So very many congratulations to Jonathan Gibbs, whose Issue Twelve short story, ‘A Prolonged Kiss’, has been shortlisted for the prestigious Sunday Times / Audible Short Story of the Year Award. You can find out more on the award site and also on Jonathan’s own site. You can also listen to Jonathan read an extract…
Tracey Rhys on the impetus for her four Bathsheba poems in Issue Twelve. There has only been one dream in my life that I have ever written about, although I’ve often woken up convinced that I’d dreamt the best plot ever, only to realise … well, it was a bit shit really. This one was…
Tracey Rhys reads two of her Bathsheba poems from Issue Twelve of The Lonely Crowd. The Lonely Crowd · Tracey Rhys reads ‘Bathsheba In Eden’ And ‘Bathsheba’ Tracey Rhys’ first pamphlet, Teaching a Bird to Sing (Green Bottle Press, 2016) was longlisted for the Michael Marks Award in 2017. Her poetry has been exhibited at The Senedd…
Rachael Smart: Firstly, congratulations on Love Stories for Hectic People, a collection which excavates love in all of its forms. It is tender and wounding, erotic and transporting, it takes both regular and extraordinary moments in love and offers up brief narratives that are oblique and always unflinching. Your former collections, Pelt and The Cartography…
Truth and Fiction in Story-Telling When I was a young, confused graphic design student, in the long-ago days of collage and drawing boards, I remember train rides across Sydney to art college. I remember the obsessions of a late, damaged teenagehood involving the death of a child, years of classical piano, Tchaikovsky LPs, warped discotheques…
Lauren Mackenzie discusses ‘Free Love’, her short story in Issue Twelve. You can listen to Lauren read the story here. ‘Free Love’ is one story from an interconnected collection called That Sky That Sky which I am currently writing about a family set in Australia and Ireland over the last fifty years. The idea for…
Elizabeth Baines reads an extract from her short story, ‘The Words He Said’, published in Issue Twelve. See the site tomorrow for Elizabeth’s short essay on the composition of the story. Listen to Elizabeth read an extract from the story here. ‘The Words He Said’ is a story about the years-long consequences of a single…
Elizabeth Baines reads an extract from her short story, ‘The Words He Said’, published in Issue Twelve. See the site tomorrow for Elizabeth’s short essay on the composition of the story. The Lonely Crowd · Winter Readings ‘The Words He Said’ by Elizabeth Baines Image by Jo Mazelis.
Lauren Mackenzie reads Free Love from Issue Twelve of The Lonely Crowd. The Lonely Crowd · Winter Readings: ‘Free Love’ by Lauren Mackenzie Image by Jo Mazelis.
Richard Smyth discusses his new short story in Issue Twelve. I’ve never been to Greenland. I spent a week in Inverness when I was ten (1458 miles away), which I think is the closest to Greenland I’ve been, unless you contend that the fractionally closer cultural connections of Stockholm, where I took a city-break in…
Laura Morris reads an excerpt from ‘Foot and Mouth’, her short story in Issue Twelve of The Lonely Crowd. The Lonely Crowd · Winter Readings: 'Foot and Mouth' by Laura Morris Laura Morris’s fiction has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and featured in the Honno anthologies Safe World Gone and All Shall Be Well. She’s…
Mark Blayney discusses ‘Plainsong’, his new short story in Issue Twelve. My friend Dennis is obsessed with building a model of St Paul’s Cathedral out of matchsticks. This might seem a rather pointless endeavour, but think about your own obsessions, if you have any. I’ll wager they’re not too closely aligned to reason or logic.…
Hisham Bustani discusses the creative process behind his two poems in Issue Twelve of The Lonely Crowd. Act I We met in front of the closed door of a martial arts training centre, in a drab building located in the heart of what was (at that time) a haven for well-off Iraqis who fled…
Fergus Cronin reads the opening of ‘Badlands’ from Issue Twelve. The Lonely Crowd · Winter Readings: ‘Badlands’ by Fergus Cronin Read Fergus Cronin on ‘Badlands’ here. Fergus Cronin is a native of Dublin. He has had a variety of occupations ranging from water engineering to theatre. In 2004 he moved to north Connemara in Galway. …