Best British Short Stories 2020 Nicholas Royle (best way to read ebooks txt) đ
- Author: Nicholas Royle
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Port, edited by MW Bewick and Ella Johnston, is a fascinating and cherishable addition to the editorsâ own Wivenhoe-based Dunlin Press catalogue. It features, poets, place writers and short story writers responding to the theme suggested by the title. My favourite piece was Sarah-Clare Conlonâs âThe General Synopsis at Middayâ, about sailing to the Isle of Man. There were more boats, buoys and pontoons in Conlonâs âWarning Signsâ, in a flash fiction special issue of the ever-wonderful Lighthouse journal from Gatehouse Press. At the darker end of the spectrum, Black Static, from TTA Press, continues to disturb and unsettle. My thanks to editor Andy Cox and some of his contributors during 2019, including Stephen Volk, Tim Lees, Steven Sheil and David Martin, for continuing to shine their flickering torches into the darkness of the worlds both around and within us.
CĆnfingĆ Magazine is super-reliable. Last yearâs two issues included stories by David Rose, Stephen Hargadon, Justine Bothwick, Elizabeth Baines, Tom Jenks and Vesna Main. I especially liked David Roseâs âSmokeâ, but not quite as much as his âGreetings From the Fat Man in Postcardsâ online at Litro. Highlight of Structoâs 2019, for me, was David Frankelâs story, âShooting Seasonâ, in issue 19. The regular arrival of Ambit remains a cause for celebration and the fact I selected only one story from their four issues last year â Richard Lawrence Bennettâs âEnergy Thieves: 5 Dialoguesâ from issue 235 â is a reflection of how many good new stories are being published in magazines, anthologies and collections, and online.
I very much enjoyed four debut collections: Jane Fraserâs The South Westerlies (Salt), Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbiâs Manchester Happened (Oneworld), Nick Holdstockâs The False River (Unthanks Books) and The Map of Bihar and Other Stories (Circaidy Gregory Press) by Janet H Swinney, whose âWashing Machine Warsâ is a wryly observed tale of politely warring Turkish and Indian neighbours in suburban England and their years-long bouts of competitive cooking, gardening and household appliance acquisition. ââI donât know why theyâre called white people,â said Aslan, one of Mrs Ăelikâs older boys, âbecause theyâre grey.ââ
From Valley Press came a science fiction anthology, the winner of last yearâs longest title award: Science Fiction For Survival: An Archive For Mars, Terra Two Anthology: Volume One edited by Liesl King and Robert Edgar. Terra Two, it turns out, is an online magazine hosted by York St John University. Down the A19 and right a bit, Catherine Taylor edited The Book of Sheffield for Comma Pressâs ongoing âA City in Short Fictionâ series. At least, I hope itâs ongoing. There wasnât a bad story in this anthology. Leaving aside Philip Hensherâs âVisiting the Radicalsâ, a novel extract, stories by Margaret Drabble, Geoff Nicholson, Gregory Norminton, Naomi Frisby and Tim Etchells were all strong, but there was something somehow more mysterious about Helen Mortâs âWeaningâ that appealed to me. Etchellsâ Endland (And Other Stories) took me back to his 1999 collection Endland Stories from Pulp Books, an imprint of Elaine Palmerâs seminal small press Pulp Faction. The new volume combined reprints from the previous work with new stories.
Etchellsâ stories fizz with the kind of disruptive energy that animates the contents of I Transgress, an anthology of mostly previously unpublished work edited by Chris Kelso for SalĂČ Press, which has also been publishing original short stories in chapbook format, which it calls, rather wonderfully, âFlirtationsâ. Andrew Hookâs âThe Girl With the Horizontal Walkâ was one of these. Another chapbook, NJ Stallardâs The White Cat, a beautifully crafted artefact, arrived from The Aleph, which âdesigns and publishes rare and limited editionsâ; these are definitely worth investigating.
One of the highlights of volume 12 of Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology (Tangent Books) was Cherise Saywellâs yearning tale of satellites, human beings and a dog, âFellow Travellersâ, while issue number 16 of The Mechanics Institute Review was, I think, the biggest and most handsome volume yet in that publicationâs history. Billing itself âThe Climate Issueâ, it features stories (and poems and essays) by established and emerging writers alongside MA/MFA students from Birkbeck. The project director is Julia Bell and the managing editor is Sue Tyley, who has a sizeable editorial team working with her. In this volume the editors have saved, in my opinion and talking only about the short stories, the best till last, with two very strong pieces at the back of the book, âGoldâ by Lorraine Wilson and âThis Place is No Vegasâ by KM Elkes. Wilson writes beautifully about birds, and Elkes about life, death and ponds. Wilson writes about life and death as well, and bird baths, if not ponds.
Issue 11 of The Lonely Crowd was packed with good stories from Iain Robinson, Jo Mazelis, Jaki McKarrick, Susanna Crossman, Niall Griffiths, Gary Budden and many others. I had not previously come across Mal, âa journal of sexuality and eroticsâ. Edited by Maria Dimitrova, its fourth issue, âReal Girlsâ, focuses on âgirlhood and agencyâ. Luke Brownâs story, âBeyond Criticismâ, appears alongside pieces by Natasha Stagg and Chris Kraus as well as poetry and illustrations. Simply yet beautifully designed, it is a sharp, intelligent publication. I hadnât come across The New Issue either, but that is because it is a brand-new publication, a subscription-only magazine from the Big Issue, edited by Kevin Gopal. Issue 1 featured a new story by Sarah Hall taken from her new collection Sudden Traveller. Another new magazine, which I discovered too late to think about picking either or both of the excellent stories by Martin MacInnes and Janice Galloway, is Extra Teeth, put together in Scotland by Heather Parry, Jules Danskin and Esther Clayton.
I enjoyed Michael Hollowayâs story, âThe Devil and My Dadâ, in issue 23 of Open Pen, edited by Sean Preston. The same writer pops up in Still Worlds
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