From Short Fiction

Growing Chestnuts / Dave Wakely

This sub-text of violence and hostility runs throughout the story, from the blood-red of the pomegranate juice staining neighbours’ hand as they share a meal in a garden to the conker dust that gets into eyes like “shrapnel from an exploding shell.” The language of war arrives in the story before the bullet, just as the other-ing rhetoric of conflict and difference arrives in communities before fists and bullets. Even the jocularity comes with a threat: “The way Adrijan hugged him and laughed, spilling his wine, I thought he’d break my father’s ribs.”

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On Writing ‘The Mansion House’ / Elaine Canning

The interplay between the real and fantastical as a conduit for self-discovery is something which I explore within the broader parameters of my writing. In Carlos’ case, this is encapsulated in his encounter with the old man of the mansion house and his subsequent undertaking of three challenges; challenges fused with a darker side of his day to day reality and the unreal, with three doors, three sightings of his sister and the transformation of the three adults who care for him.

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ON ANECDOTES AND HUMAN SOUP / Madeleine D’Arcy

An anecdote, in itself, is not enough to create a work of fiction. However, I disagree with the fictional Uncle Sima. For me, anecdotes are jumping off points, thought-provoking fodder and inspiration for my work. Of course, an anecdote has to be twisted and turned, stretched, recalibrated, reinterpreted  and wrought into a piece of fiction that works. What I am always trying to achieve is a story that has resonance, subtext, emotional heft, significance of some kind; an insight into why people are the way they are and why they do the things they do. My fiction is mostly realistic and character-driven, so the anecdotes and throw away lines I hear on a bus or a train or in the supermarket or the pub are essential and without them, I don’t have a stepping-off point that leads me into something else.

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The Settlement / P. J. Morris

Last December the former Managing Editor of Wales Arts Review, P. J. Morris, tragically and unexpectedly passed away. In addition to being an important cultural force in Wales, Morris was also an accomplished playwright and emerging fiction writer of outstanding ability. Here we publish online a short story first published in The Lonely Crowd, Issue…

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An Interview with Catherine McNamara / Rachael Smart

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…

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So, Did This Really Happen to You? / Catherine McNamara

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…

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On Writing ‘The Words He Said’ / Elizabeth Baines

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…

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Winter Readings: ‘The Words He Said’ by Elizabeth Baines

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.

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Winter Readings: ‘Foot and Mouth’ by Laura Morris

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…

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Winter Readings: ‘Grey Wizard’ Catherine Wilkinson

Our Guest Non-Fiction Editor Catherine Wilkinson reads her short story, ‘Grey Wizard’, originally published in Issue Ten. The Lonely Crowd · Winter Readings: ‘Grey Wizard’ by Catherine Wilkinson Catherine Wilkinson was first published in Issue 11 of this publication with her story GREY WIZARD. Introduced as ‘an exquisite painterly story concerning the death of a…

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Writing ‘A Prolonged Kiss’ / Jonathan Gibbs

Jonathan Gibbs discusses his short story in Issue 12. You can listen to Jonathan read the opening of the story here. ‘A Prolonged Kiss’ has since been shortlisted for the prestigious Sunday Times / Audible Short Story of the Year Award. ‘A Prolonged Kiss’ is a story that was a long time coming. It grew…

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