Shortlisted in the 2018 Feature Writing Competition PETER JORDAN examines the influence of dyslexia and the paintings of Cezanne on the short stories of Ernest Hemingway: ‘The defining qualities of Hemingway’s minimalist writing — short sentences, short paragraphs, the short concrete word over its longer equivalent, mistrust of subordinate clauses, omission, and suggestion — here perfectly characterise dyslexic writing…’
Shortlisted in the 2018 Feature Writing Competition NICOLE MANSOUR looks at the short fiction of Sam Shepard: ‘His words evoke anticipation, the unknown that lies ahead of all of us. To me they also suggest something of the power of the present moment, about not tying oneself too tightly to any one of those loose ends but rather letting oneself simply unravel in whatever way fate intends…’
Shortlisted in the 2018 Feature Writing Competition SAM REESE looks at the short fiction of Mary McCarthy: ‘Well aware of the relationship between narrative and identity, McCarthy uses the vital compression of the short story form as a way to offer an alternative view of the roles available to contemporary women…’
JULIA HICKEY explores the life and writing of the novelist and short story writer, Phyllis Bentley: ‘Once upon a time, at the beginning of the twentieth century, a bespectacled child dreamed of becoming a writer. The child was the offspring of middle-class parents. He was a master dyer. She was the daughter of a mill owner who finished cloth.’
DAVID BUTLER finds cruelty in the pages of Katherine Mansfield’s stories: ‘I would argue that Mansfield’s aesthetic is frequently more disquieting, even cruel – in the sense that her acquaintance D. H. Lawrence called Dostoevsky’s talent cruel…’
KAREN WRIGGLESWORTH reflects on the authentic voice of New Zealand writer Witi Ihimaera: ‘It was just like immersing myself in a hot thermal bath at Rotorua, closing my eyes, and simply listening to the voices of the local people going about their day all around me…’
FRANCES GAPPER explores the life and writings of Dorothy Edwards: ‘Hovering awkwardly on the fringe of the Bloomsbury Group, virtually penniless and dependent on a friend for accommodation, Dorothy Edwards lacked the two things Virginia Woolf considered vital for a woman writer of fiction: money, and secure private space…’
DIANA CAMBRIDGE profiles the life and writing of American author Sue Kaufman: ‘It’s forty years since she jumped from the balcony of the eighteenth-floor New York apartment in which she lived with her husband and son. When she died, she was fifty, and had written five novels – one of which, Diary of a Mad Housewife, was made into a film – and a collection of fifteen short stories, The Master and Other Stories…’
STANLEY ECHEBIRI looks at the life and work of Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa: ‘Saro-Wiwa died as a freedom fighter and an environmentalist, yet writing was his most potent weapon against the Nigerian state. His environmental crusade overshadowed his literary achievements towards the later years of his career, but it didn’t remove his footprints on the Nigerian literature landscape…’
DAVID FRANKEL looks at Hubert Selby Jnr’s uncompromising story collection, Song of the Silent Snow: ‘Each of the stories offers a startling and vivid glimpse into the character’s life, the voices ranging from no-nonsense accounts of hard lives to poetic internal monologues…’
