We’re offering pre-release sales of Short Circuit — a unique and indispensable guide to writing the short story. A 288 page textbook of 24 specially-commissioned essays from well-published short story writers, many of them prize winners in some of the toughest short story competitions in the English language. The writers are also experienced and successful teachers of their craft.
Contributions include five essays from winners of The Bridport Prize. There are interviews with Clare Wigfall — winner of The National Short Story Award — and with Tobias Hill whose short story collection won the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award. Other prize-winning writers in this book include winners of The Asham Award for New Women Writers, The Fish Histories Prize, The Fish Short Story Prize, The BBC Short Story Prize, The Commonwealth Award, Writers Inc. Writer of the Year, The Willesden Herald Prize, NAWG Millennium Award for Radio Short Story and the Per Contra Prize.
- Short Circuit is the first textbook written by prize-winning short story writers who also teach writing.
- There has not been a new guide to writing the short story for years. This is brand new. The writers are writing now!
- Short Circuit is the perfect textbook for use by aspiring writers, by creative writing courses and by published writers seeking fresh inspiration.
Place orders now (your debit card will be deducted immediately) and we’ll despatch your copy on the 7th November, before it is available in the shops.
ORDER NOW Available from our UK & International and US shops.
“Here is a ‘How To’ book that is hard to put down. If there is anything you still need to know after reading the varied authors here, you probably haven’t read it properly. Read it again. Not that you’d need to, wisdom and insight hop off the page like light on water.”
—Clem Cairns, the Fish Prize
“This is rich book — full of insight and interest. Short Circuit will be an essential addition to my undergraduate book list”
—Gill Lowe, Senior lecturer in Creative Writing, Ipswich University.
“This is a generous book, rich in ideas. As a teacher of creative writing, I recommend it to students — As a writer, it reminds me why I write, and why there’s nothing else I would rather do.”
— Bridget Whelan, lecturer in Creative Writing, Goldsmith’s College
“An indispensable guide to crafting the short story. The subjects represented here — all written by contemporary authors — will stimulate advanced writers and instruct newcomers.”
— Alice Elliott Dark, Writer in Residence at Rutgers-Newark University and author of ‘In the Gloaming’
“As full of inspiration as it is of sound advice. An invaluable tool-kit of a book for practitioners and scholars of the short story.”
—Mike McCormack, lecturer, MA in Creative Writing, NUI Galway.
“Once a lover of the short story opens Short Circuit one quickly realises it is indispensable … to a degree that has one asking why hasn’t it been done before?”
—Pat Cotter, Frank O’Connor Award
[...] a UK press which published my friend Tania Hershman’s The White Road last year, has a new book on the craft of the short story called Short Circuit. I haven’t seen it but plan to check it [...]