Lille 2018

This conference was organized by Gérald Préher at the Catholic University of Lille on the topic of “Objects of Desire”. Papers in French and English debated the relation between short fiction and desire across different periods and genres, including flash fiction, the novella and short story cycles. After all, as a concentrated and intense form of prose writing, short fiction lends itself very well to representations of desire. As Sarah Hall says, “The form is very good at unzipping the mind’s fly” (‘Sex, Death and the Short Story’). The programme can be consulted here. Selected papers from the conference are published in Journal of the Short Story in English.