On a Winter’s Night, by Kate DiCamillo Read it here in less than 10 minutes. Thinking about why I love it… I love metafiction, so the opening sentence – ‘My father told me this story.’ – immediately entices me; it makes me think, ‘Yes! Tell me the story! I want to hear it!’. This first sentenceContinue reading “A short story I recently read”
Tag Archives: metafiction
A short story I recently read
The Quiet Boy, by Nick Antosca Read it here, in about 30 minutes. Thinking about why I love it… I love the use of metafiction: it’s a story with stories in it, and one of those stories sets off the action. The story in question, the grammatically inaccurate The Three Wolfs, written by student Lucas,Continue reading “A short story I recently read”
How I wrote it
My short story ‘Medusa Takes a Bath, and Becomes a Monster’ was performed by Grace Cookey-Gam at a Liars’ League event in London in August 2022 – you can watch it here, or read it here. I began writing this story in response to a call for submissions for Medusa-inspired stories. I love the GreekContinue reading “How I wrote it”
How I wrote it
My short story ‘Wild Love‘ was published in Makarelle’s winter 2021/22 edition, which was on the theme Love is Love. I wrote this story during my MA in Creative Writing. How it came about was, I wanted to challenge myself to write something in the romance genre. I considered this to be a challenge becauseContinue reading “How I wrote it”
A short story I recently read
The Man I Killed, by Tim O’Brien Read it here in 10 minutes. Thinking about structure and effects… O’Brien’s use of structure is amazing throughout the collection The Things they Carried; many of the stories spiral around events, revisiting them, reconsidering them, which I think reflects how memory works, especially in relation to trauma. TheContinue reading “A short story I recently read”
Book review
You Let Me In, by Camilla Bruce You can read the opening here (‘look inside’). This is a deeply disturbing novel. The protagonist, novelist Cassandra Tipp, has vanished, leaving behind what is essentially a memoir, a document containing two competing narratives about her life. In one story, Cassie tells of a vampiric 1,000-year old faerieContinue reading “Book review”
Book review
Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell You can read an extract, here. I’ve just finished reading Cloud Atlas, and wanted to write a review about how amazing it is, but it’s difficult to do that while avoiding spoilers, and I really don’t want to ruin the reading experience of anyone who hasn’t read it yet, soContinue reading “Book review”
A short story I recently re-read
‘Black-Eyed Women’, by Viet Thanh Nguyen Read it here, in about 40 minutes. Thinking about metafiction… Metafiction is fiction that is self-referential. Fiction that draws attention to its own fictionality, either overtly (e.g. the narrator directly addresses the reader) or covertly (e.g. the story is about writing stories). Black-Eyed Women’ is all about the natureContinue reading “A short story I recently re-read”
Three stories for autumn
If you’re looking for some reading to inspire your own writing this autumn, you might like to consider some of these stories: The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield Read an excerpt here. This is a metafictional novel – a story about stories. The narrator is reminiscent of a Brontë heroine, there are references to 18thContinue reading “Three stories for autumn”
Mina Ma 