1. Can you remember the first short story you ever read?
I remember thinking Kafka’s The Metamorphosis was ridiculous. Later I fell in love with short fiction and thought differently about Kafka’s work, considering story but also themes related to society, working life and family. Ideas or moments in reading often inspire my writing. For example, when they can’t rely on him Gregor’s family must become active, so they become active. In my book the single mother must do everything, so she learns to do everything.
2. What can people gain by reading more short stories?
When students join my creative writing classes, they often say they have difficulty finishing stories. Oral story-telling and reading short fiction means that you are thinking about stories as a whole. It’s a great way to learn about writing or the ideas you’re interested in. I’m currently reading and thinking about Kate Atkinson’s story The Void in her linked collection Normal Rules Don’t Apply and Katy Wimhurst’s An Orchid in My Belly Button.
3. You bring a researcher-author perspective to short fiction. How do your creative and academic writing relate to each other?
I wanted to write a new story for the mother sacrificed to the plot in the film Muriel’s Wedding. This negative treatment of middle-aged women is shown in the story Lentils and Lilies by Helen Simpson. I explored Bakhtin’s dialogism, invitational rhetoric and polyvocality, contemporary novel composition and short story cycles which value and include the older mother’s perspective e.g. Girl, Woman, Other or The Wren, The Wren. This influenced the structure of my novel.
Dr Emma Kittle-Pey has recently completed her PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Essex. Her thesis is a creative/critical exploration of place and gender in contemporary fiction. The novel is a (grand)mother-daughter relationship set in coastal Essex. The reflective commentary focuses on place, specifically local coastal communities, the evolution of the mother-daughter plot, working women and women who write, writing short fiction and using short stories in longer form fiction.
Emma has had two collections published by Patrician Press and has read her short fiction nationally and internationally. She teaches at the University of Essex, ACL Essex, at a primary school, and works on projects for Essex Book Festival. She is the founder and curator of Colchester WriteNight, a popular monthly community writing event.
