Short stories – there in the beginning and still going strong
Writers (l-r) Claire Dean, David Constantine, Michelle Green and Stuart Evers with the University's Dr Michael Stewart
Fri, 11 Dec 2015 12:58:00 GMT
Celebrating the Short Story welcomed both experienced practitioners and enthusiasts of the art form
IN the beginning, there was the ‘short story’ – and the original literary form is still valid and vibrant, as a special event at the University of Huddersfield demonstrated.
It was day-long series of sessions entitled Celebrating the Short Story, featuring some of today’s leading practitioners in the art. It was attended by a wide range of people, including Huddersfield students and visitors from around the UK.
They came to meet and hear from the writers Michelle Green, Claire Dean, Stuart Evers and David Constantine – whose story In Another Country was adapted for the 2015 film 45 Years, a major critical and box office success.
Celebrating the Short Story was organised by University of Huddersfield Creative Writing department, including Course Leader Dr Michael Stewart and Senior Lecturer Dr Simon Crump, in tandem with Comma Press, the UK’s most prolific independent publisher of short fiction. The day formed part of a highly-varied series of events named Sound.Vision.Place mounted by the University’s School of Music, Humanities and Media.
“Despite the fact that it came before ‘the novel’, the short story is often seen as being its little brother,” said Dr Crump, whose own debut publication was a short story collection. “So our event was to remind ourselves that the short story is worth celebrating and it is still a viable and continuously evolving art form.”
The fashionability of the form comes and goes, continued Dr Crump, and some publishers are reluctant to launch new writers with short story collections. However, online publication provides plentiful opportunities and there are still some major magazine outlets.
Celebrating the Short Story consisted of three initial sessions: Writing from Research: Fact into Fiction, with Michelle Green and Claire Dean; a masterclass on Sherwood Anderson with Stuart Evers and David Constantine on D.H. Lawrence; plus Competing Visions of the Short Story – a panel debate with all of the guest authors - view panel discussion.
Afterwards, the authors gave readings from their short story collections.
