Yes, it's Wednesday, and the Mystery Launch has taken off in a cloud of words and glitter! Remember that you can follow events using #LitFest2012, or reading the daily reviews at www.litfest.org.uk. I couldn't make it to this evening's events, thanks to hiccups involving kids and scouts and drama club and the like, so I'm doing just that myself.
What I can do, though, is bring you the latest in my series of Litfest interviews. Tonight's guest is a writer based in Manchester. Zoe Lambert's first full collection, The War Tour, is made up of stories which 'weave a dark and disturbing web, interlacing documentary accounts with imagined testimonies to give voice to the many silenced casualties of war.' I'm lucky enough to be in one of Zoe's writing groups this year, through Madlab's Omniversity programme, and I'm really looking forward to hearing Zoe read at the All Day Prose Shindig this Sunday.
Zoe, I know that you've been on a bit of a tour yourself this year, reading at lots of festivals. What are the best and the worst moments of performing at a festival? And what do festivals add to the individual reader's experience of literature?
For readers, it’s great to hear the writing in the author's voice, and to be able to ask them questions. Going to see new writers or writers you aren't familiar with is a lovely way to find new things to read. It's much more personal than 'Customers who bought this also bought that'. For me the highlight is a good discussion with the audience, when they ask thoughtful and challenging questions and the Q and A turns into a debate. The worst is when no one turns up. I've had a couple of events where there's just been a couple of people (and they were my mum and dad). That's a bit depressing.
There seems to be a buzz around short stories at the moment, with the BBC National Short Story Award, new collections from writers such as Deborah Levy and Jane Rogers, and the increasing availability of single short stories on Kindle. What is special about short stories, and where do you see them going in the future?
It's funny, no one ever asks what is special about novels, or can you define a novel. Short stories don't have one special quality and continual attempts at definition end up delimiting them into certain kinds of short stories. New technology is creating exciting opportunities for short stories. For example, Comma Press have projects for apps. More collections of short stories have been published recently, as well as collections disguised as novels, or 'novels in stories'/short story cycles. I see short story publishing going further in the direction of in between forms.
I love the idea of a short story app! Let’s shrink it further still. You only have six words tell us about The War Tour.
Buses. Frosties.
Conflict. Goats. Exile. Trams.
Journals, both online and in print, are a great place to encounter new short fiction. What are your recommendations for us to go and try out?
Stand, Ambit, 3am magazine, Mslexia, McSweeneys. Short FICTION. Structo, New Fairy Tales, Riptide. Best of British Short Stories gives you a selection, so try that.
I have a soft spot for Alice Munro stories, as they were my introduction to the genre. They have a very strong sense of place, and, although the protagonists often want to get away from their surroundings, they have left me with a hidden desire to live somewhere in the distant reaches of Canada. Which writers affect you with their depiction of place, and which fictional landscape would you most like to inhabit?
One of my favourite depictions of Canada, well, Nova Scotia, is by Alistair Macleod. A wonderful short story writer. Also, I like how Flannery O'Connor links place and character in her short stories. Chekhov's Lady and a Lapdog has gorgeous atmospheric descriptions. Most fictional places aren't exactly happy places. In fact I can't think of one I'd like to inhabit. Mostly, as in Munro's stories, characters are trying to find other places to live in.
Journals, both online and in print, are a great place to encounter new short fiction. What are your recommendations for us to go and try out?
Stand, Ambit, 3am magazine, Mslexia, McSweeneys. Short FICTION. Structo, New Fairy Tales, Riptide. Best of British Short Stories gives you a selection, so try that.
I have a soft spot for Alice Munro stories, as they were my introduction to the genre. They have a very strong sense of place, and, although the protagonists often want to get away from their surroundings, they have left me with a hidden desire to live somewhere in the distant reaches of Canada. Which writers affect you with their depiction of place, and which fictional landscape would you most like to inhabit?
One of my favourite depictions of Canada, well, Nova Scotia, is by Alistair Macleod. A wonderful short story writer. Also, I like how Flannery O'Connor links place and character in her short stories. Chekhov's Lady and a Lapdog has gorgeous atmospheric descriptions. Most fictional places aren't exactly happy places. In fact I can't think of one I'd like to inhabit. Mostly, as in Munro's stories, characters are trying to find other places to live in.
Thank you, Zoe, and see you on Sunday.
You can check details and book tickets for the Shindig, or for any other of the Litfest events, by going to www.litfest.org. The War Tour is published by Comma Press, recently named as one of the six best independent publishers in the UK: find out more about them at www,commapress.co.uk. Zoe's website, www.zoelambert.blogspot.co.uk has excellent posts as well as a huge number of links to other great sites: well worth browsing.
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