Vanessa Gebbie – New Short Stories

Dodie’s Gift

For the next in our 2020 lockdown series, we revisit the joint-winner of our inaugural short story competition. Some of you may be running around without face or leg coverings for the allowed daily exercise but it's not compulsory, you know. Happily, we can still stay home and read short stories. (Ed)

The Willesden Herald Short Story of the Month

July 2020: Dodie’s Gift by Vanessa Gebbie

“Later, in The Tinners, they sit together in Dodie’s corner on sagging burgundy plush cushions. He has bought her a cider, he drinks beer from the bottle. They talk. Dodie is half listening, looking at the scratches through the varnish on the table…”

Novelist, short story writer, poet, Vanessa Gebbie has won awards for both poetry and prose, including the Troubadour International Poetry Prize, a Bridport short story prize and a much-coveted Willesden Herald short story prize. Author of ten various books, her novel The Coward’s Tale (Bloomsbury) was a Financial Times novel of the year, and her debut poetry pamphlet was selected by the TLS as one of the best of its year. She is commissioning and contributing editor of Short Circuit, Guide to the Art of the Short Story, editions 1 and 2 (Salt). She teaches widely. www.vanessagebbie.com

The author of “Dodie’s Gift” cares about character. It is a beautiful piece about two people circling each other, wondering whether to make contact.
Zadie Smith (Judge’s report – Willesden short story prize 2006)

Dodie’s Gift was first published in Words from a Glass Bubble, Salt Publishing, 2008

Last Call – Inspirations and Prize Fund

Dear Writer Reader,

This is a copy of the text (with some corrections) from our last newsletter before the short story competition closing date, 31 August 2016. I wanted to share how some of our previous finalists got on, which I hope and believe you will find quite inspirational. We’ve also improved the prize fund, as shown below. Please send us your best short stories. Katy and I are looking forward to reading them.

Thanks,
Ed.

Inspirations: Success for Previous New Short Stories Finalists

Here is how some of our previous winners and finalists got on before and after appearing in New Short Stories. In no particular order:

Nick Holdstock @NickHoldstock since winning with “Ward” in 2014 has published The Casualties, a novel from St Martins Press.

Henrietta Rose-Innes @HenriettaRI won the Caine Prize for African Writing. Her story Falling appeared in New Short Stories 4.

Willie Davis’s story Kid in a Well from New Short Stories was also published online in The Guardian modern fiction. Link

In the same year she won first prize in our competition, Wena Poon went on to have her novel Alex y Robert serialised in ten parts on BBC Radio 4’s “A Book at Bedtime”.

Valerie Trueblood, shortlisted in our first year, went on to be shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor award for “Marry or Burn”.

Jo Lloyd (@jolloyds) who won first prize for her story Work, later in the same year won the Asham Award with another story.

Mikey Delgado’s winning story Secure was also published online in The Guardian original writing. Link

Previous winner Virginia Gilbert @GinnyGilbert went on to write and direct the feature film “A Long Way Home” with James Fox & Natalie Dormer as well as publishing a novel, among many other things (like so many of the writers listed here).

Vanessa Gebbie’s (@VanessaGebbie) later novel The Coward’s Tale was published by Bloomsbury in the UK & USA.

Danielle McLaughlin @DanniLmc went on to publish Dinosaurs on Other Planets, the title story from which appeared in The New Yorker.

More recent books of note by New Short Stories contributors:
Miss Emily by Nuala O’Connor @NualaNiC (Sandstone Press)
Time of the Locust by Morowa Yejidé http://www.morowayejide.com (Atria Books)
We Don’t Know What We’re Doing by Thomas Morris @tolmorris (Faber & Faber)

We could go on and on, and in fact we do that over on Twitter, so please follow @storyofthemonth for more literary inspiration and a few more quirky odds and ends.

Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 9

Prizes 2016

1st prize is a one-off Willesden Herald mug inscribed “The Willesden Short Story Prize 2016” and a bottle of champagne courtesy of Liars’ League.
Additionally either (a) half of all net entry fees OR (b) all net entry fees after the first 150 entries, whichever is the greater, will be divided equally among the ten short-listed.
All ten short-listed stories will be published in “Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 9”.
Two complimentary copies of the anthology to each of the ten authors.
A results/book launch event with Liars’ League actors reading from the short-listed stories.
Literary agent Carrie Kania of Conville & Walsh agency has kindly agreed to read the ten winning stories.

For a look at the books, results events, history, pictures, videos and links, please visit Willesden Herald NEW SHORT STORIES. If you’re ready to submit, you can go straight to our page on Submittable. Thanks and may the muse be with you.

New Short Stories with Liars’ League

Liars’ League is an award-winning, globe-spanning live fiction event in its tenth year, so why not get in on the short story action? The next event, with a Gods & Mortals theme, is on Tuesday 13th September from 7.30pm at The Phoenix, 37 Cavendish Square, London W1G 0PP, and entry is just £5 on the door. The next submission deadline, for October’s Flesh & Bone Hallowe’en night, is Sunday 4th September: send your spine-chilling stories of 800-2000 words to liars@liarsleague.com and see www.liarsleague.com for full submission guidelines.

“I’m judging you, that’s my judging look!“

OUR JUDGE FOR 2016

Katy Darby’s short fiction has won various prizes, been read on BBC Radio 4, and appeared in magazines and anthologies including Stand, Mslexia, Slice, The London Magazine and the Arvon/Daily Telegraph Anthology. She has a BA in English Literature from Oxford University and an MA in Creative Writing from UEA, where she won the David Higham Award. Her first novel, The Unpierced Heart, is published by Penguin (Fig Tree). She is a Visiting Lecturer in Creative Writing at City University, is Literary Editor of .Cent and a former editor of Litro magazine, and co-founded and directs the award-winning short story event Liars’ League (www.liarsleague.com).

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

The story so far

We are thrilled and honoured to announce that David Means has kindly agreed to be the judge for the eighth annual Willesden Herald international short story competition.

David Means’ stories have a diamond-like sharpness and clarity, in which we visit locations, society and climates as vividly as in a waking dream. I couldn’t point to Sault Ste Marie on the map but I feel I’ve been there. I’ve never hung onto a train but I sort of know what it’s like now. I’ve never lived in an apartment in New York or slept rough but…you get the picture? Writers, you have your work cut out for you.

Links

Wikipedia: David Means
The Spot by David Means review by James Lasdun in the Guardian
Interview with David Means in the New York Times
Short stories by David Means in The New Yorker
NY podcast: David Means reads Chef’s House by Raymond Carver
David Means’ author page at Faber and Faber

So intercept a story when it stops at traffic lights, shine its windscreen with a piece of tissue paper the size of a coin, run home, type it out and send it to us as soon as electronically possible. Or whatever your process is. Closing date: Friday, 21 December 2012.

Continue reading “The story so far”

Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 1

“Kid in a Well” by Willie Davis
“Mrs Nakamoto Takes a Vacation” by Steve Finbow
“Jolt” by James Lawless
“Vaselino” by Lee Joans
“Paradise” by Nicholas Hogg
“The Dead Don’t Do That Kind of Thing” by Wes Lee
“Words from a Glass Bubble” by Vanessa Gebbie
“Felipe and the Sea” by Jonathan Attrill
“Alternative Medicine” by Laura Solomon
“Born Again” by Shakti Bhatt
“Avoiding the Issue” by Laura Heggie
“Charles Magezi-Akiiki” by Olesya Mishechkina
“Atlantic Drift” by Arthur Allan

A feast of new stories from Britain, India, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand and the USA. This is an underground classic: read it on the tube/ subway/ metro and look cool while missing your stop.