Rash invention: Williams, Booth, and building without blueprints

Essay by Richard Smyth Invention isn’t always in fashion. Readers of short fiction, in particular, often favour craft – the literary nanotechnology of world-...

Professor Charles E. May: What Makes a Great Short Story? (No.4 ‘Tea at the Midland’ by David Constantine)

Article By Professor Charles E. May David Constantine, “Tea at the Midland” 2010 BBC National Short Story Award David Constantine has said in an interview...

The Uncanny, by Sigmund Freud

The “Uncanny” 1 (1919) SIGMUND FREUD   I It is only rarely that a psychoanalyst feels impelled to investigate the subject of aesthe...

Professor Charles E. May: What Makes a Great Short Story? (No.3 ‘The not-Dead and the Saved’ by Kate Clanchy)

Article by Professor Charles E. May Kate Clanchy, “The Not-Dead and the Saved” 2009 BBC Short Story Award Sometimes the subject matter of a short story al...

Professor Charles E. May: What Makes a Great Short Story? (No.3 ‘The Numbers’ by Clare Wigfall)

Article by Professor Charles E. May Clare Wigfall, “The Numbers” 2008 BBC National Short Story Award Martha Kearney, chair of the judges of the BBC Nation...

Magical Realism in Short Fiction: A Perfect Match, by Kate Jones

Article by Kate Jones Magical Realism is a genre of narrative fiction, originally originating amongst Latin American writers, as well as other areas of art, ...

Professor Charles E. May: What Makes a Great Short Story? (No.2 ‘The Orphan and the Mob’ by Julian Gough)

Alex Linklater, associate editor of Prospect and founder of the National Short Story Prize (now the BBC National Short Story Award), has been quoted as assertin...

The Dark Sexuality & Incestuous Undertones of Daphne du Maurier’s Short Stories

Article by Kate Jones   Daphne Du Maurier’s (1907-1989) novels have often been described in terms of the gothic genre.  Much of her work has ...