MS: I like my stories like I like my skirts…

It is National Short Story Week. WooHoo. I love short stories. Sophie has written a very informative blog about events packed with tips and linkage (see below), isn’t she lovely?

As such I thought I’d celebrate the week by giving you my recommendations for top short story writers and collections written by women in or from Wales. In no particular order these are the books I have loved most:

1. Jo Mazelis has written two great collections, Circle Games and Diving Girls, the latter of which was shortlisted for the Best First Book Award in the Eurasia Commonwealth Writers Prize and for Welsh Book of the Year 2003. You can read her list of the top 10 short story collections on the Academi site.
2. Margiad Evans The Old and The Young
3. Anna Wigley Footprints
4. Maria Donovan  Pumping Up Napolean
5. Imogen Herrad The Woman who Loved an Octopus and Other Saint’s Tales
6. Gee Williams Blood Etc - shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2009.
7. Rachel Trezise Fresh Apples which won the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2006.
8. Deborah Kay Davies Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful which won Wales Book of the Year 2009.

… and not strictly short stories but Holly Howitt’s microfiction collection Dinner Time. I’ve also enjoyed the anthologies Urban Welsh, Nu: fiction & stuff (yes, I am in this one), and Sing Sorrow Sorrow. Honno have also published many anthologies of the best female short story writers in Wales, from the emerging to the established including A View Across the Valley: Short Stories by Women from Wales c. 1850 – 1950, Mirror Mirror and The Woman Who Loved Cucumbers.

As a special FREE gift for National Short Story Week you can read my short story Aquatic Life on their website. I also took part in their short story challenge, contributing 150 words or so to the collaborative short story game Consequences. I will be guest editing the website for a month in 2011.

Short Story Day is also coming up next month and I’ll be reading with Rachel Trezise, Matthew David Scott, Rob Lewis and other literary friends at Gwdihw in Cardiff on 21 Dec 2010 as part of the national celebrations. There will also be a bookstall and an opportunity to take to the stage in the short short story open mic. The event is supported by Academi. Thanks Academi!