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.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for your faith, Tim! Third collection due out some time in 2017, from Cultured Llama - all odd/surreal/strange pieces - prov title: A Short History of Synchronised Breathing.

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    1. Without doing other stuff (poetry, teaching, etc) it might be rather hard for short story writers to stay in the public eye.

      While making the list I wondered where we'd be without Salt. Also I was struck by the age of these authors when their first book came out.

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