Tag: Alex Barr

Cranes

Our first Story of the Year 2024 is about a quest, a journey in a narrowboat over days and months, meeting a cat and people known and unknown along the way and asking them a question. Not the cat, the people. (Ed.)

The Willesden Herald Story of the Month

January 2024: Cranes by Alex Barr

Fidler took early retirement and spent a year restoring a narrowboat, but when the year ended was filled with emptiness and horror.
  His daughter came to stay and was shocked.
  ‘You look terrible, Father. You’re not yourself.’
  ‘Who am I then?’
  ‘Why aren’t you out on the boat on the canal? Why restore a boat if not to use it?’
[…]

The opening of “Cranes” by Alex Barr
Alex Barr

Alex Barr’s recent short fiction is in Tears in the Fence, The Lampeter Review, The Interpreter’s House, New Welsh Reader, The Last Line Journal, Otherwise Engaged Journal, Sixfold Fiction, Mechanics Institute Review, Litro Magazine, Feed Literary Magazine, Reflex Press, Samyukta Fiction, and Streetlight Magazine. His short story collection ‘My Life With Eva’ is published by Parthian in Wales, where he lives.

You might be interested to know that Alex Barr is a previous contributor to Willesden Herald publications, having provided the story “Homecoming” chosen by Maggie Gee as a prizewinner for New Short Stories 5. His poem “Southernmost Point Guest House” also became the eponymous title for that anthology of poetry. (Ed.)

Poetry: Southernmost Point Guest House

This is an anthology of poetry from the same publisher as New Short Stories. Poetry and short stories, like horses and goats, make good companions.

The collection brings together poetry by writers currently living in America, Britain, Ireland, Italy and New Zealand. They have little in common other than finding themselves here, in this book, and in the early part of the 21st century, with something to say.

You can preview the list of contents here.

Contributors: Raewyn Alexander, Alex Barr, Lynn Blackadder, Sean Brijbasi, Susan Campbell, David Cooke, Tim Craven, Mikey Delgado, Vanessa Gebbie, Kim Göransson, James Browning Kepple, Charles Lambert, Laura Lee, Andrew Mayne, Geraldine Mills, Stephen Moran, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Richard Peabody, Lynsey Rose, Judi Sutherland, Lee Webber. The title is taken from a poem by Alex Barr.

Available from:

isbn: 9780985213398

Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 5

nss5frontcoverContents

  • “Apartment” by Y.J. Zhu
  • “Blue Raincoat” by Teresa Stenson
  • “Dancing with the Flag Man” by Nemone Thornes
  • “Gusul” by Adnan Mahmutovic
  • “Homecoming” by Alex Barr
  • “Out of Season” by Mary O’Shea
  • “Overnight Miracles” by A.J. Ashworth
  • “Set Dance” by Angela Sherlock
  • “The Bedroom” by Micheal Coleman
  • “The Place” by David Frankel
  • “Thingummy Wotsit” by Adrian Sells
  • “Victor” by Emma Martin

‘Every human type and taste is here – sad, funny, fresh, sharp, gripping, sour and sweet – delicious small mysteries that suddenly reveal their secret hearts.’ (Maggie Gee)

The best of the Willesden Herald international short story prize 2011. Twelve new stories set as far afield as China and New Zealand, Sweden and the US as well as several from Britain and Ireland.

nss5back

Available from

isbn: 978-0974726151

Contributors (2011)

Continue reading “Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 5”