By Lisa Feklistova
Consider the witch. Why did she frighten Europeans, once upon a time?
Journée d’études / Study Day on Short Crime Fiction – 14 October 2022, Université Catholique de Lille
Call for Papers
Modern detective fiction is usually considered to have started with Edgar Allan Poe’s three Dupin short stories and it is certain that the Sherlock Holmes short stories in The Strand magazine brought the new genre to the attention of the world. Other notable writers who helped shape the genre in the early 20th century, including G. K. Chesterton and Melville Davisson Post, stuck to the short form and managed both to innovate and to produce works which are still appreciated today. For Ellery Queen, writing in 1942, it was still possible to state that “the original, the ‘legitimate’ form” of detective fiction “was the short story”[1] and to perceive the detective novel as an inflated short story. According to Catherine Ross Nickerson, “[t]he mechanisms of a detective narrative are more apparent in a short story, since there is less upholstery for hiding the ropes and pulleys. The shorter form also forces writers to make a more clear decision about whether to focus on the puzzle or on the character.”[2]
In Quest of Forgotten Yellow Book Writer Ethel Colburn Mayne
By Elke D’hoker
While early reviews routinely likened her work to that of Henry James, by 1923, Mayne was called ““the only short-story writer capable of succeeding Katherine Mansfield”
Continue reading “In Quest of Forgotten Yellow Book Writer Ethel Colburn Mayne”
Edge Hill Prize shortlist 2021
The annual Edge Hill Prize awards £10,000 to the author of what the judges consider to be the best published short-story collection from the UK or Ireland. This year’s shortlist includes previous winner Kevin Barry, plus four debut authors. It also includes two short story cycles. Full list below:
- Paradise Block by Alice Ash (Serpent’s Tail/Profile);
- That Old Country Music by Kevin Barry (Canongate).
- Lifestyle Choice 10mg by Rosemary Jenkinson (Doire Press);
- The Earth, Thy Great Exchequer, Ready Lies by Jo Lloyd (Swift Press);
- Made by Sea and Wood, in Darkness by Alexandros Plasatis (Spuyten Duyvil);
- She-Clown by Hannah Vincent (Myriad Editions).
Small and independent publishers have made a strong showing. There’s a huge amount of variety amongst these collections, ranging from tales of migrant fishermen (Plasatis) to postmodern historical fiction (Lloyd) and a magic realist version of life on a council estate (Ash). The winner will be announced early in 2022 – hopefully at a live event in the UK.
Alice Munro in the Classroom
By Ailsa Cox
Some one said to me the other day, ‘I don’t get Alice Munro.’ It’s okay, I told her. Continue reading “Alice Munro in the Classroom”