Paul March-Russell

The European Network for Short Fiction Research was established in 2013 with the aim of fostering and promoting the study of short fiction in European universities and in interaction with short fiction writers. After an inaugural meeting early in 2014, the ENSFR has organized annual conferences as well as sponsored several other study days and events. This website aims to be an interactive platform for sharing research, expertise, ideas and information about short fiction in its diversity of linguistic traditions and forms.

17 April 2023

Keynote Speakers confirmed for ENSFR conference, Short Fiction: Landscape and Temporality, Manchester 2023

We are very pleased to confirm our distinguished keynote speakers for this year’s ENSFR Conference, Manchester University 23-25th October 2023.

They are:

Jon McGregor, short-fiction writer and novelist, author of This Isn’t The Sort of Thing That Happens to Some One Like You (Bloomsbury 2012)

Paul March-Russell, author of The Short Story: An Introduction (EUP 2009)

Maria Christou , author of Eating Otherwise: The Philosophy of Food in Twentieth Century Literature (CUP, 2017)

Livi Michael and Sonya Moor, fiction-writers and co-presenters of the Small Pleasures podcast.

19 November 20203 February 2023

Short Fiction in Theory and Practice 10.1

Short Fiction in Theory and Practice 10.1 contains original fiction by Zoe Lambert on the theme of illness and caring, plus co-written fiction from Amy Lilwall and Rupert Loydell. There are articles on writers including Agatha Christie, Margot Lanagan, Flannery O’Connor and Patrick Gale, plus an unpublished short story by the British writer Carl Tighe, who recently died from Covid-19, accompanied by an appreciation by Elizabeth Baines. Paul March-Russell reviews Borders and Border Crossings in the Contemporary British Short Story and Moy McCrory reviews Being Various, the anthology of new Irish Irish short stories edited by Lucy Caldwell. And you can find out about how oral ghost stories mingle the discourse of fact and fiction.

10.2, coming early in 2021, will be a special issue on Short Fiction as Humble Fiction, and will include an interview with Sarah Hall.

The European Network for Short Fiction Research was created as a joint initiative of researchers at Edge Hill University (U.K.), the Université d’Angers (France) and the University of Leuven (Belgium). We have now been joined by many other colleagues from all over Europe. Our broad aim is to foster and promote research on short fiction across different countries and institutions.

We aim to provide a forum and resources for European-based researchers into the practice, criticism and transmission of short fiction in its diversity of forms and to facilitate collaboration in both critical and practice-led research. We hold annual conferences on short fiction, hosted in different universities across Europe, and we facilitate and support many other conferences, workshops and seminars in the broad field of short fiction studies.