The Competition Longlist
Over the past few weeks, the team of THRESHOLDS judges has been busy reading and re-reading the entries, debating their merits and falling for their charms. Today, we bring you…. The 2013 THRESHOLDS Features Award longlist.
Black Vodka
JEANLOUP PRANCHERE recommends Black Vodka: ‘I have always thought of myself as lost property, someone waiting to be claimed,’ confesses the main character in the title story of Deborah Levy’s new collection…
Breece D’J Pancake: A Short Life in the Hills
‘After reading just one story, ‘Hollow’, Andre Dubus wrote: ‘I wish someone could have saved him’. Joyce Carol Oates compared him to Hemingway; Jayne Anne Phillips – a fellow West Virginian – to the Joyce of Dubliners…’ In this Author Profile, SEAN MARTIN shows us the brief writing life of Breece D’J Pancake.
James Salter’s ‘Akhnilo’
MORGAN OMOTOYE takes us on Eddie Fenn’s journey to discover a mysterious sound in the night, in James Salter’s short story ‘Akhnilo’.
Patricia Highsmith’s Little Tales of Misogyny
‘I’ve often found Highsmith’s work both perplexing and engaging, yet, for me, there is no question about her value as a writer.’ KONSTANTINOS TZIKAS looks at the representation of women in Patricia Highsmith’s ‘Little Tales of Misogyny’.
Short Stories and the Power of ‘Not Knowing’ by David Constantine
‘I start a story because some concrete image or situation prompts or pesters or forces me to. And I don’t know where I am going when I start…’ Author DAVID CONSTANTINE talks to THRESHOLDS about the art of writing stories.
A Great Love Affair
In her essay, JEMMA DRAYCOTT shows us how her love of Hanan Al-Shaykh’s short stories developed, as she guides us through ‘The Scratching of Angels’ Pens’.
The English Short Story Writer
MIKE SMITH looks at the writings and Englishness of V.S. Pritchett: ‘In so many of Pritchett’s stories, there is an uncomfortable consciousness that hangs in the atmosphere like the smell of an extinguished candle…’
Panos Karnezis’ Little Infamies
In her essay, GINA CHALLEN recommends Panos Karenzis’ collection of short stories Little Infamies: ‘a collection of nineteen gently interlinking tales all set in a fictional village in rural Greece…’
The Exclamation Mark
In his essay, DAN POWELL recommends Anton Chekhov’s short story collection The Exclamation Mark, and discusses how the playful stories take us on a journey of a writer finding his voice.