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New Short Stories - 3
Available in bookstores and on-line
at the following on-line booksellers:
Entire contents copyright © 2009 and forever, NewShortStories.com, The Willesden Herald, pretend genius [press]. All rights reserved.
info (at) newshortstories.com,
query (at) pretendgenius.com
SOUNDINGS (selected stories from the book(s)):
Kid in a Well (podcast)
Willie Davis
Arthur Allan
Paradise (excerpt)
Nicholas Hogg
Sean Brijbasi
NEWS/REVIEWS:
"a collection of steady illumination..." Pulp.net
"a compelling collection of short stories from the international Willesden Herald short story competition, edited by the excellent Stephen Moran, who has managed to attract some fine writers to this award, along with a fine final arbiter in the form of Zadie Smith." Author Trek
"the collection showcases writers who are technically gifted, who are craftsmen and craftswomen with stories to tell and an assured way of telling them.." Roundtable Review UK
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from New Short Stories 3
Work
Jo Lloyd
A while back, when I was going through a bit of a tough time, this guy I knew, Paul, bought himself a restaurant, and when it was still pretty new and he’d spent all his money on forks and skewers and real people who knew how to run a restaurant, he asked if I would help out, and I said yes because I didn’t have a job and I didn’t seem to be capable of getting a job and I didn’t have a clue how to get myself out of the hole I’d fallen into. Read more
The Travellers
Carys Davies
The last time it happened, I packed my bags and left. I got on a train at Birmingham New Street and then on another and another and another and I didn’t get off until I reached Siberia. Read more
Tokyo Chocolate
Morowa Yejidé
The train leaving Nishifunabashi station is packed- a tin can of sardines. Cackling teenagers cram the perimeter. Old women haunt the end-seats, ready to fight, daring anyone to crush meticulously assembled grocery bags, or disturb a strand on their blue-tinted hair. Exhausted office assistants dot the school of people, pink and plum scarves conscientiously tied around their thin necks. Wilted businessmen wrestle sleepiness, gravity pulling at the bags under their eyes. The train roars across the water to suburban gardens and murals in Chiba, the Tokyo skyline grudgingly disappearing, damning them all for escaping its grip. Read more
Amy
Nick Holdstock
One night, a few months ago, I went into my flatmate’s room. I put back the pillow and then, without thinking, bent down and pulled out one of the plastic trays that slot under her bed. In the first were trousers, t-shirts and shorts, so I pushed it back in, and pulled out the other. In that one there were bras and pants so I brought a black pair to my nose and slowly, deeply, breathed. Read more
Ebb Tide
Margot Taylor
Our mugs of tea grow cold after she tells me ‘Cancer, Henry.’ I can only sit, for as long as she wants me there, and wonder what she’s thinking, while the rain spits and the waves slap, and the old oyster smack lifts at her mooring. A curlew calls, somewhere off over the mud-banks, and Jane says ‘Listen to that.’ She must have heard the sound a thousand times. But Jane will emerge to watch swans beat the water in take-off; she’s first to spot a seal or the frightened scatter of fry when the mackerel come up river. She can watch the tide rise and fall without feeling there’s a better way to use her time. Read more
Ante-Purgatory
Carol Farrelly
A purple backpack lies abandoned by the newspaper stand. Nobody else notices. They rush right towards the streetlights and frosted air. They surge left towards the judder of trains on tracks. Starlings swoop overhead: perhaps one of them looks down and sees the tracks that bite, like stitches, into the earth. He is blind, however, to the abandoned backpack. Only I hear the clock inside as it ticks down, muffled by a burgundy towel, speckled with yesterday’s sand. Read more
The Imperfect Roundness of Things
Claudia Boers
Even from a distance, seen as a small solitary figure with a backdrop of churning sea and cloud bearing down on her, Marianne was distinctive. She walked tall and remarkably upright for someone in her fifties, as if bending into and yielding to the blustering wind might be a cop out, or an admission of defeat. Even her skirt billowed and flapped and snapped about her ankles with rigorous abandon. Her hair was pinned up in one of those effortless styles Scandinavian women manage so well, a few white wisps streaming behind her like ghostweeds in a current. Occasionally, she stopped and hugged her long arms to her chest while staring out to sea, but mostly she paced the threshold of shore as if she had somewhere urgent to be. Read more
Propitiation
Jenny Barden
Diego was twelve ladders down, more than six hundred feet, and he could not turn round because the tunnel was too tight. Only by wriggling could he work himself along, like a grub inside wood. The darkness was absolute, hot and stale, heavy with dust. He tried not to think of the mountain above him, squeezing his back. There was not even a glow to suggest anyone was near, only rumbling thuds and the sporadic trickle of falling stones, impossible to place. He still held the candle, as if by the force of his grip it might spontaneously re-ignite. He must have jerked it against the rock when his sleeve was snagged, snuffed the flame out. He tucked the stump inside his habit, between his hair-shirt and his skin; he could do that, just, with a shaking hand, feel the heave of his breathing and the damp of his sweat. Candles were too precious to waste. He had seen men fight over one that was dropped. He thought of God’s grace. God was with him. God was light. Read more
Mina and Fina and Lotte Wattimena
Jill Widner
Across the street from the wharves where the oil tankers are moored, a row of white-washed cottages faces a tree-lined sidewalk. Except for the shutters, which are painted a variety of chalky hues, they are indistinguishable. Six white cottages. Six tile roofs. Read more
The Hate Club
Ben Cheetham
Upon returning to my hometown for the first time in six years, I wandered around for an hour or so reacquainting myself with the place. Some things were different, some were the same. New buildings had sprung up, old ones had been demolished. For the most part, though, it looked much the same as the dozens of other towns I’d spent time in during the intervening years since my last visit: the ring roads and one-way systems, the pedestrianised high street, the out of town shopping-centre, the light industrial estates with their call centres and warehouses. In other words, it was the kind of place where most of us live now. Read more
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BREAKING NEWS:
The winning short story of the 2009 Willesden Herald International Prize is: "Work" by Jo Lloyd. For more details, please visit the visit the book page or Willesden Herald Site.
The anthology New Short Stories 3 is now available for a special price at our store:
