Name Dropping

Forgive me, but I’m about to name drop. And not just once.

First up, I have contributed to this book: How To Publish a Kindle Book. There are a load of great writers in there too, including someone I believe is a genius: screenwriter, John August. Pretty cool, I can tell you.

You might know John August for writing wonders such as this:

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And second. Last week a number of people got in touch to say that Not So Perfect had been reviewed in Flash Magazine. (The first was the lovely Vanessa Gebbie, who’s in there too.)

The review was brilliant.

My stories explore “the tortuous joys of human relationships”.

I like that.

And some of my endings “charm by their ambiguity”.

I like that too.

I also like that one of my most interesting techniques “is the manipulation of the boundary between the literal and metaphoric.”

Yep, I was thrilled by the review.

And you know what else thrilled me – that Margaret Atwood has stories in the same issue.

That’s right. Me, Margaret Atwood and John August. Who’d have thought it, eh!

I’d strongly advise checking Flash Magazine out – that’s a subscription I’ll definitely be maintaining.

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So that’s enough name dropping for today. Though, did I tell you that one of my stories was used on high school course along with one of Dave Eggers’…?

Short Story Recommendation #5

Well, it was inevitable, wasn’t it? I simply had to recommend an Aimee Bender story, mostly, because she’s my favourite short story writer. Ever. (You can read me interviewing her here.)

I think it’s safe to say I could recommend any of her stories; they’re all wonderful.

Today I’m sticking with an old and firm favourite. The Rememberer.

It begins…

My lover is experiencing reverse evolution. I tell no one. I don’t know how it happened, only that one day he was my lover and the next he was some kind of ape. It’s been a month and now he’s a sea turtle.

I keep him on the counter, in a glass baking pan filled with salt water.

“Ben,” I say to his small protruding head, “can you understand me?” and he stares with eyes like little droplets of tar and I drip tears into the pan, a sea of me.

He is shedding a million years a day. I am no scientist, but this is roughly what I figured out. I went to the old biology teacher at the community college and asked him for an approximate time line of our evolution. 

Click hear to read it in full.

Cuddly

Rather pleased with what’s been said about Not So Perfect over at Fiction Uncovered...

Nik Perring’s ‘Not So Perfect’ published by Roast Books is an addictive combination of simultaneously cuddly and uncomfortable stories which often hint at everyday familiarity and then, suddenly, completely upset that particular apple cart. There is a great warmth and humanity throughout even in the more unnerving stories and Mr Perring’s knack for ‘defamiliarizing’ the everyday, to use short story critic and academic Charles May’s term, is a wonder to behold.’


And speaking of my book, I still have some copies available for the £10 I’ll write whatever you want in it for Christmas offer, as first mentioned here.

Short Story Day 4

Today I’d like to point you in the direction of Neil Gaiman’s ‘Babycakes’. I’ve not been able to find a version you can read, but you can listen to the master reading it here or, if you’d rather, you can see it as a comic strip here.

Babycakes does one of the things I think all great stories need to do: it is EXACTLY the right length. And its shape is about perfect too.

And I love the sentiment. Enjoy. And let me know what you think.

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And I should add – Dan Powell is doing exactly the same thing over on his blog. Check him out. He knows his onions. AND his stories.

Another Story

Day number 3 of my short story recommendations is upon us.

And what have got in store for you today? Well, it’s an offering from perhaps the best writer of short fiction in the world today, the brilliant, Etgar Keret.

I love this story for so many reasons, but mostly, I think, for its echo. For what it leaves me with each time I read it. I’ve been that person. And, what a title!

It’s called One Kiss on the Mouth in Mobasa, and I got this version from LA Weekly. Enjoy.

One Kiss on the Mouth in Mombasa

Translated from Hebrew by Sondra Silverstone

Illustration by Ryan Ward
For a minute, I got uptight. But she told me to take it easy, I had no reason. She’d marry me, and if it was important, because of our parents, it could even be in a hall. That wasn’t the point. The point was somewhere else altogether — three years ago, in Mombasa, when she and Lihi went there after the army. Just the two of them went, because the guy who was her boyfriend had just re-enlisted. In Mombasa, they lived in the same place the whole time, some kind of guesthouse where a whole bunch of people hung out, mostly from Europe. Lihi wouldn’t hear about leaving the place, because she’d just fallen in love with some German guy who lived in one of the cabins. She didn’t mind staying either, she was pretty much enjoying the quiet. And even though that guesthouse was exploding with drugs and hormones, no one hassled her. They could probably see that she wanted to be alone. No one — except for some Dutch guy who got there maybe a day after them and didn’t leave the place until she went back home. And he didn’t actually hassle her either, just looked at her a lot. That didn’t bother her. He seemed like an all right guy, a little sad, but one of those sad types who don’t complain. They were in Mombasa for three months, and she never heard him say a word. Except for once, a week before they left, and even then, there was something so gentle about the way he talked to her, something so weightless, that it was as if he hadn’t said anything at all. She explained to him that the timing was bad, told him about her boyfriend, who was some technical something in the air force, about how they’d known each other since high school. And he just smiled and nodded and moved back to his regular spot on the steps of the hut. He didn’t speak to her anymore, but kept on looking. Except that actually, now that she thought about it, he did speak to her one more time, on the day she flew back, and he said the funniest thing she’d ever heard. Something about how, between every two people in the world, there’s a kiss. What he was actually trying to tell her was that he’d already been looking at her for three months and thinking about their kiss, how it would taste, how long it would last, how it would feel. And now she was leaving, and she had a boyfriend and everything, he understood, but just that kiss, he wanted to know if she would agree. It was awfully funny, the way he spoke, kind of confused, maybe because he didn’t know English well, or he just wasn’t much of a talker. But she said okay. And they kissed. And after that, he really didn’t try anything, and she came back to Israelwith Lihi. Her boyfriend was at the airport in his uniform to pick her up in his army car. They also moved in together, and to spice up their sex life a little, they added some new things. They tied each other to the bed, dripped some wax; once they even tried to do it anally, which hurt like hell, and in the middle, shit came out. In the end, they split up, and when she started school, she met me. And now, we’re going to get married. She has no problem with that.
She said I should pick the hall and the date and whatever I want, because it really doesn’t matter to her. That isn’t the point at all. Neither is that Dutch guy — I have nothing to be jealous of there. He’s probably dead already from an overdose or else he’s lying drunk on some sidewalk in Amsterdam, or he went and got a master’s degree in something, which sounds even worse. In any case, it’s not about him at all, it’s that time in Mombasa. For three months, a person sits and looks at you, imagining a kiss.

Lamb and Lost Books

First off, I’d like to point you all in the direction of the Library of Lost Books – a wonderful idea by publisher, Scott Pack. Go see what it’s all about yourselves, folks. I think you might like like what you find there.

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And, here’s the second in my series of short story recommendations that I’m running on here for National Short Story Week.

It’s called ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ and it’s by Roald Dahl, and it begins…

The room was warm and clean, the curtains drawn, the two table lamps alight-hers and the one by the empty chair opposite. On the sideboard behind her, two tall glasses, soda water, whiskey.  Fresh ice cubes in the Thermos bucket.

Mary Maloney was waiting for her husband to come him from work.


Click here to read on.

Short Story Week

Well now, isn’t that splendid? This week is National Short Story Week. Yes, splendid indeed.

I’m not actually doing any events for it (for a number of reasons, none of which I can be bothered going into on here) – my week will be spent judging the latest batch of entries in the Slinkink Scribbling Slam.

But, I am going to try to recommend a short story a day.

Starting with this old favourite, from my old favourite: Franz Kafka. I think it is wonderful.(It’s here, courtesy of here.)

On The Tram

by Franz Kafka
Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir
I stand on the end platform of the tram and am completely unsure of my footing in this world, in this town, in my family. Not even casually could I indicate any claims that I might rightly advance in any direction. I have not even any defense to offer for standing on this platform, holding on to this strap, letting myself be carried along by this tram, nor for the people who give way to the tram or walk quietly along or stand gazing into shopwindows. Nobody asks me to put up a defense, indeed, but that is irrelevant.
The tram approaches a stopping place and a girl takes up her position near the step, ready to alight. She is as distinct to me as if I had run my hands over her. She is dressed in black, the pleats of her skirt hang almost still, her blouse is tight and has a collar of white fine-meshed lace, her left hand is braced flat against the side of the tram, the umbrella in her right hand rests on the second top step. Her face is brown, her nose, slightly pinched at the sides, has a broad round tip. She has a lot of brown hair and stray little tendrils on the right temple. Her small ear is close-set, but since I am near her I can see the whole ridge of the whorl of her right ear and the shadow at the root of it.
At that point I asked myself: How is it that she is not amazed at herself, that she keeps her lips closed and makes no such remark