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Morphologies

Short Story Writers on Short Story Writers

Edited by Ra Page

Cover of Morphologies edited by Ra Page
  • Description
  • Editor
  • Awards
  • Reviews
  • SARA MAITLAND on NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
    SEAN O'BRIEN on EDGAR ALLAN POE
    JANE ROGERS on FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY
    BRIAN ALDISS on THOMAS HARDY
    MARTIN EDWARDS on ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
    FRANK COTTRELL BOYCE on ANTON CHEKHOV
    ADAM ROBERTS on RUDYARD KIPLING
    STEPHEN BAXTER on H.G. WELLS
    STUART EVERS on SHERWOOD ANDERSON
    ALI SMITH on JAMES JOYCE
    TOBY LITT on FRANZ KAFKA
    DAVID CONSTANTINE on D.H. LAWRENCE
    ALISON MACLEOD on KATHERINE MANSFIELD
    RAMSEY CAMPBELL on H.P. LOVECRAFT
    SIMON VAN BOOY on F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

    What makes for a good short story?

    Being short, you might think the story's structure would yield an answer to this question more readily than, say, the novel. But for as long as the short story has been around, arguments have raged as to what it should and shouldn't be made up of, what it should and shouldn't do. Here ,15 leading contemporary practitioners offer structural appreciations of past masters of the form as well as their own perspectives on what the short story does so well.


    The best short stories don't have closure, argues one contributor, 'because life doesn't have closure'; 'plot must be written with the denouement constantly in view,' quotes another. Covering a century of writing that arguably saw all the major short forms emerge, from Hawthorne's 'Twice Told Tales' to Kafka's modernist nightmares, these essays offer new and unique inroads into classic texts, both for the literature student and aspiring writer.



    Ra Page is the founder and Editorial Manager of Comma Press. He’s the editor of numerous anthologies, including The City Life Book of Manchester Short Stories (Penguin, 1999), co-editor of The New Uncanny (winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, 2008) and Litmus, voted one of 2011’s books of the year ... read more
    Awards won by Ra Page Winner, 2012  Financial Times Book of the Year
    (Shi Cheng)
    'It might have been of interest to these pre-Mansfield masters to learn that there was a hidden country of prose out there; great short story writers, then and now, create countries of their own.'
    Michael Caines writing about Morphologies in the TLS blog
    'A worthy addition to the immense collection of criticism.'
    The Guardian
    Praise for Ra Page 'Read this book.'
    Liz Lochhead
    'An agreeably accomplished collection populated, as promised, by some intriguing characters.'
    City Life
    'Get with the zeitgeist and buy yourself a copy of Bracket.'
    Leeds Guide
    'Fills you with hope for the form.'
    Time Out
    'Short fiction is in good hands.'
    The Independent
     'If we need the uncanny --and I suspect we do -- then we also need it updating... laudable.'
    Book of the Week, The Independent
    'A masterclass in understated creepiness... a deliciously macabre collection that the old Austrian might well have enjoyed.'
    Book of the Week, Time Out
    'Delightful and disturbing.'
    The Independent on Sunday
     'It's not too great a stretch to see Comma as the literary equivalent of Factory Records.'
    The Herald
    'An inspiring tribute to inquiring minds.'
    The Guardian
    'A very alive, illuminating and good-natured collection.'
    The Observer
    'The pairings work brilliantly, giving stereoscopic vision... ingenious... unfailingly interesting.'
    The Independent
    'Exquisite... delectable.'
    New Scientist
    'There is something about the defiance of language in this story.'
    China Daily
    'On balance, [the editors] perform a valu­able service in making these rich, varied and rewarding stories known to a western audience, for all that the politics of cultural engagement remain fraught.'
    Financial Times
    'These stories tell us how the lives of these cities and citizens, or peasants-turned-citizens, are being tempered. The stories seem to say that one has to go through the fires of hell to reach some different stage of existence.'
    The Independent
    'Shi Cheng is a sort of mind map of both modern China, and also of what it’s like to be human.'
    Asian Books Blog
    'An exhilarating read.'
    The Short Review 
    'Fascinating reading.'
    Financial Times
    'Works brilliantly... ingenious... unfailingly interesting.'
    The Independent, Book of the Week
    'Exquisite... delectable'
    New Scientist.
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