Short Story Conference

THE SHORT STORY
May 13 2006
Edge Hill, UK

Opening Speaker: A.L. Kennedy (Indelible Acts, Original Bliss)Panel Members include:
Professor Patricia Duncker (Seven Tales of Sex and Death)
Ra Page – Comma PressDan McTiernan – Transmission magazine
Joanne Reardon – script editor (radio)

CALL FOR PAPERS

After many years of comparative neglect, the short story is now acknowledged as a distinctive genre, of crucial importance to world literature. The introduction of a National Short Story Prize marks a revival of interest in the UK. Collections and anthologies are being reviewed more frequently, while short story sites and e-zines are proliferating. As a condensed and fragmentary form, the short story seems especially suited to a twenty-first century readership.

Edge Hill College is hosting a one-day conference aimed at all those writing and researching the short story, whether as practitioners or as literary scholars (or both). Proposals are invited on any aspect of modern and contemporary short fiction and should last no longer than 20 minutes. They may include creative work and presentations. Topics may include – but are not limited to:

§ The short story today – generic identity - the novella - short short stories - sequences and cycles – hypertext– genre and subgenre (e.g. science fiction, horror).

§ Creative presentations - practice-based research – the poetics of the short story - online publishing – small magazines – adaptation.

§ Individual authors (20th and 21st century) – women’s writing – the short story in translation – international perspectives - postcolonial writing - the oral tradition

Please send 100 word abstracts to Dr Ailsa Cox by 24 February 2006 to: coxa@edgehill.ac.uk

The event will also act as a platform to launch the North West Short Story Network (Edge Hill, Lancaster University, St. Martin’s College, Liverpool Hope University, Salford University, Manchester Metropolitan University

Fees £55/£30 for students

For further information please contact Ailsa Cox, Department of English; tel 01695 584121

Book launches 3: Michael Egan

Michael Egan is a third year English and Writing student at Edge Hill, and was launching his first book, The River Swam, which was published by Paula Brown Publishing. His poems so impressed her in the special Edge Hill edition of The People’s Poet that she commissioned the entire volume.

Book launches 2: Dee MacMahon

Dee MacMahon is also a graduate of the MA and now teaches part time at Edge Hill. Her pamphlet of poems, Petrochemical Works, is published by Geoweave. Further poems may be read online on Pages blogzine (February 2005 archive).

Three Book Launches by Edge Hill students, past and present: One: Alice Lenkiewicz

On 23rd November at The Rose Theatre at Edge Hill before the James reading three writers associated with Edge Hill launched their new books.

Alice Lenkiewicz, a graduate of the MA Writing Studies at Edge Hill, launched her novel, Maxine, which is published by Bluechrome. It was her MA dissertation, Now active in Liverpool, Alice has also taught writing part time, and runs the poetry magazine Neon Highway. There are two reviews of Maxine, one by Sue Hunter on the Nerve website and another by Ian Jackson on his very useful Arts in Liverpool listings website:
http://aolsearch.aol.co.uk/redir?urn=http://www.artinliverpool.com/blogarch/2005/10/maxine_by_alice.html&url=http://www.artinliverpool.com/blogarch/2005/10/maxine_by_alice.html&requestId=cad15051fcaa709a&clickedItemRank=2&source=google&searchType=MS&partner=google&query=Maxine%20by%20Alice%20Lenkiewicz

John James at Edge Hill

On 23rd November at The Rose Theatre at Edge Hill John James read in the long-established series of readings by writers hosted by the Writing Department.

James can be seen here holding aloft a copy of his Collected Poems published by Salt. Two reviews, one by Stephen Burt , and the second by Charles Bainbridge ( at
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/poetry/0,6121,1328315,00.html ) are available online.

Nicholas Royle at Edge Hill

On 17th November at The Rose Theatre at Edge Hill Nicholas Royle read in the long-established series of readings by writers hosted by the Writing Department.

Author of many novels and over 100 short stories, Royle can be glimpsed here reading his story 'Dotted Line', which may be read here online. He also read from his latest novel Antwerp.

http://www.weareperformance.co.uk/home.php?id=8:1

Welcome : book launch

Welcome to the Edge Hill Writing blogzine, which is where we hope to post news about what's up in the Creative Writing and Writing Studies areas at Edge Hill College of Higher Education, as well as to showcase some of the best creative work.

Both full time members of staff have recently published books. Along with three other members of the English department we celebrated our books by launching them at Edge Hill last week.

Dr Ailsa Cox's Writing Short Stories, published by Routledge, is a guide to the writing of short fiction, of which Ailsa is a champion. She is also a writer of short stories (and there are links from her webpage to several of her works).

Dr Robert Sheppard's The Poetry of Saying: British Poetry and its Discontents, published by Liverpool University Press, is an account of alternative British poets, including several who have read at Edge Hill over the last few years: Roy Fisher, Lee Harwood, Tom Raworth and Allen Fisher. He is also a poet (and there are links for his webpage and from his own blogzine, Pages, to several of his works).