Help Save Short Stories on BBC Radio!

Following swiftly in the footsteps of the first short story festival in Bristol, UK, ShortStoryVille, which was hugely successful - comes the distressing news that BBC Radio 4, which until recently broadcast a short story in the Afternoon Reading programme 5 days a week, which was then reduced to 3 days a week - and now will be only once a week. This is the BBC - who only a few years ago was proud to announce the BBC National Short Story Award, and on their website say:

The BBC National Short Story Award, managed in partnership with Booktrust, continues to serve as a reminder of the power of the short story and to celebrate a literary form that is proving ever more versatile in the twenty first century, enjoyed not just on the page, on air and increasingly on every sort of screen, but also in flash fiction events, short story festivals and slams. The short story has moved beyond the revival of recent years and is now experiencing a golden age.

BBC Radio 4 is the world's leading broadcaster of short stories and a staunch and long-time supporter of the form. Short stories are broadcast every week, attracting over a million listeners.

BBC- you are a "staunch and long-time supporter", don't let us down now!

The Afternoon Reading has for many many years been a showcase not just for well-known writers but for new voices - on a personal note, it was my first "big break", the first time I felt I was taken seriously as a writer, coupled with the joy of hearing my story brought so wonderfully to life. Not only that, the payment the writer receives is no paltry sum and has formed a significant part of my writerly earnings in the years since.

There are many, many writers, listeners and readers who are very concerned about this development. Writer Susie McGuire and Ian, organiser of the UK's National Short Story Week, have formulated the following:

The new Controller of Radio 4, Gwyneth Williams, will be a guest on FEEDBACK on BBC Radio 4 next week. How very timely.
Would you add your name to a letter/question to ask her?
Would you pass on this email to other writers who care about the health of the short story…?

The more of us, & the better known the writers who sign it, the more likely it is to have some effect.

If so, please find below a short, polite question, proposed by Ian of http://www.nationalshortstoryweek.org.uk

Reminder: info on her decision to cut the short story’s presence on Radio 4 outlined here  http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2011/07_july/10/radio4.shtml

If you’d like to add your signature, please email YES to
ian AT shortstoryweek DOT org DOT uk

& cc to me: info AT susiemaguire DOT co DOT uk

NB – It would be really helpful if you could reply within 24 hours so that the question can be lodged as soon as possible. This is by no means the *only* action interested parties can take, but it’s a start, and I hope you might add your weight to it with this (and further suggestions are welcomed)
thanks
Susie

*******************
Proposed question:
We were surprised and disappointed to learn of the decision to reduce the short story output on Radio 4 to once a week from next spring. Radio 4 has been a great champion of the short story for many years. It is one of very few places in the UK where both new and established writers can have their short stories broadcast to a large audience, and where radio listeners can enjoy readings of the short story form. This move comes at a time when interest in the short story is growing, but paid opportunities for short story writers are still scarce. Could Gwyneth Williams please explain:
1) what has led her to make this decision?
2) whether the short stories on Radio 4 extra will be new commissions or repeats of existing recordings?
3) how this decision fits with the BBC’s sponsorship of the National Short Story Award (and indeed if this will continue?)

If you are moved to do so, please take action, following the instructions outlined above. Signatories so far include:

Clare Wigfall

Sara Maitland

Philip Pullman

Nicholas Royle

Vivian French

James Robertson

Michael Holroyd

Jane Rusbridge

Dr Charles Smith

Sarah Hall

Sarah Hilary

Vanessa Gebbie

Jill Dawson

Lucinda Byatt

Maggie Gee

Sarah Sheridan (Soc of A, Scotland)

Tania Hershman (Ed, The Short Review)

Helena Nelson (publisher, Happenstance)

Morag Joss

Lola Perrin

Jules Horne

Suzanne Bellenger

Richard Beard (Nat Academy of Writing)

Ali Bacon

Nicky Parker, (Publisher, Amnesty)

Dan Powell 

Ian Cundell

Kathleen Langley

John Courtney-Grimwood

Wendy Ann Greenhalgh

Alison Wells

James Wall

K E Bergdoll

Linda Cracknell

Jonathan Pinnock (also see his FB links)

Sarah Salway

Alison MacLeod

Louis Winters

Emily Dubberly

Karen Whiteson

Griff Griffiths

Sara Schofield

Ian Macpherson

Stella Burchill

(and counting...)

Please join us!

ADDENDUM: There is now an online petition here - please sign! 

Short Circuit's Virtual Book Tour Lands Here!

We normally only talk about short story collections here at the Short Review, but we're making an exception in order to take part in the Virtual Book Tour for an excellent new book.  


Short Circuit: A Guide to the Art of the Short Story, edited by Short Review author and reviewer Vanessa Gebbie (Words from A Glass Bubble), and published by Salt Modern Fiction, is a collection of articles, essays and interviews on different aspects of the short story by working short story writers - including many Short Review authors and reviewers such as Clare Wigfall, Sarah Salway, Nuala Ni Chonchiur, Alison McLeod, Adam Marek, Elizabeth Baines, Elaine Chiew, Alex Keegan and David Gaffney (and myself - in the interests of full disclosure - TH).


Win yourself a free copy of the book - see the end of this post for more details.

While this is a book aimed at those writing short stories and we know that many of The Short Review's readers are also writers, I asked Vanessa the following question: Vanessa, this book is called A Guide to the Art of the Short Story, and since TSR is all about inspiring people to read more short stories, what do you think the book can do for readers? Can it help them get better acquainted with the short story and enhance the reading experience? If so, how?

VG: Excellent question! And as Short Circuit is, above all, honest, here’s the honest answer. Will non-writers rush out in their thousands to buy a book on how to write? I doubt it. A few may pick it up if their writer-partners wax lyrical about this wonderful new ‘how-to’ book. And I’d love to think that, because it is an engaging read, some readers will find in it the stuff of enjoyment anyway. 

I am told time and time again that Short Circuit is a ‘brave’ book. And I can’t help but shake my head. Why is it ‘brave’? It takes a straight look at the writing craft and the application processes of that craft for 24 different writers – all writing today, all being published today, all winning prizes today. It is not an academic treatise. I do not see how on earth creative writing is an academic pursuit – much as there are factions in the literary world who would like to make it so. It ain’t!

"If I write about ball-lightning that comes from between a woman's legs when she's aroused, will friends, privately, think I'm weird?" (From Alison MacLeod's essay, "Writing and Risk-Taking")

Having said that, I think we must be equally honest about the variety of processes in the act of reading – engaging with the products of creative writing. On one level, a reader looks for entertainment – to be taken out of themselves for a while, by following a complicated plot. The reader who actively seeks that experience, sustained for the length of time it takes to read a novel, who then switches to read a good short story, expecting it to deliver something similar, will be disappointed. 

How often have we heard the complaint, ‘but nothing much happens…’? I think the reader who may say this is missing the point. What ‘happens’ in a short story ‘happens’ to some extent in that space between the reader and the writer, the space reserved for the reader’s reactions, emotional responses, understanding, empathy. And it ‘happens’ too in the reader’s head. In their allowing themselves to be pulled right into the story and - as Graham Mort puts it so well in his essay - ‘completing’ it.

"I think people who enjoy short stories have a special gland, one that responds to the unexpected with little bursts of pleasure chemicals."(From Adam Marek's essay, "What My Gland Wants - Originality in the Short Story") 

There’s a film just out of Cormac McCarthy’s great novel, The Road.  Already tipped to be nominated as one of the films of 2010, The Road seems to polarise readers.  I’ve heard intelligent, searching readers complaining, “But nothing much happens…” while others say it is the best thing they’ve read, couldn’t put it down, life-changing. 

Maybe we’re coming close to understanding one of the issues here. I’ll let Carys Davies take up the thread. At the end of her contribution to Short Circuit, she says: "Cormac McCarthy’s The Road…possesses -  with its intense and beautifully rendered present set between  a cataclysmic past and a tentative, tantalising future – all the qualities of a brilliant short story," and I’d add the words, ‘IF it is read as intended, read with the active engagement demanded of any good short story.’

I think, if any reader picked up Short Circuit and flicked through the essays, they’d be blown sideways by the challenges faced by writers of successful short fiction. And they might just pick up some of the gems recommended by the contributors, to see what all the fuss is about...

Thanks so much, Vanessa! For a chance to win a free copy of Short Circuit: A Guide to the Art of the Short Story, visit the Competitions & Giveaways Page. For more information about the book and about the rest of the Virtual Book Tour, visit TheArtoftheShortStory.com.