Tag Archives: short story
Mother Of All Things: feminist fairy tale published on Corvid Queen
Hooray, I’ve had my first publication of the year and it’s with the fabulous online literary journal Corvid Queen! My short story, Mother Of All Things, has been published online and can be read here. Another piece written during my Creative Writing Master’s, Mother Of All Things is an imagined retelling of the Hungarian myth […]
My Best Friend Chloe: published in Gutter magazine
Good news! My short story My Best Friend Chloe has been published in issue 28 of the wonderful Gutter magazine. Gutter is an award-winning, high quality, printed journal for fiction and poetry from writers living in Scotland and around the world. I was over the moon to be selected for publication, and even more excited […]
A Séance For The Living: ghost story published in Mslexia
As readers of this blog might know, I fell in love with the short story form during my Creative Writing Master’s and since then have regularly written new stories across all sorts of genres and themes, and been diligently submitting them out for competitions and publications. When I first saw women’s writing magazine Mslexia put […]
Shriek Song: short story published in New Writing Scotland
Just a short update to share some good news: I’ve been published in New Writing Scotland 40: nobody remembers the birdman by the Association for Scottish Literature! I’m thrilled that my short story, Shriek Song, found a home in the collection and that it can be enjoyed by readers in Scotland and beyond. Shriek Song […]
The importance of staying proactive as a writer
Trying to build a career as a writer when you have a life, other commitments and a whole other job can seem a daunting task and there’s no doubt that it takes hard work, discipline and patience. I wanted to jot down some thoughts I’ve had recently about why it’s so important to also be […]
Creative Writing MA: checking in and freaking out
It’s about four months until I finish my Creative Writing MA and hand in my final project and dissertation, and although that seems like a long amount of time, I am sure, with a certain degree of dread, that the time is going to fly past. I promised that I would document my degree on […]
My tips for entering short story competitions
Look, I’m going to be honest here: I’m no short story competition expert. Of the 20+ competitions I have entered in the past year and a half, I’ve had exactly 0 successes – longlist, shortlist, somewhere-in-between-list. No luck. But I haven’t given up, and I continue to methodically and strategically apply to short story competitions, […]
Review: Mouthful of Birds, Samanta Schweblin
It’s been a while since I’ve read anything as creepy, compelling and utterly bizarre as Samanta Schweblin’s collection of short stories, Mouthful of Birds. From the titular story about a father who discovers his daughter’s compulsion to eat live birds, to stories about fanatical hair-plucking women and the lengths a couple will go to get […]
What I read in 2019
This year I challenged myself to read 30 books which I was very proud to have achieved until my friend told me she was on her 80th in November! I wanted to make more time for reading, for reflecting on what I read, and to record every book that I read. So here’s my list […]
An ode to the first draft
Ok, I finished a rough first draft of a short story about ten minutes ago, and nothing felt more apt than writing a speedy blog post about just how much I love this feeling (and just how much I dread the next stage of the process). As most people know, the first draft of anything […]
Bethany Wren 