Wednesday 24 August 2016

Nine Arches Press

Three exciting announcements concerning Nine Arches Press -

  • Julia Webb (whose Bird Sisters I've read) and Roy McFarlane (whose book is out soon) have poems in the Forward Book of Poetry 2017
  • Nine Arches Press has a 50k grant from ACE which will "enable the press to publish 10 new poetry publications and launch a new series of creative writing handbooks called ‘Write Sparks’" along with other initiatives
  • There's summer sale - 50% off lots of Nine Arches Press poetry books, plus some from just £3

Monday 22 August 2016

Books I plan to read

I've managed to shrink my list considerably (but expanded it again in Jan 2017). Here are the prose, poetry and theory books on my current wanted list

  • Ashfeldt, Lane - "Saltwater"
  • DeLillo - "The Angel Esmeralda"
  • Galloway - Jellyfish
  • Goldschmidt - novel
  • Garth Greenwell - What Belongs to You
  • Gospodinov
  • Hall, Tina - "The physics of imaginary objects"
  • Hempel, Amy - short stories
  • Logan, Kirsty - "The Rental Heart"
  • Sexton, Kay - "Gatekeeper"
  • Szalay, David - "All That Man", "All Other ..."
  • Walsh, Joanna - "Vertigo"
  • Wigfall, Clare - short stories
  • Barlow, Mike - poems
  • Boast, Rachel
  • Capildeo, Vahni
  • Foggins -"Much Possessed"
  • Majmudar Amit
  • Pickford - Swimming with Jellyfish
  • Smith, Tracy - Life on Mars
  • Kirsch, Adam - "The Modern Element"
  • Paglia - "Break, Burn ..."

Friday 5 August 2016

Next Generation UK/Eire short story writers?

Every 10 years a list of Next Generation Poets is produced. I think there's an emerging consensus about which authors from Eire and the UK would be on a similar list for story-writers. Their names appear regularly in anthologies and on the back of other people's books even if they haven't published a short story book themselves for a while. As with the poets, age is not a factor. More important is that none of these writers have produced many short story collections yet, that perhaps the best is yet to come -

My current favourites are Elizabeth Baines, Sarah Hall and Danielle McLaughlin. I've not read Janice Galloway, Kirsty Logan, or Clare Wigfall otherwise they'd probably be on the list too. Doubtless I've forgotten some of my other favourites. Apologies in advance.

I've a soft spot for Matthew Francis, Guy Ware and Chris Beckett, but they've probably not produced enough. And though I like much of Jon McGregor's work, I don't think his This Isn't The Sort Of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You suffices to include him here.