Having just battled through the final edits of my MA portfolio novel (more on that in a future post), last June and the brilliant London Short Story Festival feels like a very long time ago indeed. For weeks now, I have been meaning to share the following links about The Weird and Wonderful Short Stories panel I was part of, but the aforesaid novel edits and a host of other responsibilities have kept me from most of my well intentioned blogging. Now, with my MA portfolio now in the hands of the printer, I can finally take a breath and point you in the direction of some great LSSF related internet goodness.
First up are videos of my reading and an interview about my favourite short story that were recorded on the day. Unfortunately I can’t embed them here due to WordPress’ curmudgeonly attitude toward iframe codes (whatever they actually are), so here’s the link.
Also, Synaesthesia have a terrific review of the event in their latest issue. You can read the whole thing here, but I particularly liked this paragraph:
Massive thanks to Rachael Spellman for those very kind words.
Be sure to check out Robert Shearman’s and Adam Marek’s readings from the panel via the links on LSSF’s Weird and Wonderful Writers page.
In related news, I saw on Facebook that Kevin Barry will be appearing at the 2015 London Short Story Festival. I can’t wait to hear who else will be there.
Dan Powell 
5 Responses to Talking short stories at LSSF 2014
Great interview , Dan. And as someone wrestling with a longer project, I love the shocking confession that your novel is actually a story cycle!
Yeah. Having just finished the final edits it is probably more novel like than I admitted. It’s really kind of three novellas tacked together with six short story interludes from elsewhere in the timeline of the story. That said, it seems to be more of a novel than I thought it would be.
That said, tricking myself into thinking I was writing short stories and novellas helped me get over the hurdle of writing a longer narrative. I completed sections and then stitched them together into (what I hope is) a structure that feels like a novel in scope and arc of events.
But what do I know? It’s not like I actually know what I am doing here. 🙂
Ha! That sounds just like my project.
It is so awesome to hear you read from Storm in a Tea Cup! And huzzah on the final edits and submission. Huge huge effort. I’m trying to think of my novel rewrites in terms of something smaller and more manageable. Especially the new bits I am writing from 350 years earlier. The novella-short story styled novel worked a treat for Margo Lanagan’s whose Sea Hearts won just about every award it could here in Australia and did incredibly well overseas as well.
Does this mean we get to see a little bit more of you now?
As of October 1st I have officially completed all MA course related gubbins. I will certainly endeavour to be more present once that day ticks around. I warn you though, I already have plans for novel 2. 🙂
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