Today is International Short Story Day and there is a fair bit going on. This evening, the shortest night, sees the London launch of The Best British Short Stories 2012. Stuck as I am in the wilds of Germany, I am sadly unable to attend, but if you are in the area you really should pop down to The Betsey Trotwood, Farringdon Rd, London for around 7pm and enjoy some great authors reading from the collection.
For my part, to celebrate the launch (and International Short Story Day) I am giving away a copy of The Best British Short Stories 2012.
To enter, write a comment below telling me about the best short story you have read so far this year. It doesn’t have to have been published this year, just read by you sometime between Jan 1st 2012 and today. Sometime on Friday names will be stuffed in a hat and one of my offspring will select a winner.
The clock is ticking so get those comments in.
And wherever you are today, take the time to read a story.
Dan Powell 
15 Responses to Best British Short Stories/Short Story Day Giveaway
Hey Dan! Oh, so many stories… But I LOVED Kevin Barry’s Beer Trip To Llandudno.
Hi Dan, the best short story I have read so far this year was in Lydia Davis’s collection entitled Almost No Memory. The story is called The Mice.
Alan Heathcock’s short story collection, Volt, is amazing. In particular, I enjoyed the first story of the collection, entitled Staying Freight. Heathcock’s prose never stops moving–so much is packed into the plot line–and at the end of each story I have to put the book down to think. Such vivid images. Such interesting moral dilemmas. Great read.
Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado’
Hi Dan, the best short story i’ve read this year is The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife by Ernest Hemingway from the In Our Time collection.
Hi Dan, every year my sister who lives in Austin, Texas sends me a copy of Best American Non-required reading. My favourite from this years edition had to be Webers Head by J. Robert Lennon.
Ooooh, oooh, so hard to choose one. But one that has stayed with me is from Caitlin Horrocks’s collection ‘This is Not Your City’ called ‘Going to Estonia’ – weird, moving, wonderful.
I really loved ‘Sometimes Gulls Kill Other Gulls’ from A.J Ashworth’s collection Somewhere Else, Or Even Here.
Loads of great recommendations so far folks, thanks to everyone who has posted a comment. A good number of writers and stories I have yet to read and will be sure to look out for. Looks like this post has already given me an exciting reading list of stuff to tackle over the second half of this year.
To the rest of the web, there’s still time to tell me about the best story you’ve read this year and have your name slapped in the hat.
Hi Dan, my favourite story so far is Emma Martin’s Two Girls in a Boat – http://www.granta.com/New-Writing/Two-Girls-in-a-Boat
A few weeks ago, on a long drive, I listened to a downloaded podcast of Leonard Nimoy reading Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, which I first read maybe six or seven years ago. The podcast blew me away so much, when I got home I dug it out and sat in the garden and gave it another read. It’s just four people talking, but you feel like you’re in the same room, breathing the same air, looking from face to face as the conversation develops.
Great story that one, I’d love to hear the Leonard Nimoy reading. My favourite from that collection would be Why Don’t You Dance. the details in it are so precise and the absences so resonant. It shows a glimpse of what is going on and lets you work out the rest.
Ah, it’s vote number 2 for Emma Martin’s Commonwealth Short Story Prize Winner – Two Girls in a Boat http://www.granta.com/New-Writing/Two-Girls-in-a-Boat
Hi Dan, hope I’m not too late. Probably my favourite of the stories I’ve read this year is Mogera Wogura by Hiromi Kawakami (and not only because of its title): http://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/5482/mogera-wogura-hiromi-kawakami
Not too late. Draw takes place tonight. Thanks for the recommendation.
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