Dewa has always written fiction, and in her twenties published three historical novels with Robert Hale. While studying for various degrees she published poetry and short fiction, including a first short story collection, Holding Stones (Pewter Rose Press, 2009). In 2013 she published a memoir, The Memory of Bridges, and a contemporary novel followed: The Esplanade (Weathervane Press, 2014). Since retiring from university teaching, she has been writing poetry and short stories again, and in November 2017 won the Willesden Herald prize with her story Dark Song. She is currently coming to the end of the first draft of a new novel.

Continuing our retrospective series, “Dark Song” is included in Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 10 having won first prize in the WH short story competition 2017. Visit Robert Dewa – Author and Lecturer.

* Photo copyright (c) Ursula Kelly Photography

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

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

“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.”