So, the headline news at the Costa Book Awards ceremony in London last night may have been the (deserved) victory of Andrew Miller who took the title of Costa Book of the Year with his novel Pure (Sceptre), but the bigger news for me – and every short story fan across the UK and beyond – was the announcement that Costa is expanding their Book Awards in 2012, to include a new short story category.

A cause for celebration? Absolutely! As many of us know, the short story form remains woefully ignored in the UK – at least when it comes to the mainstream literary prizes (awards in the UK such as the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the BBC National Short Story Award, the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award and the Bristol Short Story Prize certainly keep a bright torch burning) – so putting it in a spotlight as bright and as public as the Costa Book Awards can only give the short story a much needed boost and elevation (some quite shockingly still see the short story as a lesser literary form), will which surely (hopefully) encourage more readers to embrace the glory of short fiction. I think I can see exciting times ahead.

I should be quick to add however, that it’s not all ‘shout it from the rooftop’ news for short fiction fans. Costa may well be putting a short story category in their Book Awards this year, but it will not be allowed to compete with the other five categories (First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book), for the overall Book of the Year prize. This is disappointing to hear, but then again how could it compete against the others because this new short story category will only consider single short stories, rather than story collections or anthologies.

Some would say that this a bad decision for Costa to make. I was speaking to a respected publicist earlier today who said that publishers would probably prefer it if the category were open to collections. I agree, to a point (especially if it meant that short stories could compete for the overall prize), but let’s not forget that a short story is a single entity; an encapsulated whole, and it should perhaps be judged as such (they’re certainly judged that way for the most part on RobAroundBooks).

Let’s also not forget how short story consumption is currently evolving. As time progresses and our move towards e-readers becomes more widespread, so the way in which we read short stories seems to be changing also. And just like the ‘iTunes Revolution’ where we began to favour individual music tracks over albums, we seem to be heading in a similar direction with short stories, where we have more of a desire to consume individual offerings rather than entire collections. If this turns out to be the case then Costa have made absolutely the right decision.

Regardless, I simply applaud Costa for taking such a definitive and just step in the right direction with regards to short fiction, and for doing so in 2012 – the year designated as ‘Year of the Short Story’. And it may only be January but there already seems to be a buzz like I’ve never seen before around the reading world with regards to short stories. What with Bloomsbury embracing the form, and new short story collections on the way from ‘masters’ such as Etgar Keret (Suddenly, A Knock on the Door (Vintage); published 23rd February) and Kevin Barry (Dark Lies the Island (Jonathan Cape); published 5th April), some are even going as far as to suggest that we may be on the verge of a short story renaissance. I certainly hope that we are, to the point where I’m wishing with all of my heart and soul. Imagine bearing witness to a renaissance, and a short fiction one at that? I can’t think of anything that would thrill me more.

Over to you: As you can tell, this is a subject that’s very close to my heart and I’d love to hear your own thoughts on it. Do you think Costa are wasting their time in introducing a short story category into their Book Awards? Do you think it will it encourage more readers to pick up short stories? I’d love to hear your thoughts, whatever they are.

The selection for year’s Waterstones 11 was announced earlier this week (Thursday 19th), at a reception at Waterstones’ flagship store in Piccadilly. Created to recognise and promote the best in debut novels for the year that lies ahead, there is much value – in terms of exposure and promotion – for the author who finds him or herself selected as one of the chosen 11. This year’s selection is as follows (links lead to product pages on Waterstones):

• The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan (William Heinemann)
• Absolution by Patrick Flanery (Atlantic Books)
• Shelter by Frances Greenslade (Virago)
• The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach (Fourth Estate)
• The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey (Headline Review)
• The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (Doubleday)
• The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen (Chatto & Windus)
• Signs of Life by Anna Raverat (Picador)
• The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan (Virago, 29th March)
• The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker (Simon & Schuster)
• Care of Wooden Floors by Will Wiles (Harper Press)

Speaking of this year’s selection Waterstones’ Managing Director, James Daunt had the following to say:

There is a singular excitement to the discovery of a new writer of rare talent. For us booksellers, the process of introducing and guiding readers to the very best new work is one of the most important roles we perform. This year’s 11 are once again a marvellous selection. It is hard to believe these are debut novels, so assured and alive the writing.

Further details and sample chapters of all eleven titles, can be found on Waterstones website.

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Rob’s Reaction: As a champion of debut novelists on RobAroundBooks, I’m delighted to see that Waterstones have continued their promotion of deserving newcomers, into a second year. Having not read any of the eleven titles to date I have little to say (from an informed position at least), but I know that there has been a lot of excitable chatter on the grapevine already (not just from marketeers but from fellow readers who I admire and trust), both for Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding and Eowyn Ivey’s Snow Child. In my opinion, at this stage at least, these seem to be the primary two to look out for.

What interests me most about this year’s Waterstones 11 selection however, is the fact that eight of the eleven selected titles are by women authors. Some may cry sexism, but such a notion is preposterous. Rather, it shows that women authors are, as they have always been, a force with reckoned with. I look forward with much excitement to seeing how all of these debut novels fare in the coming year.

What about you dear reader? Which of the debut novels in this year’s Waterstones 11 are you most looking froward to reading? Perhaps you’ve read one or two of them already? If so, please pass on your thoughts and comments below.

The shortlist for the 2012 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction was announced last week (10th Jan) at the RBC Plaza in downtown Toronto, by Prize founder Noreen Taylor. From a pool of 115 books from 35 publishers around the world, the final list of five, together with the judging jury’s comments for each title, is as follows (all links lead to publisher websites in Canada):

• Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis (Alfred A. Knopf Canada) – “In this monumental volume, Wade Davis narrates explorer George Mallory’s heroic attempt to scale Everest following the Great War. With remarkable new research in previously unexplored British archives and in the Himalayas, Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest powerfully links the devastating carnage and demoralization of the War to the transcendent aspiration of Mallory and his compatriots to ascend Everest. With skill and insight, Davis explores the meaning of this valorous yet tragic climb for post-war Britain and the world.”
• Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe by Charlotte Gill (Greystone Books) – “Only a writer as skilled as Charlotte Gill could make the back-breaking work of planting more than a million seedlings sound like one of life’s essential adventures. In a carefully balanced story of science, business and friendship, and one that is surprisingly unsentimental, Gill shares her love for Canada’s boreal forests, the tragedy of their disappearances and the grueling work involved in replacing them. Reader, you might finish this book feeling relieved you don’t plant trees — but you will be wishing you could.”
• The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit by JJ Lee (McClelland & Stewart) – “As an experienced radio current affairs producer, JJ Lee knew what it took to make a good story though he never expected his own life to end up in a book. The Measure of a Man, Lee’s account of trying to remake one of his late father’s old suits into one for himself, began as a CBC Radio documentary. An editor suggested it would make a good book. She was right. Beautifully crafted, Lee’s memoir is a heartbreaking page-turner about a family, an abusive father, and men’s fashion. Who could have thought these themes could work together? In his first book, Lee has shown us how.”
• Afflictions & Departures: Essays by Madeline Sonik (Anvil Press) – “Startlingly original, Madeline Sonik’s moving story of her childhood defies all our expectations of memoir. She captures crystalline moments of childhood memory and links them in a daisy-chain with corresponding events of the tumultuous societal change taking place outside her home. It is North America in the 1960s and 70s and her letter-perfect, child’s-eye view of the world brings back that time with such intensity that the reader can almost smell and taste it. Droll, tragic, and absolutely compelling, Afflictions and Departures is a visceral portrayal of a family imploding.”
• The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary: A Canadian Story of Resilience and Recovery by Andrew Westoll (HarperCollins Publishers) – “Brilliantly blending science and storytelling, primatologist and author Andrew Westoll takes us deep into the world of the haunted and haunting rescued research chimps of Fauna Sanctuary. Pulled from decades of horrific lab conditions, rescued chimps live out the balance of their long lives in sanctuaries such as Fauna, cared for and loved by an extraordinary group of people. Westoll deftly draws the reader into the wild day-to-day ride of life with the Fauna chimps and soon their Otherness falls away. Through his lens, the chimps are revealed as the individuals they are, with all their foibles, damage, and possibility – and the reader’s world view shifts on its axis. Heartrending and heart-warming, this is a stunning and important work of art and documentary and science.”

The overall winner of the eleventh Charles Taylor Prize – who will receive $25,000, while the four runners-up will each receive $2,000 – will be be announced on March 5th. For further details, please visit the Charles Taylor Prize website.

The London-based independent publisher, who focus primarily on translated fiction in novella and short story form, launched PeiShoStoMo to coincide with the annual NanoWriMo event, for writers who didn’t have the time or inclination to commit to anything longer. The attraction of only having to write thirty words per day for thirty days for a 900-word European-themed story competition, instead of NanNoWriMo’s one thousand six hundred and sixty seven seems to have appealed, with Rankin-Gee’s winning story being selected from an impressive entry pool of just over one hundred entries.

Speaking of the winning story, the judging panel, comprised of author Richard de Nooy, independent bookseller Peter Ho, and Peirene Press founder Meike Ziervogel, had the following to say:

This superb short story is both intriguing and moving. Within 900 words the reader warms to both the woman and boy. A single, powerful image, their two bodies on the bed, intimate yet detached, is more than enough to carry the story. Impressive use of dialogue.

I must Say that I agree with the judges and their opinion on the dialogue in London. It’s beautiful, unique and utterly complimentary to the story. In fact given the beauty of the imagery that it evokes, I’d even go as far as to to say that the dialogue is the story. Regardless, this is a worthy winner.

The first runner-up prize went to Scotland-based writer and poet, Ingrid Murray, with a story called Brussels. Again, this is a story which is well worthy of recognition in my opinion. Murray’s prose is beautifully lyrical – as one would expect from a poet – and she manages to squeeze within her 900 word story – a story based on a mother’s relationship with her son – a depth of emotion and engagement that is usually seen in much longer stories. Murray is inventive in her storytelling too. I love the way in which she plays with the passing of time. She does so to great effect, leaving the reader with the kind of ‘punch in the gut’ finale that keep coming back to pervade the mind.

Third prize in this year’s competition was awarded to Gloucestershire-based Joanne Ogden, for her story Edinburgh’s Obscura. This is a story which focusses on a woman seeking to uncover her husband’s affair while on a trip to Scotland’s capital, and although it’s the most straightforward of the three stories it’s no less inventive or beautiful. The real triumph in Edinburgh’s Obscura really lies in its ending, but before getting to that one has to tiptoe through a storyline that becomes ever more tense and sorrowful. It is only when one reaches the end however, that one discovers just how perfect the preparation has been for the unexpected revelation that lies ahead. This for me is storytelling at its finest.

So all in all a trio of first-class short stories. I extend my congratulations to all worthy winners, and encourage everyone to go along and read the creations of these genius wordsmiths for themselves. My thanks also to Peirene Press for launching PeiShoStoMo, for sharing these stories so generously, and for giving a much needed boost to the much neglected world of short fiction.

The PeiShoStoMo 900-word story competition will be happening again this coming November, so keep an eye on the Peirene Press website closer to the time for details.

Bloomsbury UK are buying in massively to the fact that 2012 is ‘the year of the short story’ by publishing a series of five major story collections over the coming months. Heading the list is a new collection from short story specialist, Jon McGregor (This Isn’t the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You – published 2nd February), and a debut collection from BBC National Short Story Award winner, D. W. Wilson (Once You Break a Knuckle – published 12th April).

The honour of being the first of the five to be published goes to Lucy Wood, who’s debut collection, Diving Belles is published next week (19th January). Two other debut collections will follow, from Roshi Fernando (Homesick – published 1st March) and Rajesh Parameswaran (I am an Executioner – published 10th May).

For further details, please click on the relevant cover above. Meantime, for those wishing a taster of these forthcoming collections, Bloomsbury have made available an online sampler, which can also be downloaded in PDF format (hit the ‘download publication’ button). Enjoy!

I’ll begin by giving you a little background on my 31 Shots of Shock reading project. Now in its third year, 31 Shots of Shock was originally inspired by an idea from Memory who runs the fantastic Stella Matutina blog. In 2008 she ran her Tales of Terror reading project. I joined Memory on that reading project and enjoyed it immensely; so much so in fact that I was keen to follow her again in 2009. Alas, Memory was tied up with too many other commitments to embark on another Tales of Terror journey that year, and so I asked her if I could carry on with a similar reading project. She agreed, and 31 Shots of Shock was born.

The aim of 31 Shots of Shock is simple – to read a single horror-related short story every day during the month of October, in the lead up to Halloween. However, because the story selections for this project are so tailored to my own tastes and often not available freely online i.e. the stories come from published collections/anthologies, I usually run 31 Shots of Shock as a solo reading project. That said, I always like to encourage anyone and everyone to participate in any way they can i.e. on the occasion that I’m reading an online version of a story, or if a fellow reader has the same collection/anthology (I have fond memories of Kristen from We Be Reading joining me in 2009, when we read through Kelly Link’s Pretty Monsters (Canongate Books) collection as part of the project (you can read my afterthoughts on Pretty Monsters, HERE)). I also challenge fellow readers to create their own 31 Shots of Shock selection, if they are so inclined. So far nobody has taken up that challenge, so hopefully this year will be different .

As hinted on during the introduction, I also like to put out the call to my fellow readers around this time, to offer me suggestions on which horror-related stories I should add to the 31 slots in my Shots of Shock reading list. I’ve done this for the previous two years (2009, 2010) and as a consequence I’ve discovered some quite remarkable tales of terror. So in an exercise that is truly invaluable to me, I ask you again this year dear reader, to put forward in the comments below, your suggestions of horror stories which I should reading this year as part of my 31 Shots of Shock. Thank you!

Of course having done this Shots of Short thing now for two years (three if one includes the year that I worked through Memory’s Tales of Terror version), I’ve read a cartload of horror-related short stories (especially vintage ones). So to help in checking to make sure that I haven’t already read any story you may have in mind to recommend to me, and/or to offer you some suggestions for stories you might like to read for yourself, I’ve included every horror-related short story I’ve read during this challenge. All links lead to my review for each story (links in bold are the stories which I HIGHLY recommend):

31 Shots of Shock 2010 (incomplete listing as I didn’t finish the challenge last year *blush*)
• A Little Place off the Edgware Road by Graham Greene
• The Visit to the Museum by Vladimir Nabokov
• The Pond by Nigel Kneale
• The Voice in the Night by William Hope Hodgson
• The Woods by Michael Kelly
• The Haunted Orchard by Richard Le Gallienne
• The Villa Désirée by May Sinclair
• Two Steps Along the Road by Terry Dowling
• The House of the Nightmare by Edward Lucas White
• The Lady’s Maid’s Bell by Edith Wharton
• W.S. by L.P. Hartley
• Afterward by Edith Wharton
• When I was Dead by Vincent O’Sullivan
• Lukundoo by Edward Lucas White
• Cold to the Touch by Simon Strantzas

31 Shots of Shock 2009

• The Wrong Grave by Kelly Link
• The Wizards of ‘Perfil by Kelly Link
• Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link
• The Faery Handbag by Kelly Link
• The Specialist’s Hat by Kelly Link
• Monster by Kelly Link
• The Surfer by Kelly Link
• The Constable of Abal by Kelly Link
• Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link
• A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor
• The Buried Alive by John Galt
• The Spectre-Smitten by Samuel Warren
• The Man in the Bell by William Maginn
• The Haunted Doll’s House by M.R. James
• The Red Room by H. G. Wells
• An Eddy on the Floor by Bernard Capes
• At the End of the Passage by Rudyard Kipling
• The Tomb of Sarah by F. G. Loring
• Don’t Look Now by Daphne Du Maurier
• The Kit Bag by Algernon Blackwood
• The Cafe of Terror by E. Phillips Oppenheim
• The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft
• On the Leads by S. Baring-Goulds
• A Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins
• Closing Time by Neil Gaiman
• The Old Nurse’s Story by Elizabeth Gaskell
• Midnight Express by Alfred Noyes
• An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
• The Upper Berth by F. Marion Crawford
• The Haunted and the Haunters by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
• The Fountain House by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

31 Shots of Shock 2008

• Telling Winter Stories by Charles Dickens
• Sredni Vashtar by Saki
• Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving
• The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs
• The Whisperers by Algernon Blackwood
• The Silver Mirror by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Mystery of My Grandmother’s Hair Sofa by John Kendrick Bangs
• Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad by M. R. James
• The Secret of Macarger’s Gulch by Ambrose Bierce
• Protection by Valery Brussof
• The Curse of the Fires and of the Shadows by W. B. Yeats
• The Ebony Frame by E. Nesbit
• The Striding-Place by Gertrude Atherton
• Earl Beardie’s Game At Cards by Anonymous
• The Dead Woman’s Photograph by Anonymous
• A School Story by M. R. James
• In Kropsberg Keep by Ralf A. Cram
• In the Confessional by Amelia B. Edwards
• Ghosts that Have Haunted Me by John Kendrick Bangs
• A Ghost Story by Mark Twain
• Glámr by Sabine Baring-Gould
• The Dampmere Mystery by John Kendrick Bangs
• An Inhabitant of Carcosa by Ambrose Bierce
• The Ghost in All the Rooms by Daniel Defoe
• The Shadow of a Midnight by Maurice Baring
• The Mystery of the Semi-Detached by E. Nesbit
• How He Left the Hotel by Louisa Baldwin
• The Bully of Brocas Court by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

That’s all I have to say for now with regards to the 2011 edition of 31 Shots of Shock. If you do have a story suggestion and details of where that story can be found, then I’d be most grateful to hear from you. Additionally, if you’re a publisher/publicist who wants to see a recent/upcoming horror-related short story anthology/collection featured in next month’s 31 Shots of Shock, then please drop me a note.

The overall winner of this year’s BBC National Short Story Award – the recipient of the £15,000 winner’s prize – will be announced live on Front Row on Monday 26 September. The runner-up will receive £3,000 while the other three finalists will each be given a cheque for £500.

From this coming Monday (12 September), each of the shortlisted stories will be read on BBC Radio 4 at 3.30pm, by one of five of the UK’s top actors and actresses. On the same day that each story is broadcast, a podcast of the recording will be made available for free download on the BBC National Short Story Award podcast webpage.

For further details please visit the Booktrust website, or BBC Radio 4′s National Short Story Award webpage.

How to write a book behind bars – The Guardian has posted, a rather upbeat extract from an upcoming episode of Amnesty TV, which looks at some of the extraordinary ways in which prisoners of conscience have smuggled their writings out of prisons. My favourite? Sami al-Hajj scratching poetry onto Styrofoam cups. Ingenious. Go check the clip out.

Can short stories be skimmed? – An interesting article by Mike Smith over at the Thresholds short story forum website, in which he asks whether short stories can be skimmed i.e. consumed quickly without careful reading and consideration. Fundamentally he says yes they can (when read as entertainment), and I agree with him up to a point. Thing is, there is so much depth and minute detail in some short stories that one can only truly appreciate them when one reads them slowly, or multiple times. Go back to a Carver, Wolff or Trevor short story a second or third time, and one discovers meaning and detail that one never knew existed on one’s first reading. Anyway Mr. Smith goes into a lot more detail, including observations from a number of famous writers. Well worth checking out, if only to get your brain cogs whirring.

‘Book Bites’ – bringing you tasty bite-size morsels of bookish news and delight, from around the web.

Of course with this shortlist announcement comes a whole bunch of controversy. Why didn’t Sebastian Barry or Alan Hollinghurst make it through? Why are two debut novelists on the shortlist? Oh dear, here we go again. I like to steer well clear. If you want to get embroiled then get yourself and your boxing gloves along to the Man Booker website, for all of the details on this year’s shortlist.

Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist unveiled – Not to be outdone by its neighbours across the Atlantic, The Scotiabank Giller Prize (Canada’s most prestigious literary award), had an announcement of its own to make today too – a longlist announcement. Now this one interests me a whole lot more than The Man Booker does, not least because three of books in the sixteen title selection this year, are short story collections. It’s a fact which certainly tickled Joe Melia of the Bristol Short Story Prize earlier on Twitter too, when he bravely told the Man Booker, that they should take note (he wasn’t that brave though because he didn’t use the @ManBookerPrize Twitter handle ). Seriously though, it’s a wide-ranging longlist, and it’s interesting to note that two of the books on this longlist – Patrick DeWitt with The Sisters Brothers and Esi Edugyan With Half-Blood Blues – have made it on to the shortlist for this year’s Man Booker Prize. Aren’t Canadian authors doing rather well just now? Anyway, head on over to the Scotiabank Giller Prize website for all of the details on today’s longlist announcement.

Shortlist revealed for this year’s Dundee International Book Prize – I thought I’d stick with the whole book award announcement thing today, because up here in Bonny Scotland (that’s where RobAroundBooks is based if you didn’t know already) the shortlists were also announced today for this year’s Dundee International Book Prize. Coming with a a publishing deal and a £10,000 cheque, the Dundee International Book Prize focuses solely on emerging novelists i.e. those writers who are so far unpublished. Therefore the shortlist contains ten novelists who you’ll most likely of never heard of. Don’t worry though, if you head on over to the Literary Dundee website, you can download and read extracts from the novels of all ten finalists. From this shortlist of ten, the list will be whittled down to three from which an eventual winner will be selected for publication by Glasgow-based Cargo Publishing. For further details, head on over to the Dundee International Book Prize website.

‘Book Bites’ – bringing you tasty bite-size morsels of bookish news and delight, from around the web.

New Yorker gives a taste of 1Q84 – Talking of Haruki Murakami, The New Yorker is being very kind this week in offering us a big chunk of a sampler of Murakami’s hotly anticipated latest novel, 1Q84 which is published in the US and the UK this coming October. Read this extract and you’ll see why there is such a buzz surrounding this novel. It’s beautiful, profound and odd, all in equal measure i.e typical Haruki Murakami ::via Galleycat

Only the Lonely: Teju Cole picks 10 novels of solitude – I was quite fascinated by Teju Cole’s recent selection for The Guardian of novels which feature solitude as a primary theme. Cole, the author of Open City (Faber Books), has chosen a wide selection ranging from Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn to Tóibín’s The Master, VS Naipaul’s The Enigma of Arrival to Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English, August. Why, the cheeky scamp has even thrown in Lydia Davis’ collected short stories. What a rebel . Go check.

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‘Book Bites’ – bringing you tasty bite-size morsels of bookish news and delight, from around the web.