A Small, Good Thing

• Like Old Photographs in Second-hand Books (With Nicholas Royle)

  Nicholas Royle is a short story writer, a novel writer, the editor of the Best British Short Stories series. In this episode, I get to chat with him about his latest collection of short stories, Paris Fantastique (Confingo), and about his passion for second-hand books. Nicholas is also the founder of Nighjar Press, which publishes individual short stories as limited-edition chapbooks. Listen to find out more!Works mentioned:Nicholas Royle, Paris Fantastique (Confingo Publishing, 2025). Nicholas Royle, Manchester Uncanny (Confingo Publishing, 2022). Nicholas Royle, London Gothic (Confingo Publishing, 2020). Nicholas Royle, Antwerp (Serpent’s Tail, 2005).Nicholas Royle (editor), The Best British Short Stories 2025 (Salt, 2025).Nicholas Royle, White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector (Salt, 2021).Nicholas Royle, Shadow Lines: Searching for the Book beyond the Shelf (Salt, 2024).C. D. Rose, ‘I’m in Love with a German Film Star’, in Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea, (Melville House, 2024). Joel Lane, The Foggy, Foggy Dew (1986). Alberto Manguel (editor), Black Water: An Anthology of Fantastic Literature (Picador, 1983). Shelley Jackson, The Melancholy of Anatomy (Anchor Books, 2002). Jamaica Kincaid, ‘Blackness’, in At the Bottom of the River (Picador, 1984).Confingo publishing: PARIS FANTASTIQUE by Nicholas Royle | confingoPodcast intro and outro credits: Shield, Leroy, Taylor Holmes, and Robert W Service. The shooting of Dan McGrew. 1923. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

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• William Saroyan: Life at Full Volume (with Scott Setrakian)

  Scott Setrakian is the president of the William Saroyan Foundation. At the time we recorded this interview, he had just come back from Armenia, where he had taken part in a seven-day event called Saroyan Days. In this episode, he tells me about the life and works of Armenian American short story writer William Saroyan. Saroyan’s is a story of determination, perseverance, Pulitzer Prices, Academy Awards, and (above all) of superb writing!  Work mentioned:  William Saroyan, The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (Faber and Faber, 2024). William Saroyan, ‘The Pomegranate Trees’, in The Atlantic (February 1938). William Saroyan, Letters from 74 rue Taitbout (World Publishing Company, 1969). William Saroyan, The Human Comedy (Harcourt, Brace, 1943) William Saroyan, The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills (Scribner, 1952) William Saroyan, Places Where I’ve Done Time (Davis-Poynter, 1973) William Saroyan, Where the Bones Go (Pr at California st, 2002)  William Saroyan Foundation website: William Saroyan FoundationPodcast intro and outro credits: Shield, Leroy, Taylor Holmes, and Robert W Service. The shooting of Dan McGrew. 1923. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

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• More Facts and Fiction of Short Story Writing (with Ailsa Cox) [Part Two]

  Ailsa Cox is a professor Emerita at Edge Hill University (UK) and a short story writer. In this second part of the interview we discuss famous pieces of short story writing advice like “show don’t tell”, the Freitag pyramid, ending with a moment of insight and much more! Listen to find out what is a fact and what is fiction!  Works mentioned:  Sarah Hall, ‘Sarah Hall on why we should have a short story laureate’, Guardian, Oct. 11 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/11/sarah-hall-short-story-laureate. George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (Bloomsbury, 2021). Katherine Mansfield, ‘At the Bay’, in Selected Stories (Oxford University Press, 2002). Ailsa Cox, ‘How Loud the Birds’, in Katherine Mansfield and The Garden Party and Other Stories, ed. by Gerri Kimber and Todd Martin (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), pp. 143-52. Susan Lohafer, Reading for Storyness: Preclosure Theory, Empirical Poetics, & Culture in the Short Story (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003). C.D. Rose, Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea (Melville House, 2024). Sarah Schofield, ‘Safely Gathered In’, in Safely Gathered In (Comma Press, 2021). Charles Baxter, ‘Against Epiphanies’, in Burning Down the House. Essays on Fiction (Graywolf Press, 1997), pp. 51-78. Chris Power, Survival of the smallest: the contested history of the English short story, New Statesman, 27 June 2017. Malachi McIntosh, Parables, Fables, Nightmares (Emma Press, 2023). Daisy Johnson, The Hotel (Penguin, 2024). Elizabeth Strout, Anything is Possible (Viking, 2017). Grace Paley, ‘A Conversation with My Father’,  The Collected Stories of Grace Paley (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1994), pp.232-237 (minute 28-29) Paul March-Russell, The Short Story: An Introduction (Edinburgh University Press, 2009).  Writing on the Wall, https://writingonthewall.org.uk/.Podcast intro and outro credits: Shield, Leroy, Taylor Holmes, and Robert W Service. The shooting of Dan McGrew. 1923. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

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• The Facts and Fiction of Short Story Writing (with Ailsa Cox) [Part one]

  Ailsa Cox is a Professor Emerita at Edge Hill University (UK) and a short story writer. In this first part of the interview, we discuss famous claims about short stories and short story writing, like reading short stories in one sitting, the connection between short stories and poetic language, and much more. Listen to find out if they are facts or fiction!  Works cited: Ailsa Cox, Writing Short Stories. Third Edition (Routledge, 2025). Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Philosophy of Composition’, in Essays and Reviews (Library of America, 1984) Leila Martin, Kodavision (Nightjar Press, 2025) Colm Tóibín, Mothers and Sons (Picador, 2006). Helen Simpson, Constitutional (Vintage, 2006). Allan Weiss, The Mini-Cycle (Routledge, 2021). Zoe Gilbert, Folk (Bloomsbury, 2018) Paul March-Russell, ‘Anthropocene feminism and the Weird temporalities of landscape’, Short Fiction in Theory and Practice, 15:1-2 (2025), pp. 81-95. Katherine Mansfield, ‘Bliss’, in Selected Stories (Oxford University Press, 2002). Janice Galloway, Blood (Vintage, 1991). Raymond Carver, ‘Fires’, in Call If You Need Me (The Harvill Press, 2000), pp.  93-106. Alice Munro, Runaway (Chatto & Windus, 2005).Nightjar Press, https://nightjarpress.weebly.com/Podcast intro and outro credits: Shield, Leroy, Taylor Holmes, and Robert W Service. The shooting of Dan McGrew. 1923. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

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• The Culture and Commerce of the American Short Story (with Andrew Levy)

  Andrew Levy is professor of English and Creative Writing and the Edna Cooper Chair of English at Butler University in Indiana (USA). In this episode, I get to ask him a few questions about his book The Culture and Commerce of the American Short Story (Cambridge UP, 1992), a real watershed in short story criticism.Works referenced (in order of appearance)  Andrew Levy, The Culture and Commerce of the American Short Story (Cambridge University Press, 1992). Edgar Allan Poe, ‘Nathaniel Hawthorne’, in Essays and Reviews, ed. by G. R. Thompson (The Library of America, 1984), pp. 568-88. Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’, in The Penguin Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (Viking, 2011), pp. 216-20. Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Philosophy of Composition,’ in Essays and Reviews, ed. by G. R. Thompson (The Library of America, 1984), pp. 13-25. John Cheever, ‘The Swimmer,’ in A Vision of the World: Selected Stories, ed. by Julian Barnes (Vintage, 2021), pp. 241-56. Ruth Suckow, ‘The Short Story’, Saturday Review of Literature 4.17 (1927), pp. 317-18. Percival Everett, James (Doubleday, 2024).Andrew Levy, Huck Finn's America: Mark Twain and the Era That Shaped His Masterpiece (Simon and Schuster, 2015).Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Penguin Classics, 2006). Jocelyn A. Chadwick, The Jim Dilemma: Reading Race in Huckleberry Finn (University Press of Mississippi, 1998). Ralph Wiley, Spike Lee’s Huckleberry Finn, (unpublished screenplay) © copyright Ralph Wiley, 1997. Kelly Link, ‘Skindler’s Veil’, in When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson, ed. by Ellen Datlow (Titan Books, 2021).Podcast intro and outro credits: Shield, Leroy, Taylor Holmes, and Robert W Service. The shooting of Dan McGrew. 1923. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

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