Contributors to The Lonely Crowd pick their favourite books of the year. Mary Morrissy Maybe because I’m far advanced into the writing of a novel, I’ve found myself reading a lot of non-fiction this year, and reluctant memoirists, in particular, it would seem. As a result, all of these writers seem to write slant about personal…
Catherine Wilkinson discusses the creative process behind her short story ‘Grey Wizard’, featured in Issue Eleven. The forensic analysis of a story is an exercise I relish, including the detection of which nuggets have snuck in from what aspects of a writer’s life or research: the ornamental eggs from Monique Roffey’s memoir (With the Kisses of His…
I don’t like reading about other people’s holidays, especially in fictional pieces acting as a thinly disguised love-letter to a location recently visited. I can’t help but get the sense of a writer showing off, perhaps wishing themselves to appear worldly or worldlier than they really are. How do we pick apart posturing from a…
Susmita Bhattacharya C. G. Menon is the author of Subjunctive Moods, published by Dahlia Publishing. She’s won or been placed in a number of competitions, including the Fish, Bridport, Bare Fiction and Short Fiction Journal awards. Her work has been broadcast on radio, and she’s been a judge for several international short fiction competitions. She has a PhD in pure mathematics and an MA in creative writing from City University. She is currently working on her first novel.Susmita Bhattacharya: What inspires you to write? C. G. Menon: I sometimes read a story or novel that I wish I’d written,…
Photos from the Cardiff launch of Issue Ten of The Lonely Crowd. All photos by Michou Burckett St. Laurent The Lonely Crowd in Cardiff were… Jane Fraser lives and works in Llangennith, Gower. She has an MA and PhD in Creative Writing from Swansea University. In 2017 she was a finalist in the Manchester Fiction…
Sophie Van Llewyn discusses her short story, ‘Dinner for Two’, taken from Issue Ten of The Lonely Crowd. At the time when I began writing ‘Dinner for Two,’ in the winter of 2017, I was, primarily, a flash fiction writer. I had a six-month-old baby, and I only had time to write when she was napping.…
Paul Whyte discusses his short story, ‘Bottle Gardens’, featured in Issue Ten of The Lonely Crowd. I’ve lived with a relatively severe anxiety disorder for most of my life. It’s a part of who I am, and that’s ok, over the years I’ve come to accept it. Thankfully, I seem to be managing it pretty well…
Meadhbh Ní Eadhra reads an excerpt from ‘Messages’, her short story in Issue Ten. Meadhbh Ní Eadhra is from Galway in the West of Ireland. She writes in Irish and English and has published three award-winning novels for young people, Rua, Fáinne Fí Fífí and Faye. She won the Moth Short Story Prize in 2013 and has received numerous national Oireachtas literary…
In order to consider the germination of my story I’d like to refer to Dan Coxon’s online piece on this site On Writing ‘Sound of the Riverbed’, in which he assesses the worth of the adage, ‘Write what you know’. He concludes: Perhaps I was wrong to reject Mark Twain’s ‘Write what you know’. Perhaps…
Lucie McKnight Hardy reads an extract from ‘Badgerface’ featured in Issue Ten of The Lonely Crowd. Lucie McKnight Hardy grew up in West Wales, and is a Welsh speaker. She has various pieces of short fiction published or forthcoming in print and online, and her debut novel, Water Shall Refuse Them, will be published by…
I began this story last October, on the day and date the story takes place, in the town in which the story takes place, sat in the passenger seat while my brother drove us home from our grandfather’s funeral. My girlfriend sat in the back, five months pregnant with our first child, and we listened…
Time goes by and I do not write. Despite Kafka’s warning – “A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity”[*] – I do not fret, I do not let this sit heavy upon me. Rather, this period of time, to outward appearances so unproductive, is a time without worry, a time of lightness indeed, an unburdened…
‘Leave The Light On For Me’ is one of twenty-three stories that comprise a short fiction collection entitled The South Westerlies that I submitted for my PhD thesis in 2017. The collection is an attempt to know my place of Gower. All the stories are set here where I live, work and write, in the…
It’s a funny thing how different a short story is to a novel. You’d thing they’d be much the same to write, if not to read. The writer, after all, would set to work with the same basic tools, using the same skills. You’d be facing the same challenges, only on a different scale, or…