Stories for the EasyJet generation': beautifully crafted, witty, perceptive, sometimes shocking and often heart-breaking stories that examine the impact of cheap international travel on modern lives and relationships. A lads' weekend in Eastern Europe spirals out of control. A bleeding tourist is rescued by a stranger in downtown Toronto. A middle-aged woman holidaying in Tunisia considers the local options for love. An unemployed man shares his fantasies of a sex tour of Arizona with his long-suffering girlfriend. A woman is drawn into an impromptu but life-changing football game in the heart of the Amazon. Following his universally acclaimed third novel, Bring Me the Head of Ryan Giggs, Somerset Maugham Award-winner, Rodge Glass, has created a themed, contemporary story collection like no other. With wit, wisdom, insight and pathos, he examines men and women of all ages who, through the advent of discount air travel, play out their lives and loves across the globe. Glass brilliantly captures the isolation, dislocation and occasional epiphanies of those who find themselves a thousand miles from home, and those who long to be.

Abe Stone is a 61-year-old alcoholic with a Henry VIII fixation going through his third divorce. When he starts receiving letters from his dead mother, Evelyn, he is thrown into a late-stage identity crisis. His fourteen-year old grand-daughter, Lucille, is expelled from school and the unlikely couple embark on a quest to work out what Evelyn is trying to impart and how Abe can begin to put his dishevelled life in order.

Twenty-nine-year-old Lewis's family are the definition of dysfunctional: his brothers, living estranged and unknown lives in Texas and Toronto, his mother, confined in her self-imposed silent state in a room full of fish and amphibians and his father, at work in the Victory Barber Shop where customers are surrounded by souvenirs of wartime Europe. And Lewis, caught between working at a recruitment agency, helping his father out in the barbers and keeping his mother in touch with world news.

Writers of creative non-fiction are often expected to be able to recreate reality, to deal with, or even access, a singular truth. But the author, like any human, is not an automaton remotely tasked with capturing a life or an event. Whether we tell stories and understand them as fiction or non-fiction, or whether we draw away from these classifications, writers craft and shape writing all writing. No experience exists on a flat plane, and recounting or interpreting events will always involve some element of artistic manipulation: every instance, exchange, discussion, event is open to multiple interpretations and can be described in many ways, all of which are potentially truthful. Writing Creative Non-Fiction: Determining the Form contains essays and original writing from novelists, poets, songwriters, musicians and academics. The book covers topics that range from explorations of the role of the author, definitions and representations of the form, self and illness, to the spectral elements of non-fiction and its role in historical narratives. The essays included in this volume address everything from memoir, biography and autobiography to a discussion of musical approaches to criticism and a non/fiction interview. The book identifies key writers including Christopher Isherwood, David Shields, B. S. Jonson, James Frey, Åsne Seierstad, John D'Agata, W. G. Sebald, Jonathan Coe, Hilary Mantel, James Kelman, Liz Lochhead and Arthur Frank and is essential reading for students, researchers and writers of creative non-fiction. Contents Notes on Contributors Pathways to Determining Form Laura Tansley and Micaela Maftei A Bulgarian Journey Kapka Kassabova At the Will of Our Stories John I MacArtney She and I: Composite Characters in Creative Non-Fiction Katie Karnehm More Lies Please: Biography and the Duty to Abandon Truth Rodge Glass Ghosts of the Real: The Spectral Memoir Helen Pleasance One doesn t have much but oneself : Christopher Isherwood s Investigation into Identity and the Manipulation of Form in The Memorial Rebecca Gordon Stewart Menna, Martha and Me: The Possibilities of Epistolary Criticism Rhiannon Marks An Introduction to Schizoanalysis : The Development of a Musical Approach to Criticism Jo Collinson Scott Eyes! Birds! Walnuts! Pennies! Erin Soros Just Words Erin Soros It is in their Nature to Change: On Mis-leading Elizabeth Reeder Index

In every new story we pick up, we're seeking an exciting original voice. So why are there still voices we don't hear from nearly enough? Why are there characters that so rarely take centre stage? In this collection from Odd Voice Out press, we discover the stories of twelve teenagers who stand out from the crowd and who'll not easily be forgotten. These are stories about bending the rules and breaking the law. Stories of fighting for survival and finding your place in the world. Stories of family solidarity, unlikely friendships and aching first love told by teenagers who don't always fit in and aren't often heard. With a foreword by award winning YA author Catherine Johnson, this anthology brings together the top ten stories of Odd Voice Out's 2019 Not So Normal Narrators contest, as well as bonus stories from in-house authors Kell Cowley and K.C. Finn.

Short story publishing is flourishing in the 21st century and is no longer seen as a poor relation of the novel. But what is a short story? And how do you write one? Robert Graham takes you through everything you need to know, from how a writer works to crafting and editing your own fiction. This heavily revised edition features new chapters by contemporary fiction writers. Stressing the importance of reading broadly and deeply, the book includes a wide range of prompts and writing exercises. It teaches you how to read as a writer and write like somebody who has read. You will learn the elements of craft you need to produce short stories, and one of the key writer's disciplines: reflecting on your own work. Whether you are a student or an experienced author, this book will teach you how to write short stories – and reflect on the creative processes involved. The book features chapters from writer-teachers James Friel, Rodge Glass, Ursula Hurley, Heather Leach, Helen Newall, Jenny Newman, James Rice and Tom Vowler.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the bestselling, National Book Award–winning author of Three Junes comes a tender, riveting book of two sisters and their complicated relationship. Louisa Jardine is the older one, the conscientious student, precise and careful: the one who yearns for a good marriage, an artistic career, a family. Clem, the archetypal youngest, is the rebel: committed to her work saving animals, but not to the men who fall for her. In this vivid, heartrending story of what we can and cannot do for those we love, the sisters grow closer as they move further apart. All told with sensual detail and deft characterization, I See You Everywhere is a candid story of life and death, companionship and sorrow, and the nature of sisterhood itself.

Mark Wilson's whole life has been about the moment when he steps on to Old Trafford to make his first appearance for Man Utd. But when a wayward pass from Ryan Giggs leads to THE WORST DEBUT EVER, Mark's schoolboy obsession with him develops into something more dangerous. Fifteen years later, after a career interrupted by drinking, injury, gambling, RESTRAINING ORDERS and burglary, Mark is now sober, gainfully-employed and looking forward to watching United at their CHAMPIONS LEAGUE-WINNING BEST. Most importantly for Mark, he is reconciled with the mother of his son, little Ryan. But as the old urges continue to struggle for voice in his head, can he keep his eye on the goal?

At the core of Marek's much-anticipated second short story collection is a single, unifying theme: a parent's instinct to protect a particularly vulnerable child.

A novel about the frightfulness and ruthlessness of being in love, from the author of the Booker Prize-winning novel The Sea, The Sea Martin Lynch-Gibson believes he can possess both a beautiful wife and a delightful lover. But when his wife, Antonia, suddenly leaves him for her psychoanalyst, Martin is plunged into an intensive emotional reeducation. He attempts to behave beautifully and sensibly. Then he meets a woman whose demonic splendor at first repels him and later arouses a consuming and monstrous passion. As his Medusa informs him, “this is nothing to do with happiness.” A Severed Head was adapted for a successful stage production in 1963 and was later made into a film starring Claire Bloom, Lee Remick, Richard Attenborough, and Ian Holm.