This month 4th Estate launched a new series, 4th Shorts, publishing two short story collections – Barbara the Slut by Lauren Holmes and Single, Carefree, Mellow by Katherine Heiny in distinctive pocket-size paperback A formats with flaps.
When we were discussing this month’s music theme on the blog, we remembered that the inimitable Nell Zink was the editor of an indie rock fanzine before she wrote scintillating novels like The Wallcreeper and Mislaid. When we asked her whether she had any pages to show us, she wrote back apologising for not owning a scanner. However, she did have a (tenuously) music-themed story to hand; the story of an anaconda who unwittingly gets stuck in the New York art scene, and ends up devouring a doyenne of the 90s underground experimental rock community.
We couldn’t wait to share it with you…
In this episode we meet Katherine Heiny, author of Single, Carefree, Mellow. The literary love-child of Nora Ephron and Bridget Jones and written by an author who is incredibly witty, irreverent and charming, the book is finally out today.
Short stories really hit the big time in Britain in the Victorian and modernist period – at exactly the same time that the professional woman writer became a force to be reckoned with. The two have been wed ever since in a spectacularly successful union. The BBC short story award had an all-woman shortlist this year, as it did the year before. And, as usual, the 4th Estate list showcases some of the very best female short story writers around.
Fantastic news! GOLD BOY, EMERALD GIRL by Yiyun Li has been shortlisted for the prestigious FRANK O’CONNOR INTERNATIONAL SHORT STORY AWARD, the world’s largest short story award.
The shortlist is as follows:
GOLD BOY, EMERALD GIRL by Yiyun Li
