Books: The Glasgow Student Short Story Prize

Of dark and beautiful words.

Warning: Potential spoiler alerts! This is a wonderfully hard anthology, each piece smooth and polished and complete. These stories are prime examples of flash fiction -- stories that offer a glimpse into another world while still staying soft around the edges, stories that allow the reader to become complicit in the creation of each world on offer. The winning piece, 'Taking Care of Joseph', manages to convey so much in such a short span of words: three people, one act, the heavy fall of dirt. My favourite piece in the collection, 'Guga', by John Jennet, also rotates on this ambiguity. A man and a broken white bird, the heavy smell of the sea, and the fate that all of this plays on the life of one small girl. It's masterful writing, absolutely. Two other stories that I also loved were 'Pobrecita', by Kirsty Logan, and 'This is Your Pebble' by Michele Waering. 'Pobrecita' plays with language and structure while still managing to get a brilliant set of images across...Warning: Potential spoiler alerts! This is a wonderfully hard anthology, each piece smooth and polished and complete. These stories are prime examples of flash fiction -- stories that offer a glimpse into another world while still staying soft around the edges, stories that allow the reader to become complicit in the creation of each world on offer. The winning piece, 'Taking Care of Joseph', manages to convey so much in such a short span of words: three people, one act, the heavy fall of dirt. My favourite piece in the collection, 'Guga', by John Jennet, also rotates on this ambiguity. A man and a broken white bird, the heavy smell of the sea, and the fate that all of this plays on the life of one small girl. It's masterful writing, absolutely. Two other stories that I also loved were 'Pobrecita', by Kirsty Logan, and 'This is Your Pebble' by Michele Waering. 'Pobrecita' plays with language and structure while still managing to get a brilliant set of images across. ('... Connor pulls off his t-shirt one-handed, an afterthought.' I love that image. I wish I'd written it!) And 'This is Your Pebble' feeds the reader a brilliantly vivid set of pictures -- white van, fall, the flop of an injured arm -- while still shrouding its narrator in mystery. Overall, a lovely collection. Take heed of these names -- I'm sure they'll soon be everywhere! (more)