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Guest Editor: Jamie Grover

Published 1 year ago

I am delighted to have been given this opportunity to appear as Guest Editor this month.  I guess I have been guilty of not reading enough of the fantastic work on this site and this opportunity has brought to light some fantastic pieces of work that I would have never come across.  I have been astounded at the quality of the writing and the diversity of subjects covered.

My personal love of the short story is due to the lack of constraints and restrictions imposed on it.  It can be thirty words or three thousand words.  It can be about something or can be about nothing.  It can be a simple sketch; a picture, or a movie. 

I believe that the novel imposes too many restrictions that the short story is free of.  There doesn't have to be a beginning or even an end and there doesn't have to be very much in the middle.  And to me the short story works so much better because it is like a good song in that it is able to capture a moment.

The stories that I have picked from the vast catalogue on this site are excellent examples of this, of capturing a moment, be it a scene, a snapshot or even a feeling.  All of these stories also share a bitter honesty; they arise from a social realism and observe and offer commentary on the here and the now.  For me, all good art should examine the human condition in some form.  I just cant get excited about a painting of a sunflower but melting clocks I can stare at for hours.  Just as I'd take Irvine Welsh over Dan Brown any day.  But this is just personal taste.  I am a firm believer in writing about what you know also - and all of the writers I have selected do this fantastically well.

Jamie's first novel,  Just Like Damn Magnets, is now available to buy on Amazon

Read Jamie's reviews

• The Red Bird by Lisa Deick
• Fiddleheads And Faeries by Dianne Ness
• Santirica by William Gray
• The Grand Finale by Joanne Fitzgerald
• Concrete Jungle by Kieran McNairn
• The Ethiopian Kid by James Frail

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