What deadline, what books, what fig rolls?

Sometime on or before the second-last Friday of every month, I have to select the short story of the month for the next month. The book that goes to the writer comes from boxes of new books left over after our online shop closed. I’m sure you can’t wait to hear what the stock levels are for each book, can you? (Stay, I’m afraid the doors are locked.)

Short Stories
New Short Stories 1: 6
New Short Stories 3: 2
New Short Stories 4: 0
New Short Stories 5: 3
New Short Stories 6: 2
New Short Stories 7: 3
New Short Stories 8: 2
New Short Stories 9: 2
New Short Stories 10: 1
Fish Drink Like Us: 3
100/1 bar

Poetry
Last Night’s Dream Corrected: 5
Southernmost Point Guesthouse: 5

Fig Rolls
We no longer supply fig rolls. Mrs Haverty please note.

Steve

P.S. I will update the numbers from time to time. Last updated 28/12/2018.

Gaiman, Smith and Ishiguro to feature in British short story anthology

“Penguin is publishing a new anthology, The Penguin Book of the Contemporary British Short Story, “a literary treasure trove” of “30 great short stories published in the last 20 years”, featuring contributors such as Zadie Smith, Irvine Welsh and Neil Gaiman.” (The Bookseller)

https://www.thebookseller.com/news/penguin-publish-contemporary-british-short-story-anthology-847396

We have one past contributor in it, none other than Thomas Morris, whose story “Bolt” featured in Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 7 (2013).

Guardian – How to Love a Jamaican and Heads of the Colored People

Impressive debuts by Alexia Arthurs and Nafissa Thompson-Spires bring grit and wit to issues around racial identity

Two new short story collections reviewed by Anthony Cummins

via How to Love a Jamaican and Heads of the Colored People – reviews | Books | The Guardian

2006 – Last Night’s Dream Corrected

lndcfrontcover
Cover art by Stratos Fountoulis

It’s not new and it’s not short stories! But it is one of the anthologies we helped to publish back in 2006. And a right purty book it is too.

A tasting menu of poetry from outstanding newcomers alongside established and award-winning poets such as Bill Berkson, Joanne Kyger and Michael Rothenberg. Each poet has a separate section and the physical and visual pleasures of the book are intended to complement the poetry on the pages.

Here is a preview of the contents section from the book.

 

lndc-2
Available from

Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com

Notes on Craft | Carys Davies | Granta

Trial and error – I don’t know of any other way to write. I try something this way and I try it that way, over and over and over.

Which brings me back to the notion of tentativeness – to doubt and uncertainty and to the exhilarating openness which comes with that, to whatever might come along.

Another twice contributor to Willesden Herald New Short Stories is Carys Davies, whose short stories are wonderfully imaginative, funny and engrossing. Two of the stories in her Frank O’Connor Prize-winning collection The Redemption of Galen Pike are also found in our New Short Stories 3 and New Short Stories 4.  Her latest book is West, a novel, published by Granta Books, April 2018.

via Notes on Craft | Carys Davies | Granta

 

Ninevah by Henrietta Rose-Innes to be a film

Blake Friedmann agency announces a film deal for Ninevah by Henrietta Rose-Innes

Henrietta Rose-Innes, winner of the Caine prize for African writing, is also – and you can probably guess by now, from how we select stories – a past contributor to New Short Stories. She has published several novels and short story collections. One of the stories in her collection Homing is also in Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 4.

Becoming Belle – Nuala O’Connor

For the second time today, I’m using the phrase “twice contributor to New Short Stories,” in this case for Nuala O’Connor who, it is fair to say, is one of Ireland’s foremost writers of novels and poetry, as well as short stories. She has published several short story collections and some of her stories can be found online, like this one from 2016: Storks by Nuala O’Connor in the Irish Times.

Nightwolf by Willie Davis | Goodreads

img_20180808_163122“It started with a miracle. It was a useless miracle, but it still counted as a jaw-dropper, a total malfunction of reason and time… I can burn my own bushes, so I have no patience for miracles.” (From the opening of Nightwolf by Willie Davis)

via Nightwolf by Willie Davis | Goodreads

 

 

 

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Credit for Willesden Herald in the back of Nightwolf by Willie Davis

We get a namecheck in the back of the debut novel by twice New Short Stories contributor, Willie Davis, as you can see in this photo I took when my copy arrived. (Steve)