EPub Somewhere This wayfair
Utterly wonderful collection of short stories with an unexpected twist My favourite being The Haunted Bookshop Somewhere This Way The Fiction Desk Anthology 13 Another fine collection of approachable but meaningful literature from one of the UK s best small presses Standouts for me were Poppy Toland s Our Gaff which explores the evolving relationship between a single mother and daughter across the years and Life on the Road by Michael Hurst where a couple sets off on a long drive and the resultant car troubles become a metaphor for their relationship Also worth singling out is Broken Pixel by Matt Harris which asks some sinister questions about privacy in the internet age via a calm and beguiling narrative from the perspective of those who are addicted to collecting our information Somewhere This Way The Fiction Desk Anthology 13 An excellent selection of short stories I enjoyed all of them and burned through this in one evening Somewhere This Way The Fiction Desk Anthology 13 Enjoyed this anthology and would love to have a short story included Will keep submitting till I get there Somewhere This Way The Fiction Desk Anthology 13 Many of the stories in this new anthology explore the routes people take through life they find their way lose the thread they re following or think again about the path they re on A mother looks back over the role she played in her daughter s life a couple on the road reassess their relationship and a lonely commuter sticks to his established path while denying a terrible truth Somewhere This Way The Fiction Desk Anthology 13 There are not many ways to draw suspicion upon yourself any You can do almost anything you like be any kind of person you want as long as you don t do it unwatched Everything is permitted nothing is private Matt Harris Broken Pixel from Somewhere this Way New Short Stories from the Fiction DeskSomewhere This Way is a wonderfully rich and insightful collection of short stories from the Fiction Desk The stories were short of course but impactful and entirely engaging. Somewhere This wayne gretzky Many of the stories delve into human feelings odd happenings and both ordinary and extraordinary challenges My favourites of the collection were Our Gaff by Poppy Toland Broken Pixel by Matt Harris and The Haunted Bookshop by Guy Russel Each presented a world which claimed my attention and demanded after thought I m hoping to lend this out as I d love to chat about these stories with someone I ll be reading from the Fiction Desk Somewhere This Way The Fiction Desk Anthology 13 An excellent collection a combination of the quirky and realistic some with paranormal elements or tricks of the mind Writing that honors the reader s intelligence and personal interpretation with subtle suggestion My favorites were Broken Pixel by Matt Harris and Seelence by Lahra Crowe Highly recommended for short fiction lovers Somewhere This Way The Fiction Desk Anthology 13 The Fiction Desk Anthology series has now reached its thirteenth volume entitled Somewhere This Way In his introduction to this latest issue editor Rob Redman explains that as in previous years the theme and title of the collection were suggested by the stories themselves as they were being compiled In this case the stories explore to quote the blurb on the back the routes people take through life they find their way lose the thread they re following or think again about the path they re on It s an intriguing unifying theme one which gives the collection itself a thread to follow whilst allowing for a degree of variety in the subject of the individual pieces It is also a theme which reflects albeit obliquely the political realities of the present especially with the looming cloud of Brexit Redman insists that the publication does not generally take a political position and his stance is accordingly restrained and measured Yet he comments on the importance of a strong and open relationship between the countries of Europe and the benefits which come from freedom of movement Perhaps it comes as no surprise that compared to previous anthologies in the series this particular selection contains a strong dose of realism and is often tinged with a sense of sadness and nostalgia. Somewhere This wayzgoose A case in point is Our Gaff by Poppy Toland a young woman s coming of age story narrated by her mother a single parent with mental health issues Massive Attack s song Unfinished Sympathy is repeatedly referenced as if it were a sort of imaginary soundtrack imbuing the writing with the wistful melancholy of trip hop Toland s piece placed second in the Fiction Desk s Newcomer Prize The winning entry Seelence by Lahra Crowe is also included in this collection and also deals with loss Set against the sublime backdrop of the Scottish Highlands its narrator is a young widow who resists her family s pressure to return to a conventional life The story is remarkable in its use of Scottish dialect which is only momentarily abandoned subtly suggesting the inescapable link between language and thought an idea which reminded me strongly of the late Andrea Camilleri s historical novel La mossa del cavallo The theme of routes and journeys takes on a literal twist in Michael Hurst s Life on the Road Colleagues Terri and Richard are travelling by car to their firm s head office It is evident that there is a history to their relationship which goes beyond work but this particular trip will test it to the limits It is not the first time that these anthologies have explored technology and its impact on individuals Broken Pixel Matt Harris s first story to feature in the series uses the subject of cyber espionage to explore the ways in which our contemporary lives our mapped out on the internet. Somewhere This wayyyy Edinburgh based author Alastair Chisholm returns with two contributions In The Castle a day at the beach reveals the difficulties faced by a little boy in accepting his mother s new partner The symbolism is effective despite being hardly subtle I preferred Chisholm s second story Exhalation which is almost Poe like in its portrayal of obsession and descent into madness The Fiction Desk has consistently given priority to narrative over form and has never shied away from genre ficton Deep Green Leaves by regular contributor Alex Clark fits these parameters nicely and provides a strong opener to this collection I won t reveal too many details except to state that this starts off as a crime story and ends up somewhere completely different It s also a touching exploration of solitude and outsiderness. Book Somewhere This way As far as genre is concerned The Fiction Desk has been particularly attentive to the ghost story featuring no less than three volumes exclusively dedicated to supernatural tales You can read my review of the third one here It s surely difficult to come across a ghost story as heart warming Guy Russell s The Haunted Bookshop It features a spectre who is not only benign but decidedly and actively benevolent The story is also a love song to bookshops and fiction in general and provides a fitting ending to this collection. Book Somewhere This way comes In the past months The Fiction Desk announced several changes to its editorial approach with the abolition of its long established Newcomer Ghost Story and Flash Fiction competitions and their replacement with themed calls for submissions Perhaps like the protagonists of Somewhere This Way this publication also needs to take stock of where it is now with a view to venturing into pastures new I sincerely hope that the values of well crafted storytelling which have defined it so far will be retained in the next stage of its unfinished journey Somewhere This Way The Fiction Desk Anthology 13 Anthologies can be interesting reads and in the past have introduced me to writers I might not have found in other ways If it s by one author then it can be an interesting introduction to an author s work or else it is a way to see how an author handles writing short stories which are different form from novel writing If it s an anthology of different writers then there is a chance to discover new authors Unfortunately this anthology did not provide any of this. Book Somewhere This wayback I found this anthology so frustrating because none of the stories developed any of their themes None of the stories had any character development or even led anywhere After finishing each story I was left with the feeling Was that it None reached any sort of resolution Now short stories are not novels I don t expect complete character story arcs or resolution of big themes but they are stories and stories do need to take the reader somewhere All the stories here left me feeling frustrated because they didn t go anywhere Some of the stories had an interesting premise but did not follow through on that premise ending too soon or just not exploring that premise One story which illustrates my frustration with this anthology was about two work colleagues sharing a car to a team building event They bought coffees they argued over what music to play in the car the car got a flat tyre they waited for the breakdown van to arrive they restarted their journey and it started to rain but they didn t reach their team building event The characters didn t share anything they didn t get to know each other they didn t contact in any way they were just the same at the beginning as they were at the end of the story nothing had changed or been challenged What was the point of this story It was just a catalogue of their morning. Somewhere This wayy2easyy For an anthology to have one story as frustrating and pointless as this is one thing but to have a whole collection of stories like that is another thing It had to be a conscious decision by the editor but why would someone collect together a group of stories that all left the reader feeling so disappointed I don t know. Somewhere This waymart My advice is not to waste your time with this anthology I wish I hadn t Somewhere This Way The Fiction Desk Anthology 13 I absolutely loved this collection of very strong short stories I thought Our Gaff by Polly Toland was one of the best stories I ve read in a long time but there are other crackers in here too I am trying to read short stories and this anthology was a great way back in Somewhere This Way The Fiction Desk Anthology 13 
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