Having been declared a ‘prodigy’ following her first publication in the New Yorker (1992), Heiny has finally delivered her long-awaited debut collection ‘Single, Carefree, Mellow.’ This collection is populated by middle class New York women, most of whom are striving for success in their lovers’ beds rather than in their work. The majority have embarked Read More
A debut work in the form of a collection of short stories is still a rarity; it would normally only be published well into a writer’s career, possibly after a number of novels. Of course the quality of the writing and the depth of talent of the writer can create an exception, and in Kseniya Read More
The Ten Days Executive by Rhoda Bharath is a collection of short stories the quality of which came as a pleasant surprise to me. Prior to reading this collection, I had never encountered Bharath’s work and came to this review with no preconceptions. As I delved further into her writing I was struck by its Read More
Picture, if you will, the tropical growth of a Caribbean island: where venomous snakes writhe among a multitude of indigenous fruits and flowers; where mothers make everything from guava jelly to poultices designed either to ward off evil spirits or attract good ones; where farm boys work hard to sustain their families but squander their Read More
“I’m here. I’m here.” In “distance”, the last story in Jellyfish, Janice Galloway’s first short fiction collection in five years, the final words may be simple, but in the context of the collection as a whole, they say so much. Galloway’s characters are trapped in a variety of mundane situations; they tolerate, despair, endure, succumb, Read More
Volwys & Other Stories is a collection of science fiction stories, culminating in a novella entitled Volwys. Douglas Thompson has published eight books to a mostly divided critical reception, with reviewers undecided on whether or not his books are exemplary of the genre. Volwys & Other Stories definitely belongs to the science fiction genre, imaginatively Read More
This collection of short stories has been greatly anticipated for some time. And what better place to review The Book of Gaza than from Dundee, the twin city of Nablus since 1980? The collection is edited by Atef Abu Saif who is shortlisted for this year’s International Prize for Arabic Fiction,an annual literary prize run Read More
Sara Maitland recently wrote in The Guardian (5th March 2015): “I believe that most of us have a deep yearning for the magical, for a secret ‘otherness’, for an environment flowing with abundance – not just with nature but with super-nature too”. To that end, she urged the trustees of Wayford Woods, near Crewkerne, not Read More
Freight Books presents novelist and short story writer Vicki Jarrett’s debut short story collection The Way Out. This short and bittersweet cluster of tales is an offering which undoubtedly reveals the author as a talent to watch, with both capacity and potential that will keep her audience engaged. The collection has an interesting cohesion despite Read More
Leaving the Sea is a collection of self-contained short stories which focus on the theme of alienation. Aspects of this theme range from the practical struggles of parenthood to fantastical descriptions of the world at large. Each story features characters who feel isolated because they are unable to communicate their needs to others or, at Read More