Mollusc

Helen Clare

Comma Press

In this first collection of short stories from a highly regarded poet, a girl's body reappears in the ice where she fell 50 years earlier, a businessman watches his soul abandon him as he makes a speech, and a tourist staggers through Athens as it transforms into a vision of hell. Depicting solitary figures drawn against stark, troubling backdrops, these stories probe the theme of isolation by freezeframing each character's life just at the moment when the past breaks the surface, or when the present—like the dam of the title—collapses under its own weight.

Under the Dam: And Other Stories

Literature & Fiction

Constantine, David

Contemporary

This short story collection features three authors who each contribute half a dozen stories that are linked by their shared setting. Jean Sprackland follows characters clinging to lost dreams and obsessions amid the dunes and fairgrounds of Southport. Set in the derelict rooms and vandalized stairwells of a tower block in south Manchester, Tim Cooke's stories draw intricate spirals around the claustrophobic lives of those who occupy them. Sean O'Brien's voices are also those of lost souls that actively seek their own dereliction, staggering between the vaulted libraries and nocturnal drinking dens of Tyneside.

Ellipsis 1: Comma Modern Shorts

Cooke, Tim

Sprackland, Jean

O’Brien, Sean

Short Stories & Anthologies

The second in a series of 3-in-1 short story collections presents half a dozen stories by each author that are linked through shared characters, settings, or themes. Starting in a former mining village in County Durham in the last year of Thatcher's government, the series moves through the cosmetically rebuilt landscape of northeast England. Each sequence interlinks differently to the next: in Anne Stevenson's series, different accounts of a town's demise contradict and question the notion of community; in Polly Clark's contribution dark secrets crowd in around each character as they attempt to flee; and in Fiona Ritchie Walker's sequence, the past is encased within the everyday objects her characters covet and hoard.

Ellipsis 2: Comma Modern Shorts

Stevenson, Anne

Clark, Polly

Ritchie Walker, Fiona

Twenty emerging British authors are featured in this anthology of short stories that celebrates imagination and daring in writing. The themes of these works push the limit of the traditional short story form and simultaneously offer isolated moments of truth. Characters range from world-smashing behemoths to role-playing plush toys to a man forced to reckon with a mysterious briefcase. Offering a snapshot of the next generation of British literature, this collection will amuse and astound.

Parenthesis: A New Generation in Short Fiction

With the threat of identity theft ever on the rise, this anthology from the Crime Writers Association is both timely and fascinating, exploring this disturbing modern day crime phenomenon in more than 20 chilling tales. Featuring such leading crime writers as Ian Rankin, Ruth Rendel, Stuart Pawson, and Kate Ellis, the collection includes tension-wrought psychological thrillers and unnerving cat-and-mouse mysteries that prove no character’s identity, from the criminal to the victim, is ever fully known.

I.D.: Crimes of Identity

The thoughtful stories featured in this collection capture the soul of the city of Leeds by tracing the unique contours of 50 years of social and economic change. In one story the Millgarth Police Station reverberates with the early adrenaline rush of a case they won’t close for years. Another tells of a teenage boy who trails the city center bars of the 1980s in thrall to his hero, a Leeds United football hooligan. Despite being products of their time, these stories remain distinct from the larger events and wider currents that have shaped the cultural landscape of today’s Leeds, a modern city with both problems and promise. Featured authors include Tony Harrison, Jeremy Dyson, Shamshad Khan, Ian Duhig, David Peace, Susan Everett, M. Y. Alam, Andrea Semple, Martyn Bedford, and Tom Palmer.

The Book of Leeds: A City in Short Fiction (Reading the City)

Highlighting a cross-section of cultures, voices, landscapes, and recent histories of 10 major European cities, this short fiction collection presents new perspectives on the urban experience. Depicting characters that are only loosely connected to the societies that they describe, these tales offer snapshots of each city through isolated glimpses enlivened by surrealist wit—a lonely woman in Amsterdam cooks for a circle of middle-aged bachelors; a poet in Barcelona tries to capture the essence of the city in 11 words; and an unemployed journalist wanders in his deserted office in Reykjavik.

Decapolis: Tales From Ten Cities

Revealing a bestiary of hybrids from the techno-crazed future and the mythological past, this surreal short story collection takes imaginative leaps through a science fiction influenced landscape. Reflecting a cinematic feel, young couples reach defining stages in their relationships as zombies fall in love, a stalker tracks a young woman through time only to discover he’s related to her, and a young man battles Godzilla in order to prove a point to his girlfriend. Blurring the boundaries between reality and hallucination—from robotic insects and in-growing cutlery to a woman impregnated with 37 embryos—these fantastical tales offer a world where the body is fluid, the spirit is mechanized, and the beasts know more about humanity than the humans do.

Instruction Manual for Swallowing

Marek, Adam

Britain’s leading contemporary authors experiment with the horror genre in this anthology of chilling short stories. Contributors including Hanif Kureishi, Frank Cottrel Boyce, and Ramsey Campbell expose the dark areas that lie beneath modern life with alarming results as internet chat rooms revive ancient curses and children’s TV characters acquire lives of their own.

Phobic: Modern Horror Stories

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