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Guest Editor, April 2011: Vanessa Gebbie
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Short Story Reading Notes:
Like my predecessor (last month's guest editor Valerie O'Riordan), my reading is rather wide-ranging at the moment – and it encompasses a lot of historical accounts of events in World War I for research purposes. Sometimes, I wonder why we need to make stories up at all. Real life is full of events which, given a little magic from a writer’s pen, turn into spellbinding stories. But, as we all know, writing fiction from fact is very hard indeed...
One writer who has spun gold from fact, at least, the fact that she has experience of the settings of her stories, is Jo Cannon, whose collection ‘Insignificant Gestures’ I had the great pleasure to blurb, and which was published by Pewter Press late last year. Cannon is a GP in addition to a writer, and she spent some time in sub-Saharan Africa during her early career. Several of the pieces I most enjoyed were set there, in places which seem so real, I can’t help thinking they are recreations of actual clinics, villages, homes. That is a dangerous assumption, but Cannon’s stories really do transport the reader to a different place. |
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Vanessa Gebbie Vanessa Gebbie is author of two collections from Salt Modern Fiction, 'Words from a Glass Bubble' and 'Storm Warning'. She is contributing editor of 'Short Circuit - a Guide to the Art of the Short Story' (a collection of craft essays and writing exercises from many prizewinning short fiction writers. Also from Salt). She teaches widely - last year she spent some time as writer-in-residence at Stockholm University. |
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Upcoming Recommended Short Story Workshops: |
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There are hundreds of short story workshops around – you only have to Google to discover them. I am sticking here to a few whose tutors I know, or know of, and therefore can vouch for the quality of the content.
April 13th: SCIENCE-INSPIRED WRITING (Bristol)
Tania Hershman, Bristol University Science faculty’s writer-in-residence, facilitates a free event exploring “a magical world of odd-shaped equipment, bubbling liquids and glowing cells, a place where writers can find an infinite number of story ideas...” Visit website
From May 3rd for 5 Tuesdays:
SUCCESFUL SHORT STORIES – A WRITER’S GUIDE (Brighton)
Five sessions, over five weeks, at Evolution Arts. Tutor: Wendy Ann Greenhalgh.
“Learn how to create tension that drives a story, write beginnings that sizzle and endings that surprise, and explore the art of showing – not telling.” Visit website
May 16th – 21st: ARVON FOUNDATION – The Hurst, John Osborne Arvon Centre
Sarah Salway and Tania Hershman are leading a short story week here, with special guest James Friel. “Come and be inspired to create new work or edit existing pieces, with an emphasis on language, form and character development.” Visit website
October onwards: FABER SHORT STORY COURSE (London)
With Marcel Theroux. "This course will embrace all the possibilities offered by short fiction, championing above all the intense, brief, pleasure of an imagination working at peak intensity and unburdened by the obligation of sustaining the fictive dream for hundreds of flipping pages..."
Visit website
I am also leading a few short story workshops myself in the coming months. Here are two of them:
May 28th – June 4th: A RESIDENTIAL COURSE IN IRELAND – SHORT FICTION – SO MUCH MORE THAN IT SEEMS (Anam Cara Writers’ and Artists’ Retreat, West Cork, Ireland)
This is my own writing retreat – I escape here whenever I can. Attending a workshop here in 2005 changed my life.
“A chance to explore in depth the craft of short fiction in all its challenging guises, in one of Ireland’s most creatively exciting venues. A chance to focus on acquiring skills that will maximise the chances of your work rising to the top and standing out for the right reasons not only in publication slush piles but also in competitions.” Visit website
July 1st - 3rd: WINCHESTER WRITERS’ CONFERENCE 2011
I am leading a two-part short fiction course on the Friday evening and the Sunday morning, giving a short fiction masterclass on the Saturday, and looking forward to helping writers at one-to-one appointments.
Visit website
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And her characters, so finely wrought, play out their small dramas in ways that get under the membrane of memory and fight to stay there. There is nothing ‘insignificant’ about this collection, despite the title, and I can recommend it wholeheartedly.
A writer I have recently discovered is fellow Salt author Andre Mangeot. Like Cannon’s, his stories are set against very different backgrounds to the English village where they were read, me curled up on a comfy settee, clutching a mug of coffee... I love the description of Mangeot’s latest collection, ‘True North’, on our publisher’s website – an extract might be:
Flood, heat, desert and snowscape are here almost characters in themselves – edging certain stories to their climax –
Played out against the grinding poverty of street children, in drug fuelled Miami bars and alleys, amongst the detritus of a deserted Thai beach or in the complex world of musical genius –
These compelling and beautifully crafted stories show us that humanity has more that binds us together than separates us. That ... truth and lies are sometimes only divided by a heartbeat.
I won’t say more...perhaps those within striking distance would like to come along to our event at Cambridge WordFest, on 16th April at noon. Andre and I are reading from our latest collections, and talking about the short story. Come and say hello!
Oooh and while I’m at it, please may I mention the latest offering from Catherine Smith, a collection called ‘The Biting Point’, from her own press: Speechbubble Books, a press created in collaboration with another vastly talented writer, Sarah Salway, who edited this page in January. I said this of ‘The Biting Point’:
‘Always brave, always original, always full of surprises and sometimes very sexy.’
But don’t take my word for it – listen to Scott Pack, who says Smith is: “a gifted writer. This is an essential collection for any fan of short stories”. |
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BOOKTRUST CELEBRATION OF SHORT STORY 'Words from a Glass Bubble' has been chosen by Booktrust as one of ten collections in celebration of British short story writers. Read the list here |
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Stop Press...
A little bird tells me that the fantastic writer Jon McGregor ('If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things...') has a short story collection forthcoming from Bloomsbury - but you'll have to wait until next year! |
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