A Place for The Night Sky ~ The View from the Keyboard of Sarah Hammond

Sarah Hammond is a hot new YA and children’s author who lives in the UK and studied in Bath Spa University‘s impressive and very successful MA in Writing for Young People. On my last trip to England, I wanted to buy a few copies of Sarah’s brand new debut novel, The Night Sky in my Head, […]

Bristol and Bath Bound ~ In Pursuit of Story in the UK

So very looking forward to a few days of exciting events in the UK. It all starts on Saturday, 14 July, with ShortStoryVille, a celebration of the short story sponsored by the organizers of the Bristol Short Story Prize. (For more on these events, check out this interview with the event’s coordinator and short story […]

Bath Spa and Tessa Hadley

In the fall term of 2008, I had the remarkable opportunity to be a visiting lecturer at Bath Spa University in their very impressive Creative Writing program. This was part of our on-going exchange between Columbia College Chicago, where I direct the undergraduate programs in Fiction Writing, and Bath Spa University. It is a good […]

“Respect the Storyness.” Gerard Woodward answers “Why The Short Story?”

Gerard Woodward was recently long-listed for The Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award with a prize of £30,000 (nearly $50,000 in today’s currency market—holy sheepskin!) for his single short story, “The Family Whistle.” (Who says there’s no value in the short story?) Gerard is also author of an acclaimed trilogy comprising August (shortlisted for […]