Karen's blog: Retreat West Books

With details of Amanda Huggins new short story collection and more:

Amanda writes with empathy, an eye for vivid detail, and a sense of adventure. Her stories display darkness and light, vulnerability and strength, and great charm- Alison Moore, author of The Lighthouse, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize

Out today

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Read an extract

What people are saying about Scratched Enamel Heart:

- This is short-story telling at its best - Gill James
- These are stories we need to read - Angela Readman
- These stories will move you - Allison Symes

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Meet our latest 2020 quarterly flash judge, F.J. Morris

F.J. Morris is an award-winning author and proud Bristolian. Her collection This is (Not About ) David Bowie was published by Retreat West in 2018 and received a special mention in the Saboteur Awards for Best Short Story Collection. She’s been published in numerous publications in the U.K. and internationally, and shortlisted for a variety of awards.

'If music be the food of love, play on...'
Shakespeare

For my theme, it's time to face the music. Whether you jazz up an old piece or fine-tune a new one, I'm looking for something that'll be music to my ears (or my eyes in this case). Be inspired to get creative with this one.

Music sustains us, feeds us. It touches every aspect of our lives, expressing our thoughts and emotions. It connects us as living creatures. From bird song to crickets, every part of the planet is singing. And there is power in bringing art forms together. I want to read stories not only inspired by music, but which will also read like music to our souls, and lift us up.

Pay attention to the rhythm and to the arc of your story. Does it ring out? Does it make the heart sing? Whether it involves a swan song, or you want to march to the beat of your own drum; blow your own trumpet and send in your most musically enchanting piece.

I can't wait to be serenaded!

For more musical inspiration, check out the book - This is (Not About) David Bowie

"In This is (not about) David Bowie, FJ Morris gifts us with a five-part collection of poetry and prose and plays and hybrid works written with daring and verve and a voice that leaps off the page. This book is as inimitable and immersive as Bowie himself, who so wisely said, "The truth is of course is there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time." Read this collection, then everything you can find by this exciting author." Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life: Collected Works from 2003-2018.

Enter here

Buy This is (Not About) David Bowie

Copyright © 2020 Retreat West, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:

Retreat West

Apartment 3735 Chynoweth House

Trevissome Park

Truro, Cornwall TR4 8UN

United Kingdom

Exclusive author insights

Welcome to this month's newsletter exclusive.

Amanda Huggins is a multi-talented, multi-award-winning writer. We are delighted to be publishing her second short story collection with Retreat West, Scratched Enamel Heart.

" This is short story telling at its best."
- Gill James

My Love of Short Stories

Although short fiction is perfectly suited to the pace and attention span of the modern world, some readers say they don't read shorts because they can't lose themselves in the story the way they can in a novel. It's true that they demand a more finely-tuned focus, that every sentence weighs in heavy because it has to earn it's place.

Yet, these things bring their own rewards. A cracking story will repay your time and attention by leaving you with something to think about for days after you've read it. When I've finished reading novels I often pass them on, however I usually keep short story collections, returning to them over the years in the same way I do with poetry. I have countless favourites, many by established authors, but also a growing number by emerging writers.

The collections on my shelves include books by William Trevor, Tessa Hadley, Helen Simpson, Helen Dunmore, AL Kennedy, Wells Tower, Stuart Evers, Miranda July, Yoko Ogawa, KJ Orr, Ernest Hemingway, Taeko Kono, Haruki Murakami, Richard Ford, Alice Munro, Flannery O'Connor, Anton Chekov, Annie Proulx, Isaac Babel, Angela Readman, and AM Homes.

Stylistically, Hemingway's short satires are near the top of my list - his concise, declarative sentences; his restricted choice of words and sparing use of adjectives; the cadence, the deliberate repetition - all deceptively simple. He summed it up perfectly himself:

"If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows and the reader...will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them."

I'm also a huge admirer of Japanese novellas and short stories. Japanese literature is often poetic, quiet, unhurried, and that way of writing suits the short story form. Sparing and effective use of language, subtlety and nuance, a certain elusiveness, all demand that the stories are read slowly, and that they are re-read and savoured. These are the qualities that draw me back again and again, and the tales of yearning and loss, of not quite belonging, all resonate with the themes I explore in my own fiction.

I really like Murakami's short stories, and particularly enjoyed his recent collection, Men Without Women. Murakami is renowned for his surreal writing, yet I prefer his stories when he writes of single men and smoky bars, lonely hearts and enigmatic women.

I also love the short stories and novels of Yoko Ogawa. Like Murakami, her writing is often surreal, and can be unsettling and even grotesque. She is adept at self-observation and dissecting women's roles in Japanese society.

For fresh contemporary writing, I would recommend Miranda July. Her stories are unsettling, quirky, alternately grounded and surreal, oddball, off-beat, skewed. Yet they betray vulnerability, and are both raw and poignant.

And though he's not renowned for humorous writing, one of the funniest scenes I've come across in a short story is in Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Come Rain or Come Shine'. The description of the protagonist pretending to be a dog in order to cover up the accidental damage he has caused in his friend's apartment had me crying with laughter. I've only read the story once, because I think I'm frightened something will be lost if I read it again - the humour was possibly magnified by my particular mood at the time I read it!