Download or read book The BBC National Short Story Award 2015 with Book Trust written by and published by BBC National Short Story Award. This book was released on 2015-09-16 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of all five shortlisted stories, including the winner for the 2015 BBC National Short Story Award.
Download or read book The BBC National Short Story Award 2015 written by Hilary Mantel and published by Comma Press. This book was released on 2015-09-17 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘I often ask myself what makes a story work,’ wrote the great American author, Flannery O’Connor. ‘I have decided that it is probably some action, some gesture of a character... which is both totally right and totally unexpected... one that is both in character and beyond character.’ The five stories shortlisted for this year’s BBC National Short Story Award with Book Trust all feature people making just such gestures, acting in ways that reach beyond themselves: a woman takes refuge from a disastrous relationship by caring for a morbidly obese man; parents of a missing girl desperately resort to the services of a woman whose talents they barely credit; a middle-class resident of a leafy corner of Windsor finds herself caught at a crossroads in history; a young man attempts to impress his girlfriend’s unconventional parents – to excruciating, comic effect; and a young woman attempts to stitch together her own approach to life in the face of love. In each case we see an individual endeavouring to stand up, to make a difference, to be part of something bigger. Now in its tenth year, the BBC National Short Story Award has witnessed a decade of revival for the form, and the stories on this list show just what fine fettle it’s in. The shortlist was selected by crime-writer Ian Rankin, novelist Tash Aw, previous winner Sarah Hall, BBC Books Editor Di Speirs, and former BBC correspondent and journalist Allan Little, who chaired the panel and introduces this collection.
Download or read book The BBC National Short Story Award 2021 written by Lucy Caldwell and published by Comma Press. This book was released on 2021-09-13 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A group of teenage boys take turns assessing each other’s changing bodies before a Friday night disco… A grieving woman strikes up an unlikely friendship with a fellow traveller on a night train to Kiev… An unusually well-informed naturalist is eyed with suspicion by his comrades on a forest exhibition with a higher purpose… The stories shortlisted for the 2021 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University take place in liminal spaces – their characters find themselves in transit, travelling along flight paths, train lines and roads, or in moments where new opportunities or directions suddenly seem possible. From the reflections of a new mother flying home after a funeral, to an ailing son’s reluctance to return to the village of his childhood, these stories celebrate small kindnesses in times of turbulence, and demonstrate a connection between one another that we might sometimes take for granted. The BBC NSSA is one of the most prestigious prizes for a single short story, with the winning author receiving £15,000, and four further shortlisted authors £600 each. James Runcie is joined on the judging panel by a group of acclaimed writers and critics including: Booker Prize shortlisted novelist Fiona Mozley; award winning writer, poet and winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize, Derek Owusu; multi-award winning Irish novelist and short story writer, Donal Ryan; and returning judge, Di Speirs, Books Editor at BBC Radio.
Download or read book The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher written by Hilary Mantel and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2014-09-30 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling collection, from the Man Booker prize-winner for Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, that has been called "scintillating" (New York Times Books Review), "breathtaking" (NPR), "exquisite" (The Chicago Tribune) and "otherworldly" (Washington Post). "A new Hilary Mantel book is an Event with a ‘capital ‘E.'"—NPR "A book of her short stories is like a little sweet treat."—USA Today (4 stars) "[Mantel is at] the top of her game."—Salon "Genius."—The Seattle Times One of the most accomplished, acclaimed, and garlanded writers, Hilary Mantel delivers a brilliant collection of contemporary stories In The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, Hilary Mantel's trademark gifts of penetrating characterization, unsparing eye, and rascally intelligence are once again fully on display. Stories of dislocation and family fracture, of whimsical infidelities and sudden deaths with sinister causes, brilliantly unsettle the reader in that unmistakably Mantel way. Cutting to the core of human experience, Mantel brutally and acutely writes about marriage, class, family, and sex. Unpredictable, diverse, and sometimes shocking, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher displays a magnificent writer at the peak of her powers.
Download or read book BBC National Short Story Award 2008 written by and published by . This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Numbers, an eerie tale of life on a remote Scottish island, has added 15,000 to Clare Wigfall's bank balance after winning the world's most lucrative prize for a single short story, the BBC National Short Story award.Jane Gardam was named as runnerup for The People on Privilege Hill, earning her 3,000. The three remaining authors on the shortlist - Richard Beard, Erin Soros and Adam Thorpe - will all receive 500.Announcing the winners, chair of the judging panel, broadcaster and writer Martha Kearney, said: It's exciting that a relatively unknown voice, in fact the youngest writer on our shortlist, has distinguished herself amongst some very well known authors as a leading talent in the world of storytelling."
Download or read book The BBC National Short Story Award 2020 written by Caleb Azumah Nelson and published by Comma Press. This book was released on 2020-09-14 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young woman’s birthday party is disturbed by the vision of a homeless man sleeping under an arrangement of mocking fruit... A late-night text conversation goes awry when a forwarded link to a live feed of gathering walruses doesn’t have its intended effect... A woman hopes a pending announcement to her in-laws will finally give her husband the attention he craves... The stories shortlisted for the 2020 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University demonstrate how a single moment might become momentous; how a small encounter or exchange can irreversibly change the way others see you, or the way you see yourself. From the struggles of two women trapped by joblessness and addiction to the hopes of two teenage brothers embarking on a new life without the protection of their parents, these stories show us what happens when we fail to relate to each other as well as the refuge that belonging affords.Now celebrating its fifteenth year, the BBC National Short Story Award is one of the most prestigious for a single short story, with the winning writer receiving £15,000, and the four further shortlisted authors £600 each. The BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University was established to raise the profile of the short form and the writers shortlisted for this year’s award join distinguished alumni such as Zadie Smith, Lionel Shriver, Rose Tremain, William Trevor, Sarah Hall and Mark Haddon. As well as rewarding the most renowned short story writers, the Award has raised the profile of new writers including Ingrid Persaud, Jo Lloyd, K J Orr, Julian Gough, Cynan Jones and Clare Wigfall. The shortlist will be announced on the 11th September 2020, with the winner to be announced live on BBC Radio 4 Front Row in October.
Download or read book The BBC National Short Story Award 2016 written by KJ Orr and published by Comma Press. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The BBC National Short Story Award 2019 written by Lucy Caldwell and published by Comma Press. This book was released on 2019-09-06 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Including the winning story, 'The Invisible' by Jo Lloyd! A young boy takes delight in his mother’s ability to shapeshift from one animal to another, only realising how odd she is when it comes to parents’ evening . . . The values of a small farming village are challenged by talk of a well-heeled community living on the other side of the lake that only one person can see . . . A writer researching the life of a 19th century child custody reformer discovers all too many parallels between that century and ours . . . The stories shortlisted for the 2019 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University variously explore the sanctity of the home and family, and the instinct to defend what’s closest to us. Against a backdrop of danger or division, characters sometimes struggle – like the 15-year-old charged with looking after her siblings whilst her mother works through the night – and sometimes succumb – like the young woman who allows herself to be manipulated by an older, richer man. But in each case, these stories demonstrate what Nikki Bedi argues in her introduction: short stories are not a warm-up act, they’re the main event. 'Bright examples of what it means to write short fiction, and to write it well.' - STORGY 'As ever, the BBC National Short Story Award has an intriguing shortlist... The winner is an entirely beguiling story' - Daily Mail
Download or read book The BBC National Short Story Award 2022 written by Saba Sams and published by Comma Press. This book was released on 2022-09-15 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A woman, exhausted by work and motherhood, hires the services of a sinister firm that promises her a brand-new life… Journeying across America to make a claim to an inheritance, a man must confront the shame and bigotry that has haunted his family for generations… A picture-perfect holiday threatens to unravel as two daughters come to terms with the uneasy dynamic of their new blended family… The stories shortlisted for the 2022 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University take readers on a journey through uncertain terrain: times and places at once familiar yet deeply unsettling. From the queer love story playing out against a desolate and disease-ravaged landscape, to a man’s earnest hunt for the killer of a boy who died in his arms, these stories are about outsiders, who seek safety and security in worlds that are chaotic, unfathomable, sometimes beautiful, and often brutal. AUTHORS: Saba Sams, Kerry Andrew, Jenn Ashworth, Anna Bailey and Vanessa Onwuemezi.
Download or read book The BBC National Short Story Award 2018 written by Sarah Hall and published by Comma Press. This book was released on 2018-09-14 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hung-over and grief-stricken, a man contemplated suicide at the edge of a cliff, until he is unexpectedly distracted by the sight of a woman emerging from the water below... A group of art students protesting the demolition of a housing block decide to turn its destruction into a creative act... Waiting in her car for the rain to pass after her mother's funeral, a woman nurses her child and reflects on a world outside that remains headless of her sorrow... The stories shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University 2018 pivot around the theme of loss, and the different ways that individuals, and communities, respond to it. From the son caring for his estranged father, to the widow going out for her first meal alone, the characters in these stories are trying to find ways to repair themselves, looking ahead to a time when grief will eventually soften and sooth. Above all, these stories explore the importance of human connection, and salutary effect of companionship and friendship when all else seems lost.
Download or read book The BBC National Short Story Award 2017 written by Cynan Jones and published by Comma Press. This book was released on 2017-09-18 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is in the short story, at its most characteristic, something we do not often find in the novel, Frank O’Connor wrote, ‘an intense awareness of human loneliness.’ The stories shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award with BookTrust 2017 all feature characters that are disconnected, willingly or unwillingly, from those around them: a mysterious out-of-towner is shunned by her new colleagues; a grieving husband retreats into his old compulsion for hoarding; a promising academic risks his career for a casual liaison with a younger man. And whether we follow the characters’ need to be alone – like the fisherman drifting dangerously far from shore – or trace it back to its root – like the daughter burying her violent father – what we find there is always unexpected. Jenni Fagan, Benjamin Markovits and Helen Oyeyemi, three of Granta’s recent ‘20 under 40’, are joined by critic and novelist, Will Eaves and Wales Book of the Year Fiction Prize winner, Cynan Jones on the 2017 shortlist. This year’s shortlist was selected by authors Eimear McBride, Jon McGregor and Sunjeev Sahota, as well as BBC Radio’s Di Speirs and acclaimed novelist Joanna Trollope who chaired the panel and introduces the collection.
Download or read book The BBC National Short Story Award 2020 written by FREEDLAND and published by . This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young woman's birthday party is disturbed by the vision of a homeless man sleeping under an arrangement of mocking fruit... A late-night text conversation goes awry when a forwarded link to a live feed of gathering walruses doesn't have its intended effect... A woman hopes a pending announcement to her in-laws will finally give her husband the attention he craves... The stories shortlisted for the 2020 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University demonstrate how a single moment might become momentous; how a small encounter or exchange can irreversibly change the way others see you, or the way you see yourself. From the struggles of two women trapped by joblessness and addiction, to the hopes of two teenage brothers embarking on a new life without the protection of their parents, these stories show us what happens when we fail to relate to each other as well as the refuge that belonging affords.
Download or read book Fortune Smiles written by Adam Johnson and published by Random House. This book was released on 2015-08-18 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The National Book Award–winning story collection from the author of The Orphan Master’s Son offers something rare in fiction: a new way of looking at the world. “MASTERFUL.”—The Washington Post “ENTRANCING.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “PERCEPTIVE AND BRAVE.”—The New York Times Throughout these six stories, Pulitzer Prize winner Adam Johnson delves deep into love and loss, natural disasters, the influence of technology, and how the political shapes the personal, giving voice to the perspectives we don’t often hear. In “Nirvana,” a programmer whose wife has a rare disease finds solace in a digital simulacrum of the president of the United States. In “Hurricanes Anonymous,” a young man searches for the mother of his son in a Louisiana devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. “George Orwell Was a Friend of Mine” follows a former warden of a Stasi prison in East Germany who vehemently denies his past, even as pieces of it are delivered in packages to his door. And in the unforgettable title story, Johnson returns to his signature subject, North Korea, depicting two defectors from Pyongyang who are trying to adapt to their new lives in Seoul, while one cannot forget the woman he left behind. WINNER OF THE STORY PRIZE • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Miami Herald • San Francisco Chronicle • USA Today AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • NPR • Marie Claire • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • BuzzFeed • The Daily Beast • Los Angeles Magazine • The Independent • BookPage • Kirkus Reviews “Remarkable . . . Adam Johnson is one of America’s greatest living writers.”—The Huffington Post “Haunting, harrowing . . . Johnson’s writing is as rich in compassion as it is in invention, and that rare combination makes Fortune Smiles worth treasuring.”—USA Today “Fortune Smiles [blends] exotic scenarios, morally compromised characters, high-wire action, rigorously limber prose, dense thickets of emotion, and, most critically, our current techno-moment.”—The Boston Globe “Johnson’s boundary-pushing stories make for exhilarating reading.”—San Francisco Chronicle
Download or read book The National Short Story Prize 2006 written by Atlantic Books, Limited and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The National Short Story Prize is a major new annual award designed to honour Britain's finest short story writers and to re-establish the importance of the short story as a central literary form. This text contains the complete shortlist of five, including the winner.
Download or read book Intimacies written by Lucy Caldwell and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes the winner of the 2021 BBC National Short Story Award* 'Outstanding.' Guardian 'Eleven perfect stories.' Irish Independent 'Glorious.' The Times 'My FAVE collection ever.' Pandora Sykes In eleven stories, Intimacies exquisitely charts the steps and missteps of young women trying to find their place in the world. From a Belfast student ordering illegal drugs online to end an unwanted pregnancy to a young mother's brush with mortality, and from a Christmas Eve walking the city centre streets when everything seems possible, to a night flight from Canada which could change a life irrevocably, these are stories of love, loss and exile, of new beginnings and lives lived away from 'home'. 'Embedded in these stories are exquisite, often moving descriptions where everyday moments mix with the monumental.' Financial Times
Download or read book The River is The River written by Jonathan Buckley and published by Sort of Books. This book was released on 2015-07-07 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A woman named Naomi arrives at her sister's house, intending, it seems, to say goodbye. She is abandoning her city life for a remote Scottish retreat, which she will share with a man called Bernát, whom she considers some kind of visionary. In a sequence of stories filtered through multiple re-tellings, she illuminates the character of this elusive individual. One story seems of special significance: about Afonso, an Amazon boatman, who could be the last speaker of his mother tongue, a language of apparently unique simplicity and precision. Bernat and Naomi are not, however, the only storytellers here. Naomi's sister, Kate, is herself working on a novel that begins as a ghost story, but ends up as something rather different: The river is the river.
Download or read book My Name Is Monster written by Katie Hale and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2019-06-06 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Strikingly beautiful' Guardian 'Tough and tender' Joanne Harris After the Sickness has killed off her parents, and the bombs have fallen on the last safe cities, Monster emerges from the Arctic vault which has kept her alive. When she washes up on the coast of Scotland, everyone she knows is dead, and she believes she is alone in an empty world. Slowly, piece by piece, she begins to rebuild a life. Until, one day, she finds a girl: another survivor, feral, and ready to be taught all that Monster knows. But as the lonely days pass, the lessons the girl learns are not always the ones Monster means to teach . . .
