Looking back over 2013

I started to study writing (but not actually doing it) in October 2002. I only started writing writing when I joined a hardworking online writing group in November 2003. Writing is writing, to me. See? Good. 

So. To 2013. Books first. 
One of the joys of working with an indie press is that you can say, ‘Hey, this text book has been out for a few years - I’d like to update, refresh, add some new chapters by fab writers, maybe do a little pruning?’ and they say, ‘Good idea - do it.’

The result is  the terrific second edition of Short Circuit: Guide to the Art of the Short Story. Eight new chapters, new intro, sharper all round, I think - although the first edition was pretty good anyway. It’s been a huge privilege to be able to put together the text book I’d have liked when I started this writing lark myself, so thank you Salt Publishing.

So. That was book number five. A recap? Ok. 

1. ‘Words from a Glass Bubble’ (short stories, published 2008 by Salt), 
2. ‘Short Circuit first edition (2009), 
3. ‘Storm Warning’ (short stories on the theme of conflict, published 2010 by Salt),
4. ‘The Coward’s Tale’ (novel, published in UK in 2011 by Bloomsbury)
4.5 'The Coward’s Tale’ published in USA 2012
5.  'Short Circuit’ second edition (2013)

and book number 6 crept into 2013 as well, allowing me to say I have almost managed a book a year since 2008 as the US version of TCT doesn’t really count.  

6. My debut poetry publication, ‘The Half Life of Fathers’ was published by Pighog Press in November and launched in Brighton. Again, a joy of working with an indie - I was at Gladstone’s Library in September, there was a literary fest, I was reading, and Pighog kindly produced some advance copies. Thank you Pighog. 

It’s a game, all this - a serious one, but a game still. The writing world is full of ‘you must do this, must do that’, and in the end you could spend your days dancing to everyone’s tune but your own. I’m certainly not playing anyone else’s game these days, just mine.

Little Owl, illustration by Lynn Roberts - from 'Ed's Wife and Other Creatures' 

So. Book number 7, and the one I have had more fun writing than any other, is now with my agent. This is the collection of tiny fictions called ‘Ed’s Wife and Other Creatures’, beautifully and cleverly illustrated by artist and poet Lynn Roberts. Lynn’s own collection of poems inspired by paintings in The National Gallery is due out in April, and I am hugely grateful to her for going with the flow when I changed the goalposts from ‘about ten’ illustrations to ‘oh they are so good, can each story have a drawing?’ when there are almost seventy stories.  Thank to Lynn!

Anthology publications this year include a story in the lovely Red Room, published by Unthank and aimed at raising funds for the Bronte Birthplace Trust - and a lovely trip to Manchester to read at The Portico Library, staying with Elizabeth Baines. Then there is ‘The Irreal Reader’ a compilation of the editor’s picks from The Cafe Irreal, one of my favourite online journals, together with academic essays on irrealism. 

Theology Room, Gladstone's Library

Going places thanks to writing - I look back with huge pleasure over a NAWE conference at York, two (two!) stays at Anam Cara Writers and Artists Retreat early in the year, during which I was able to focus hard on the two separate strands of the next novel, ‘Kit’. I then put the novel away, letting it stew, until a glorious month at Gladstone’s Library in September, during which I was able to focus on getting a wobbly draft together, with invaluable input from both my agent (thanks Euan Thorneycroft) and military historian Jeremy Banning. Thank you to both. 

Part of The Western Front, at July 1916

Mr Banning led an unforgettable trip to France for what is becoming an annual event - the Writers Pals visit to the WW1 battlefields. This year, readings of poetry by the grave of Isaac Rosenberg, readings in  a sodden Strip Trench at Mametz Wood from 'In Parenthesis' by David Jones, and a walk with poet and friend Caroline Davies from the Citadel at Fricourt down to the Hammerhead were real highlights. As was the group writing every evening by the fire at Chevasse Ferme. Next year’s trip is already planned, and full. Can’t wait! Thanks to all the Writers’ Pals, including Tania Hershman, Sarah Salway and Zoe King. 

A bit of judging, notably the Gladstones Library Flash competition, a panel effort,  with the editors of Flash Magazine (Uni of Chester), was lovely. And a bit of supporting The Bristol Short Story Prize, giving out the prizes and giving a short address - wonderful. Bristol was also the venue for a George Saunders event, during which he was interviewed by Nikesh Shukla, back in May. 

Teaching always takes a place at the table. Workshops have been great, giving the odd talk also great, especially to writing students at Lancaster and Brighton Universities- but the best thing this year has been mentoring. This was a  professional working relationship brokered by New Writing South, and it was a huge privilege to mentor a terrific writer for nine months, a novelist who wanted to pull together a collection of short stories. Tick! 

A good year - now on to 2014. What am I most looking forward to? Finishing ‘Kit’ and thus getting the renowned ‘dreadful second novel’ everyone waits for, out of the way. Having 'nothing' on my plate for a while while I think about what I really want to do next, creatively. Readings and other events already organised include Oxted Literary Festival in February, another exciting gig in London in March. A ten day novel-finishing (please!) retreat at the unparalleled Gladstone’s Library also in February, and poetry poetry - I’m exploring being mentored, myself - very exciting. Definitely off to Ireland in October for a week’s poetry at Anam Cara. A weekend at Cambridge with SWWJ in April, also judging a competition for them, on the theme of war, off to the brilliant International Conference on the Short Story in Vienna in July, and judging a short fiction competition for Cinnamon Press later in the summer- I will be busy. 

I wish everyone who reads this a very Happy New Year. Lets hope it brings fresh ideas, the calm to explore them, a few exciting storm clouds punctuated by flashes of brilliance. 

FIVE books: Short Circuit 11, the Overheard, Irreal Reader and Red Room anthologies, and my poetry book!

Just in case you thought I was sitting back, letting the untold fame and fortune that comes from writing  keep me in clover and laziness, I would have you know the opposite is true. Yes! I'm poor, but busy.  So here's a catch up, on five books I've been working on, or with, or for...

There's a new Short Circuit, a second edition, with eight new chapters! Endorsed by the Bridport Prize, Fish Prize, Asham Award, the Frank O'Connor Award, by lecturers in Creative Writing, and by writers themselves, this overtakes  the first edition which is recommended reading on many courses across the UK and further afield.
New chapters come packed with wisdom on crafting the short story with insights into how, plus ideas for further exploration, and lists of inspirational stories, from the following:
Carys Davies
Nicholas Royle
Professor Patty McNair (Professor at Columbia College Chicago)
Scott Pack (Publisher, The Friday Project, Harper Collins)
Stuart Evers
Tom Vowler
Zoe King (Chair of Society of Women Writers and Journalists)

And it's great! And HUGE. Salt have surpassed themselves.

This gorgeous book is an anthology of stories edited by Jonathan Taylor, from Salt Publishing, and contains work intended to be either read on the page, or read aloud, as the title suggests. My story herein is 'Ed's Theory of the Soul' and is strange, strange, concerning as it does a bloke who is not sure whether humans are the only creatures with souls. What about the sea? What about the earth? A wall? At the recent NAWE Conference, a few of us had an opportunity to read from our contributions to the gathered masses -  a wonderful occasion. Thrilled to be in here!

Jonathan says: Because of the way these stories speak from the page, it doesn’t matter whether or not they are actually read out loud. Rather, these are stories which might equally be ‘performed’ on the reader’s mental stage, heard in the reader’s mind’s-ear. There is a burgeoning culture in the U.K. and beyond of oral story-telling and prose writers performing their work live, a culture which has developed out of the popularity of poetry in performance. There are numerous collections and anthologies which aim to capture the energy of performance poetry on the page. There is, though, no comparable literature for stories in performance – making this collection unique.
In order to demonstrate the huge diversity of possible performance styles in prose, the collection mingles flash fiction with more sustained stories, genre fiction with realism, experimental pieces with oral storytelling. Contributors are similarly varied in their styles, backgrounds, experience and genres, and include Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Ian McEwan, Blake Morrison, Louis De Bernières, Adele Parks, Kate Pullinger, Adam Roberts, Michelene Wandor, Vanessa Gebbie, Judith Allnatt, Jo Baker, David Belbin, Panos Karnezis, Jane Holland, Gemma Seltzer, Ailsa Cox and Will Buckingham.

The Irreal Reader (Guide Dog Books, US)

Now here's a thing, a rather different anthology in many ways, and here’s the background: 

The Cafe Irreal: International Imagination,  http://cafeirreal.alicewhittenburg.com/index.htm a pioneering web-based literary magazine, first went online in 1998 with the intention of publishing a type of fantastic fiction most often associated with writers such as Franz Kafka, Kobo Abe and Jorge Luis Borges. To this end, it has published more than 250 authors from over 30 countries. In the course of the past fifteen years, it has also seen its editors nominated for a World Fantasy Award and been named by Writer’s Digest as one of the Top 30 Short Story Markets.

In this anthology, edited by G.S. Evans and Alice Whittenburg, Guide Dog Books presents a selection of the fiction and essays from The Cafe Irreal that take us most definitively into the realm of the Irreal. These include pieces by Diploma de Honor Konex winner Ana María Shua (Argentina), Michal Ajvaz (winner of the Magnesia Litera prize in the Czech Republic), Pulitzer Prize winner Charles Simic, and Pushcart Prize winners Bruce Holland Rogers and Caitlin Horrocks.

I have two stories in this anthology - the first became the title story from my own collection and is called ‘Storm Warning’, and the second is called ‘The Note-Takers’.  Do not ask where either came from, I don’t. I’m just grateful and honoured to have my work included. Big Smile.

 And then there's the wonderful Red Room anthology, edited by A J Ashworth, from Unthank. This contains stories donated by the contributors, to help raise funds for the Bronte Birthplace Trust. David Constantine, Alison Moore, Tania Hershman, Elizabeth Baines...and more and more. My story in here is a rewrite of the final chapter of Jane Eyre, and is entitled 'Chapter XXXV111 - Conclusion (and a little bit of added cookery...)' So you see, I am letting myself write fun, whizzy, wacky stories, whatever you want to call them. Whatever comes, and why not eh? Necessary Fiction reviewed the collection,  among others, and when it comes to my madness, says this:

Perhaps the most outrageous (and also outrageously funny) of these mischievous pieces is Vanessa Gebbie’s “Chapter XXXVIII – Conclusion (and a little bit of added cookery) with abject apologies to Charlotte Brontë.” Gebbie rewrites the ending to Jane Eyre and keeps her tongue firmly in her cheek while doing so. This is a wickedly clever Jane, emphasis on wicked, and one I suspect Jean Rhys would greatly admire as we watch her dispatch the servants and others to arrange her domestic life to suit her own happiness, a Jane that can listen, unperturbed, as Rochester utters an expression like “rumpy pumpy.”

 Perhaps you see what I mean. I'm having fun! Oh, and finally, but not finally, if you see what I mean, my poetry collection: 

Beautifully created by the wonderful Pighog Press. Launched next week at the Pigbaby Festival - with readings not only from moi but also from the fabulous Pascale Petit. 

That'll do for now!