‘The machinery of grace is always simple.’ Michael Donaghy, in his poem ‘Machines’, writes this of the blind leaps that love requires of us – faith’s gung-ho disregard for gravity. ‘So much is chance…’ PENNY BOXALL finds the emotional landscape of Alice Munro’s short story ‘Amundsen’ is a delicate balancing act.
EMILY DEVANE looks at Alice Munro’s expansive short story ‘The Beggar Maid’ and sees within all the hallmarks of a novel in miniature: ‘Most remarkable, though, is the scope of the story, which takes us from the couple’s first meeting to a chance encounter many years later. Munro achieves novel-like resonance in short story form. It is a masterclass of technique.’
MARY O’DONNELL, runner-up in the 2016 Feature Writing Competition, experiences a change of heart after reading Alice Munro’s ‘Family Furnishings’: ‘At times, I have struggled with what I regarded as tonally monotonous accounts of life in southwestern Ontario, where the author grew up … But, finally, ‘Family Furnishings’ has embedded itself after several readings like a ring shank masonry nail in a particularly unyielding piece of wood (me)…’
ALEX RUCZAJ explores the shapes and patterns of story writing: ‘In Kurt Vonnegut’s wonderful lecture on the shapes of stories, he draws curve after curve on his blackboard, showing the story arc – the ‘beautiful shapes’ that all traditional stories follow…’
CLAIRE THURLOW presents a thoughtful profile on the life and writing of short story master Alice Munro: ‘Compared to Chekhov for her flair with the genre, Munro reveals essential truths about ourselves in an unsentimental, yet deeply humane way…’
THRESHOLDS EXCLUSIVE: Guardian columnist and short story writer Chris Power discusses the state of the short story and why the dominant narrative of imminent death or blazing renaissance should be rejected…
‘When it comes to reading short stories, I’d prefer not to. As a premise for a piece submitted to a site promoting the short story, this is not a hugely promising start. But bear with me…’ CHARLES DAVIS discusses the short story form.
To celebrate International Short Story Day, we invited our Twitter Followers and Facebook Friends to send us synopses of their favourite stories that can be found online.
ELLIE WALSH looks at two stories by Alice Munro and analyses the way Munro creates her complex and intriguing characters.
