Happy Fourth Birthday to The Short Review!

Happy birthday! This month The Short Review turns four years old. 


439 story collections and anthologies reviewed, by our forty or so reviewers worldwide, and over 250 authors interviewed... We all do what we do for love of the short story and to spread the word about as many short story collections as possible so readers can get hold of them, demand them from their local bookshops or libraries, buy them as presents.  

Four years on, we are so overwhelmed with offers of collections to review that we have had to declare a hiatus in accepting new review copies so that we can catch our breath! A good sign, we think. A very good sign! How could you help us celebrate our birthday? Tell someone about a short story collection you love. Tell ten people. Spread it around!

This month's issue includes an unprecedented seven reviews of multi-author anthologies, which means that we are bringing you short stories by more authors than ever before! From women aloud to the bride stripped bare, the gold boy and the emerald girl, the best british and european fiction, what doesn't kill you if you're with the bears or on the Paris metro in nineteen seventysomething... and...


... Giveaways - In honour of our birthday - and of the UK's National Short Story Week - we are giving away NINE books: 4 of the books we are reviewing this month - and an extra 5 short story collections! You could win Best British Short Stories 2011, Best European Fiction 2012, the National Short Story Week charity audiobook anthology Women Aloud - and Affirm Press's Long Story Shorts set of six short story collections, which includes Barry Divola's Nineteen Seventysomething.

Visit the Competitions page to find out how to win.

Short Story Month 2011: The Collection Giveaway Project

I was thrilled to receive an email from Erika Dreifus of the Fiction Writers' Review, about this new intiative for Short Story Month 2011, in May. Here's what it's all about: 

Inspired last year by the Emerging Writers Network—who inaugurated May as Short Story Month three years ago—and the Big Poetry Giveaway for National Poetry Month, Fiction Writers Review is excited to launch our second year of The Collection Giveaway Project: a community effort by lit bloggers to raise attention for short story collections. Warm thanks to FWR Contributing Editor Erika Dreifus, who suggested FWR as a home for this project last year and will not only be participating on her own blog, but will also be helping FWR run the project right here.

To participate in Short Story Month 2011: The Collection Giveaway Project , here’s what to do:

(1) Post an entry on your blog recommending a recently published short story collection (or two, or three).
The post can be long or short, a review or merely a rave. The one requirement is that you, the blogger, have read and loved the book(s) in question.
(2) Offer a copy of the book (or each book) as a giveaway to one lucky person who comments on your blog.
You can choose the winner through a drawing, or by the wittiness of his/her remarks, or by whatever criteria you choose.

NOTE for blogger-authors: You can absolutely give away a copy of your own collection—but in an effort to keep this as much about community as publicity, please also offer to give away a second book that isn’t one of yours.

(3) Announce the winner(s) on May 31, 2011, and arrange to send out copies of any books you are giving away.
If you’re participating, drop Erika an email at erika [at] fictionwritersreview.com to let us know. We’ll add you to the list of participating blogs/sites and link to you from this frequently updated page on our site.
Check back May 1 for the official launch, but we’ll update the list throughout May!