Short Story Spotlight: What to expect in 2023
We are delighted to be publishing four short story collections by individual authors and one Shorts anthology of four authors in 2023!
You can expect satire, strange tales of witching hours, explorations of identity and loss, mythology and that illusive stuff that makes us human: love.
Kicking us off on the 28th of April 2023 will be Charlie Hill and his satrical Samuel Beckett vibe short story collection: The State of Us!
“this is no fairy story but a story of human beings”
In Charlie Hill’s satirical short story collection, people stare. Behind twitching curtains. Behind the lens of a camera. With an eye reminiscent of Samuel Beckett, Charlie Hill invites you to be privy to strange social experiments, laugh at the pomp of the privileged classes and dwell in space, floating in the introspection of your thoughts. As these stories delve into questions of human nature, you just might recognise yourself…
Meet the Author:
Charlie Hill is an internationally-acclaimed author from Birmingham. He has written long and short form memoir, and contemporary, historical and experimental fiction. He is the co-founder and former Director of a literary festival, the PowWow Festival of Writing, which ran from 2011 to 2017 and featured guests such as Joanne Harris, Alex Wheatle, Stewart Home and Natalie Haynes. He has also appeared at many such events, including Frankfurt’s Literaturm and the Birmingham Literary Festival.
On the 12th of May 2023, we are excited to continue our series of excellent short story anthologies with: The Ones Who Flew the Nest by Helen Kennedy, Louise Finnigan, Jacqueline Ward and Katie Hale. We have a separate blog post dedicated to this anthology - check it out and meet our curated authors!
On June 1st we have our stories from the witching hours of motherhood: Sylvia Plath Watches Us Sleep But We Don’t Mind by Victoria Richards.
A Jewish woman has been having unnatural thoughts about the softness of another woman's skin. A feminist arranges to meet her online troll. A woman worries, under her duvet, whether she should sit content in a marriage that has turned comfortable...that is, until she falls in love with a tree... Short stories of midnight musings, of women itching to be heard and of delightful insanities.
About the Author:
VICTORIA RICHARDS IS A FREELANCE JOURNALIST, WRITER AND POET.
She has worked for BBC News, The Times and The Independent, has appeared on Newsnight, BBC World and ITV News and regularly writes for Independent Voices.
In 2017/18 she was shortlisted in the Lucy Cavendish College Fiction Prize 2018, was highly commended in the Bridport Prize, came third in The London Magazine short story competition and second in the TSS flash fiction competition. She was also longlisted in the Bath Short Story Award 2017 and the National Poetry Competition.
She lives in London where she is working variously on a novel, a short story collection, poetry, flash fiction and books for children.
She is also a co-founder of The Second Source, a group of female journalists tackling sexual harassment in the media.
On the 14th of July we welcome Alice Fowler and 'The Truth Has Arms and Legs'.
In Fowler’s debut short story collection, relationships are as delicate as newly-hatched turtle eggs and just as easily smashed. Human kindness is found across generations. We meet characters at turning points. Jenny, whose life is defined by small disasters, discovers a bigger, more generous version of herself. A traveller girl might just win her race and alter her life’s course. A widow, cut off in a riverside backwater, opens her heart to a stranger. In change, Fowler’s characters find the ability to be truly free.
About the Author
Alice Fowler is drawn to writing about outsiders: people who, for a wide variety of reasons, feel at the edges of society. Landscape and the natural world are also powerful sources of inspiration. She enjoys how, in the short story form, complex threads can be unpicked and rewoven, within a relatively small word count.
Alice has a degree in Human Sciences from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She worked as a journalist until 2006, writing features and interviews. Her short stories have won and been shortlisted in prizes and printed in anthologies.
She lives in Surrey with her husband and twin sons. She is passionate about environmental issues, loves theatre, walking and playing tennis, and finds most writerly conundrums can be solved while out walking with her rescue lurcher dog.
On the 10th of November we welcome The Naming of Moths by Tracy Fells.
Stories of myths, mothers and monsters.
It started with stealing her clothes and modulating her vowels but now the au pair has stolen Hannah’s identity. Why does no one believe Hannah is the real mother?
An archaeologist falls in love with an ancient, winged creature. With a child on the way, will he trap her, or will she choose to stay?
A woman writes lists, reassuringly controlled and positive. They must be followed in order, though her abusive husband mocks her for it. One list begins with a plane ticket to Australia; another to purchasing rope and duct-tape. Bucket lists are for the brave.
Stories of magical realism, myths and legends re-imagined, where all the characters are undergoing transformation or facing a pivotal moment of change in their lives. People and animals interchange their shapes. Story landscapes flit from fairy-tale woods to
urban homes. Here love, hope and kindness weave between the realities of
man’s endless talent for cruelty.
About the Author:
Tracy Fells was the 2017 Regional Winner (Europe and Canada) for
the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Her short fiction has been widely
published in print journals and online, including: Granta, Brittle Star,
Reflex Fiction, Popshot Quarterly, Firewords, Funny Pearls and the Bath
Flash Fiction Award anthologies (2019 & 2020). She has been shortlisted
for the Bridport and Fish Flash Fiction prizes, placed in the Reflex
Fiction competition and Highly Commended in the NFFD Micro competition
(2016 & 2020). In 2016 she was awarded an MA with Distinction in
Creative Writing from Chichester University (UK). She is a regular
reader for several large short story competitions and leads writing
workshops on short fiction. Tracy also writes novels and was a finalist
in the 2018 Richard & Judy ‘Search for a Bestseller’ competition. Her
debut novella-in-flash Hairy On The Inside (published by Ad Hoc Fiction,
2021) was shortlisted for the 2022 Saboteur and International Rubery
Book Awards. She tweets as @theliterarypig.
What a wonderful season!
To interview our short story writers or register interest in reviewing for a platform drop an email to isabelle@flyonthewallpress.co.uk