Some exciting news: my book has been shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. As is always the way whenever I get any nice news, I was at work – which made concentrating for the rest of the day very, very difficult. Anyway, the announcement was made here, on the Edge Hill website. And I’m very pleased to be part of a list that includes such wonderful writers as Sarah Hall, Tessa Hadley, Zoe Lambert and Rowena Macdonald. As you can see, it’s an all-female shortlist but it’s also interesting to note the number of northern writers on there as well as all the debut collections. The winners of the main prize and the readers’ prize will be announced at a ceremony in London on July 5th – congratulations everyone.
Author: A. J. Ashworth
Guest post: A. B. Wells
The lovely and supportive Alison Wells is celebrating the launch of her feel-good space adventure ‘Housewife with a Half-Life’ today (May 8th). Here’s Alison – or A. B. Wells – to tell everyone a little bit more about her book:
A Housewife’s answer to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy! In this lively space comedy, Susan Strong and her spaceman guide Fairly Dave dodge entropy hoovers, Geezers with Freezers, the Super Gnome and the Spinner’s cataclysmic converter on a mission to retrieve the lost pieces of the housewife’s disintegrating self across parallel universes. Can they save us all from Universal Devastation?
Three copies up for grabs
If you fancy being in with a chance of winning a copy of my book, I’m planning to give away three copies on the books and reading website Goodreads. You don’t have to answer any questions – you just have to click on the ‘enter to win‘ button to be put into the draw. The giveaway is open to anyone anywhere in the world and ends on May 15th – good luck!
‘A story of dark and diamonds’ – an interview with Vanessa Gebbie, author of ‘The Coward’s Tale’
I’m delighted to welcome Vanessa Gebbie to my blog today to talk about her debut novel ‘The Coward’s Tale’, which has just been released as a paperback by Bloomsbury. ‘The Coward’s Tale’ is the story of a young boy called Laddy Merridew, who has gone to stay with his grandma in a small Welsh mining town – home to the Kindly Light Pit and the scene of a terrible disaster there a number of years earlier. Whilst there Laddy strikes up a friendship with Ianto Jenkins, a beggar who tells the stories of those townsfolk who have been affected by – and continue to be affected by – the disaster, either directly or indirectly. The book is a cleverly constructed tapestry of those stories, with Ianto Jenkins’ own story proving to be one of the most intriguing. As well as a novelist, Vanessa is also a renowned short story writer and has published two collections so far – ‘Words From a Glass Bubble’ and ‘Storm Warning’. She was also the contributing editor of a collection of essays on the short story, ‘Short Circuit: A Guide to the Art of the Short Story’. AJ: Hi, Vanessa. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me about ‘The Coward’s Tale’. It’s a beautiful book – wonderfully engaging and finely crafted. The writing is so precise and filled with genuinely original, thought-provoking descriptions and language. How did you approach the writing of the book? Did you concentrate on the individual stories and then work at linking them together, or did you have a bigger vision from the beginning?
A reading in beautiful York
I enjoyed reading last Sunday as part of the ‘Pub Shorts’ event at the historic Black Swan pub for the last day of the York Literature Festival.
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| The Black Swan, Peasholme Green, York |
After a few days of angst about what story to read, I opted for ‘The Rings of Saturn’ – a story about a reporter who goes to interview a couple for their golden wedding anniversary. The piece also features astronomy, a recurring theme of mine but one which I enjoy exporing and is pretty close to my heart, so I hope people in the audience enjoyed it. Others reading at the event included Steve Toase, Tony Dew, host Helen Cadbury and James Wall, whose story ‘Longer than Lunch’ will soon be published in respected literary magazine Tears in the Fence. (Please take out a subscription for yourself or a friend – the magazine is currently struggling financially and is in desperate need of support.) It was really nice to be asked along to take part in the festival and to hear a great selection of new stories from my fellow readers – writers who are definitely worth keeping an eye on for the future.
* I’ve just been interviewed by writer Adnan Mahmutovic, who was shortlisted with me in last year’s Willesden Herald short story competition. If you want to see me trying to answer some fairly tough questions then click here.
An interview, a longlisting and a review in the TLS
Well, it has certainly been an interesting week or so. First, I was interviewed by Alison Wells for her blog on the writing.ie website and we discussed the elements of a good short story and what I like about them. Second, my collection was longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize alongside books by the likes of Tessa Hadley, Edna O’Brien, Sarah Hall and my fellow Scott Prize winner Cassandra Parkin, whose ‘New World Fairy Tales‘ is a sexy and sassy reworking of some of the more famous Grimm fairytales. Then, to my huge surprise, I discovered my book had been reviewed in this week’s TLS by Ivan Juritz, who said some very nice things indeed – so thank you, Ivan Juritz whoever and wherever you are. Thank you for reading my book in the way I’d like it to be read. A good week indeed. And one to remember when the writing’s not going so well in the future. Weeks like this make it all worthwhile.
Update: I also neglected to mention that I’m reading in the ‘Pub Shorts’ event at York Literature Festival this Sunday (April 1st) – click the link at the side for more information.
Update number two: The book has also just now sneaked onto the Frank O’Connor Short Story Award longlist. Congrats to everyone on there.
Interview on writing.ie
I’ve been interviewed by the lovely Alison Wells on her blog Random Acts of Optimism on the writing.ie website. If you fancy a read please click here.
Birth of a book
I just saw this short video of a book being printed and bound and thought I’d share (thanks to @goodreads on Twitter). It’s a nice celebration of the level of skill and craftsmanship that goes into producing physical books – skills which are at risk of being lost if the demand for print continues to fall.
The lives of mothers
I just noticed that The Guardian are running a series of podcasts featuring short stories about motherhood to mark Mother’s Day this Sunday (March 18). The first is Tessa Hadley reading Elizabeth Bowen’s story ‘Coming Home’ – a story I’m not familiar with myself but which I’m looking forward to listening to. This got me thinking about which one I’d choose should such a situation ever arise and the story that instantly sprung to mind was ‘Snow Angel’ by American writer Stephanie Vaughn. I first read this a couple of years ago after buying Vaughn’s collection ‘Able Baker Charlie Dog’ (the book has just been reissued under its alternative title of ‘Sweet Talk’ and is well worth getting hold of).
In the story we get a glimpse into the life of a young mother, Marguerite, who is at home with two noisy children while her husband becomes stranded after his car breaks down. As far as plot goes, nothing much happens. We just learn that Marguerite is hiding in the closet to get some peace and quiet, then that she takes a couple of phone calls from her husband and later that she plays games with her children. But, as with all the best short stories, these little events tell us so much about Marguerite’s life – her loneliness, her parental frustrations and also how invisible she feels as a human being. “If I had somebody to tell these things to, I think I could make them into good stories”, she says to herself, after her husband fails to ask how her day has gone. A sentiment which could well resonate with mothers everywhere.
Scott Prize shortlist
The shortlist for the 2012 Salt Publishing Scott Prize has recently been announced – so, being one of last year’s winners, I just wanted to say a quick congrats and good luck to the 11 who have made the cut. You can see who they are here. I recognise a few names on there so it’s going to be really interesting to find out who the winner is, when the decision is made around April. If you want to find out more about each shortlistee, Salt are running a series of interviews on their blog – click here and look at the blog post list on the right-hand side for #ScottPrize – The Shortlist in Profile. There’s a few on there already, more to come. So good luck everyone. From the story extracts I’ve seen so far, it looks like it’s going to be a tough year.
