Guest Editor, February 2011: Adam Marek
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Short things on my radar in February: Sunday Times Fast Fiction
The Fast Fiction section of the Sunday Times Magazine website has an archive of short stories published in the magazine – there are stories from Julian Barnes, Helen Simpson, Ron Rash, and lots of others. The Times websites are a subscriber service, but you can get 30 days trial access for a quid.
Guardian short story podcasts In the run up to Christmas, The Guardian did a series of 12 podcasts of authors reading their favourite short stories. They include Philip Pullman reading ‘The Beauties’ by Chekhov, Helen Simpson reading ‘The Kitchen Child’ by Angela Carter, Rose Tremain reading ‘Extra’ by Yiyun Li, William Boyd reading ‘My Dream of Flying to Wake Island’ by JG Ballard, and Anne Enright reading ‘Fat’ by Raymond Carver – they’re brilliantly produced and have an interview with the author about the story at the end. Download them from the iTunes store now, they’re awesome. |
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Adam Marek Adam Marek has just won the Arts Foundation short story writing fellowship. He was shortlisted for the inaugural Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award. His story collection, Instruction manual for swallowing, was published by Comma Press in 2007 and was nominated for the Frank O’Connor Prize. |
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Adam's stories have also appeared in Prospect magazine, The Sunday Times Magazine, The Stinging Fly and Riptide, and in many anthologies including When it changed and The new uncanny from Comma Press and the British Council’s New Writing 15. He is working on his second story collection. www.adammarek.co.uk
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Lit nights: One of the highlights of last year for me was discovering some of the great monthly lit nights in London. Google these, and then go along:
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The Book Stops Here (formerly To Hell With The Lighthouse), Shoreditch House Literary Salon, Literary Death Match.
They’re all hosted by charismatic dynamos, and are populated with great writers doing great readings to beautiful people who enjoy their fiction live with a Hendricks cocktail in their hand. Pure delight. |
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Books by my bedside: |
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I’m naughty with story collections and usually have a whole bunch on the go at once and dip in and out of them, rather than sticking faithfully to one at a time. Hey, I like variety. This is the stack on my bedside table at the moment – all of which I’m enjoying: Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned – Wells Tower
Runaway – Alice Munro
Grey Area – Will Self
BBC National Short Story Award 2011 anthology
Close Range – Annie Proulx
Riptide Vol. 5
The Stinging Fly issue 17. |
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Thresholds: In the autumn I did a frenetic live Q&A on the Thresholds website where I attempted to type as fast as I can talk. Thresholds is an international online short story forum run by the University of Chichester. There are lots of articles about story writing, writers and craft. Two of the highlights on there are a Hanif Kureishi interview by Alison MacLeod, and a Q&A with Robert Shearman. The site’s well worth checking out. |
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The Paris Review interviews:
I also have the Paris Review interviews volume 3 by my bedside at the moment. Have you come across the Paris Review collected interview books yet? They’re the best. The third volume includes an interview with Raymond Carver from 1983. There’s a lovely moment where he talks about how he took the book containing his first publication to bed with him and slept with it (just sleep, no sex) – he, his wife, and the book in bed together. I love the image of the three of them, like three entities of equal importance. My own first publication felt that special too. |
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