Category: Fiction

Bustle: “10 storytelling podcasts you need to listen to”

“Whether you’re hitting the road, heading to the gym, or just trying to brighten up your daily commute, here are 10 storytelling podcasts you’ll love listening to if you love short stories. Featuring fiction and non-fiction narratives alike, these shows will scratch that narrative itch when reading a book just isn’t an option.” (Sadie Trombetta, Bustle.com)

TSS Publishing: “God’s Fingers” by Josie Turner

A new story by multi-award-winning writer Josie Turner

Wasafiri New Writing Prize 2018: “Plunder” by Deirdre Shanahan

From Wasafiri: Deirdre Shanahan’s work was included in ‘The Best of British Short Stories 2017’.  Her novel The Night Breathing is forthcoming from Bluemoose Books.

Orhan Pamuk reads and discusses a J. L. Borges short story

Podcast: Nobel laureate novelist Orhan Pamuk joins the fiction editor of The New Yorker, Deborah Treisman, to read and discuss “Ibn Hakkan Al-Bokhari, Dead in his Labyrinth,” by Jorge Luis Borges, from a 1970 issue of the magazine.

Story of the Month, January 2019

The Willesden Herald New Short Stories Story of the Month

January 2019: Disappearing by Barbara Robinson

… Later, John places the kettle on the hob. I’m sitting at his kitchen
table again, rolling another joint. My eyes are level with his waistband
as he leans across me to take cups from a shelf, the tip of his tan-coloured
leather belt close to my face. I yank it …

Barbara Robinson

Barbara Robinson has an MA in Creative Writing from MMU and reads at literary events in Manchester. Her short story Supersum was short-listed for the 2016 Willesden Herald prize and her novel Elbow Street shortlisted for the 2018 Andrea Badenoch Fiction Award and longlisted for the Grindstone Literary 2018 Novel Prize. She has had short stories published in Ellipsis Zine and Fictive Dream.

Belfast Telegraph: “Miss Heidi’s Christmas Angel” by Martin Tyrrell

“She was about to speak when she saw some writing in Heidi’s uncertain hand on the back of a flyer from a double-glazing firm.

Luxembourg – pretty girl, good voice.
Germany – boys, novelty tune.
France – elegant lady, very French”

Belfast Telegraph: Miss Heidi’s Christmas Angel by Martin Tyrrell

An original short story for Christmas by Amy Bloom

This is a hard-edged, at times humorous, tale of filial duty in extremis and “reborn dolls” that provide comfort for patients with dementia. There’s not an iota of sentimentality in it and the characters are deftly drawn.

“Amy Bloom is the award-winning author of four novels, two of which have appeared on the New York Times bestseller list, four collections of short stories, a children’s book and an essay collection”

The Queen of Holloway Castle by Katy Darby

In the year of the 100th anniversary of the first voting rights for women in the U.K., a story by Katy Darby about what the Suffragettes went through, centring around two sisters, one inside Holloway prison, pining, and the other in the street outside, nightly, singing their protest songs.