A Small, Good Thing

In this episode, poet Melanie Han explores the liminal space that exists between the short story and the poem, as well as the challenges in writing across languages and cultures. Is there a line of separation between short fiction and poems that tell a story? Is it always possible (or necessary) to distinguish between prose poetry and flash fiction? And what does it feel like to write about yourself when your own identity spans across several languages and cultures? 
 
Works cited: 
Melanie Han, ‘Stacked Memories’, in My Dear Yeast (Milk and Cake Press, 2023), p. 27 
Melanie Han, ‘Grandpa’s Evacuation’, in No Way of Returning Home (The Poetry Lighthouse, 2026), pp. 29-38
Melanie Han, ‘The Uber Driver and Me’, in Among Worlds Magazine <https://amongworlds.interactionintl.org/the-uber-driver-and-me/>
Ross Gay, The Book of Delights: Essays (Algonquin, 2022)
Mel Han, ‘The Word for Pocket is “주머니”’, in Cosmic Daffodil Journal, xi (2025), pp. 19-20
Mel Han, No Way of Returning Home (The Poetry Lighthouse, 2026)

Mel's website: https://melaniehan.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.

Wales has an ancient tradition of storytelling. Listen to Rhiannon Marks discuss the Welsh short story, from the oldest tales of the British Isles to Wales’s contemporary short story writers. Rhiannon Marks is Senior Lecturer at the School of Welsh at the University of Cardiff where she specialises in 20th-21st century Welsh literature, creative literary criticism and literary theory.

Works cited
Mihangel Morgan Te Gyda’r Frenhines (Gomer, 1994)
Menna Elfyn Parch (Bloodaxe Books, 2025)
Rhiannon Marks, Y dychymyg ôl-fodern: agweddau ar ffuglen fer Mihangel Morgan. (Caerdydd: University of Wales Press, 2020)
The Mabinogion, trans. by Sioned Davies (Oxford University Press, 2008)
Manon Steffan Ros (ed.), Dadeni (Sebra 2026)
Alun Richards (ed), The Penguin Book of Welsh Short Stories (Penguin, 1976)
Kate Roberts, The World of Kate Roberts: Selected Stories, 1925-1981, trans. by Joseph P. Clancy (Temple University Press, 1991)
Kate Roberts, ‘The Quilt’, in The World of Kate Roberts: Selected Stories, 1925-1981, pp. 76-80 Rhiannon Marks, Crefft y Stori Fer Heddiw [The Art of the Short Story Today]. Caerdydd: Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol (2019)
Rachel Trezise, Fresh Apples (Parthian Books, 2006)
Thomas Morris, We Don’t Know What We’re Doing (Faber and Faber, 2015)
Caryl Lewis, Bitter Honey (Penguin, 2025)
Fflur Dafydd, House of Water (Hodder & Stoughton, 2025)
Nici Beech (ed), A New Welsh Tapestry: Six Short Stories by Contemporary Welsh Women Writers (Sampark Publications, 2026)
Tu Chwith Magazine < https://archives.library.wales/index.php/tu-chwith >
Y Stamp Magazine – see < https://www.ystamp.cymru >
Meic Stephens, A White Afternoon: New Welsh Short Fiction (Parthian Books, 1999)
Kristi Bohata et al. (eds), Queer Square Mile: Queer short stories from Wales (Parthian Books, 2022)

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.

In this episode, I get to chat with Elizabeth Baines about her career as a writer, from the first short story she ever published to her upcoming projects, passing through the times when she worked as a writer of radio plays and the co-editor of the short story magazine Metropolitan. 

Works cited: 
Elizabeth Baines, Five Different Stories about One Thing (Confingo, 2026). 
Elizabeth Baines, The Mountain and Other Stories, a speculative novella and stories (GoldSF, Forthcoming).
Lucy Caldwell, Intimacies (Faber and Faber, 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.

Vicky Grut is a short story writer and an essayist. In this episode, Vicky discusses what it means to be a short story writer in the heyday of the digital revolution, and at a time of hyper-connectivity. Listen as she reflects on how much of the contemporary world can be integrated into fiction without risking obsolescence in just a few years. 
 
Works cited: 
Vicky Grut, 'My Own True Name', in Best British Short Stories 2026, ed. by Nicholas Royle (Salt, 2026). 
Vicky Grut, Live Show, Drink Included: Collected Stories (Holland Park Press, 2018). 
Vicky Grut, 'The Eid Dinner', Manchester Review, no. 29 (2026). 
Annie Ernaux, The Years (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2022).
Isle McElory, ‘Writing Social Media Into Fiction’. Catapult (26 April, 2022), https://magazine.catapult.co/dont-write-alone/stories/writing-social-media-into-fiction-craft-essay-isle-mcelroy  
David Foster Wallace, ‘E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction’, in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (Little, Brown, 1997), pp. 21-82.  
Liadan Ní Chuinn, Everyone Still Here (The Stinging Fly, 2025). 
 
Organisations mentioned: 
European Network for Short Fiction Research (ENSFR), https://ensfr.univ-angers.fr/ 
CityLit, https://www.citylit.ac.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.

David Hartley is a short story writer, creative writing teacher, and the author of the collection of short stories Fauna (2021). In this episode we discuss the importance of voice in short story writing. What is voice? What does it mean for a writer to work on voice? How many voices can a short story writer have? How far can one trespass into alien territories when seeking for a character’s voice? 
 
Works cited: 
David Hartley, Fauna (Fly On The Wall Press, 2021). 
David Hartley, ‘Voice of the Gods, Voice of the People: Authority and Authenticity in the Modern Short Story’, in The Subtle Art of Short Fiction, ed. by Isabelle Kenyon (Fly On The Wall Press, 2026), pp. 85-92. 
George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (Bloomsbury, 2021). 
Flannery O’Connor, ‘The Nature and Aim of Fiction’, in Mystery and Manners (Faber and Faber, 2014), pp. 63-86. 
Flannery O’Connor, ‘Writing Short Stories’, in Mystery and Manners (Faber and Faber, 2014), pp. 87-106. 
Sandra Cisneros, ‘Barbie-Q’, in Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (Random House, 1991), pp. 14-16. 
Kit de Waal, ‘The Art of Trespass’, keynote at the National Creative Writing Conference, 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_N10wSo4ZA 
Shirley Jackson, ‘The Summer People’, in Dark Tales (Penguin Classics, 2016).

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.