The 8th Annual ENSFR Conference (June 10-12, 2026) Dear ENSFR Members, Following the ideas initiated at the Leuven conference in 2017 on the short story, its contexts and co-texts, the 2026 ENSFR conference will be devoted to short forms appearing in magazines and newspapers. CFP to follow.

Well done all and especially Ed Hogan @ensfr.bsky.social

Issue 27 of The Manchester Review is Now Live! We aim to bring together the best contemporary writing from a range of voices from across the globe. We hope you enjoy reading our new issue. www.themanchesterreview.co.uk

An ill wind: Poppyland, by @djtaylorwriter.bsky.social , reviewed in The Spectator by George Cochrane ‘Norfolk life looks quietly bleak in these carefully worked short stories of broken homes, precarious employment, dwindling expectations and torpor’

🌺 New from DJ Taylor – Poppyland 🌺 Published Mon 2nd June, a dazzling collection of short stories explores the murky edges of nostalgia, ambition, and identity in England. 📖 Buy now: www.saltpublishing.com/products/pop... #Poppyland #DJTaylor #ShortStories #BookSky #IndieBooks #SaltModernStories

Paul Anthony Knowles Reviews Corinne Fowler's Our Island Stories. 'Fowler unearths the hidden legacies of slavery, capitalism and exploitation that make up contemporary British relationships with the countryside' www.themanchesterreview.co.uk?p=12892

and finally... www.youtube.com/watch?v=88Ud... @ailsacox.bsky.social @ensfr.bsky.social @saltpublishing.com

Some of my best PhD experiences @universityofessex.bsky.social included presenting and attending @ensfr.bsky.social conferences. Here is my spotlight on writing short fiction (thanks Ines Gstrein & Paul Anthony Knowles). The challenge was answering 3 questions in 75 words! ensfr.univ-angers.fr

latest episode here! www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOzR... @ailsacox.bsky.social @ensfr.bsky.social @saltpublishing.com

Episode 6: Can publishing make you ill? www.youtube.com/@Writing_for... www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bRW... @ailsacox.bsky.social @ensfr.bsky.social

Small Pleasures podcast: In the latest episode, Livi Michael and Sonya Moor look at two marvels of short fiction – Sarah Hall’s ‘Mrs Fox’ and Jackie Kay’s ‘My Daughter the Fox’.

Short fiction in a flash: a bite-size interview with Vesna Main, by Sonya Moor is now live on the ENSFR website. ensfr.univ-angers.fr

New Book: Anthologisation and Short Fiction: Magnitudes of Telling by Paul Delaney This original new study explores the recent flowering of short fiction in Ireland. Specifically, it discusses the cultural, material, and ideological usages of the short form.

Our new Small Pleasures episode! www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac0U... @ensfr.bsky.social @ailsacox.bsky.social

Final day for Papers! Call for Papers for Ecological Futurity in Short Fiction Conference: 27th of June 2025. The conference will take place in-person and online at the University of Manchester. Deadline for abstracts: 2nd May 2025. To be sent to [email protected]

A week to Go for CFP! Call for Papers for Ecological Futurity in Short Fiction Conference: 27th of June 2025. The conference will take place in-person and online at the University of Manchester. Deadline for abstracts: 2nd May 2025. To be sent to [email protected]

www.themanchesterreview.co.uk?p=12884 Livi Michael reviews Albertina Sarrazin, The Crib and Other Stories, translated by Sonya Moor. @confingopublishing.bsky.social

The Northern Publishers' Fair returns this Saturday! 📚📣 📍Manchester Central Library 📅Sat, April 26th 🕚Starts 11am 🎟️FREE FOR ALL! RSVP at: fly-on-the-wall-press.eventcube.io/events/71509...

Mircea Eliade: Time, Death, and the Unspeakable Secret Translated from Romanian by Mac Linscott Ricketts Edited by Bryan Rennie 30 May 2025: £13.99, The Romanian writer Mircea Eliade Short Story collection consists of six of his best short stories, taken from over a 30-year period.

www.themanchesterreview.co.uk?p=12879 Anna O'Boyle reviews He Used to Do Dangerous Things by Gaia Holmes @commapress.bsky.social

Springtime in Castlefield. Patricia Farrell, @elizabethbaines.bsky.social @confingopublishing.bsky.social and the other one is me.

Call for Papers for Ecological Futurity in Short Fiction Conference: 27th of June 2025. The Ecological Futurity Conference will take place in-person and online at the University of Manchester on the 27th of June 2025. Deadline for abstracts: 2nd May 2025. To be sent to [email protected]

"This being a serious work of literature, Tara doesn't think about playing the lottery or betting on the horses." Me on Solvej Balle's time-loop novel Groundho-- ... I mean, On the Calculation of Volume Books I and II.

We’re delighted that our Poet of the Month for April is @pcevans.bsky.social. The first of three poems, ‘Selection’, is now online with two more to follow at the weekend. Photo by David Street. thelonelycrowd.org/2025/04/02/p...

Reclaiming academic publishing: @ojcollective.bsky.social is a community-led, no-APC #openaccess alternative to corporate publishers + transformative agreements/ big deals. Fund #diamondOA. Cancel TAs & big deals. Let’s build something better, together: www.openlibhums.org/news/795/

Thank you to everyone who came to the inaugural Northern School of Writing Publishers Fair at the University of Salford last Thursday. Thanks, too, to the Clifford Whitworth Library for hosting it and David Savill for organising it. We look forward to returning next year...

So cool to see all 12 stories from The Book of Manchester on Commonword's Digital Lit Map of the city! 🐝📚 📍Click the Comma pins to read excerpts from each story pinned to their real-world location 📘The Book of Manchester commapress.co.uk/books/the-bo... 🗺️Visit the map google.com/maps/d/viewe...

A short story tour of Manchester.

Tessa mentioned Mavis Gallant the night she won the Edge Hill Prize @edgehillprize.bsky.social for her own brilliant work in the short story form.

Announcing… FAILED SUMMER VACATION by Heuijung Hur - translated by Paige Aniyah Morris. ‘A bold, weird, brave exploration of the imagination.’ Vanessa Onwuemezi. ‘These strange stories of isolation and longing will stay with you.’ Jessie Greengrass. Out from Scratch Books 3rd June!

We were lucky to get a sneak preview at @ensfr.bsky.social conference. Looking forward to this!

This month, we are publishing Plenitude by Thomas McCarthy! 🌿 www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/inde...

‘Faces, families, phantasms, memories, stories, satirical indictments, landscapes, sheer traces of the moving hand: the subjects offered to sight at the Towner are radically various.’ Julian Bell on an exhibition and book on drawing: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Issue 47.06 is now online, featuring: Perry Anderson on neoliberalism Tessa Hadley on Mavis Gallant Judith Butler on Trump’s anti-trans orders Long Ling on Beijing’s new commuter city Deborah Friedell on Elon Musk and a cover by Jon McNaught. Read online at www.lrb.co.uk

We’re excited to announce the forthcoming publication of The Crib and Other Stories, the first English version of Albertine Sarrazin’s short stories. Translated by Sonya Moor, the book will be published on 5th June and can be pre-ordered from our website: www.confingopublishing.uk

The stakes have never been higher. LARB Quarterly, no. 44 is officially out now, with new essays, poetry, and short fiction taking on the pressures we face—and just how much we can resist. Get your copy today. lareviewofbooks.org/membership

We're so pleased to share the news that @chloedalton.bsky.social's RAISING HARE has been shortlisted for the @womensprize.bsky.social for Non-Fiction (spons. @findmypast.bsky.social) #WomensPrize Huge congratulations to Chloe! Discover the shortlist: womensprize.com/prizes/women...

On Wednesday 26th March at 7pm, please join us online to celebrate the launch of Father's Father's Father by Dane Holt. The event will be hosted by Caroline Bird and will feature readings, discussion & audience Q&A. Book your ticket here: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_6JazB...

Big beautiful news, friends: I won the Fence Modern Poets prize, and my book will be out in the winter. It’s called The Strange Wondrous Works of Eleanor Eleanor, and it contains lots of collage-poem pieces, like the one here. I am so delighted and honored and moved I keep swooning mid-step.

Congratulations to steering group member @markabowles.bsky.social for making the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award shortlist 2025 for All My Precious Madness, from @galleybeggars.bsky.social 🎉🥳🍾🎊

Everyone listen to Bex.

Submissions are OPEN for our 2025 flash fiction, poetry, short story and novel prizes! 📝⭐ Don't forget, you may also be eligible for our Young Writer Award, Dorset Award or Never Too Late Award (you don't need to enter these separately). All info at bridportprize.org.uk

Update on Longlist After thorough consideration we have decided to push the longlist announcement back one week. We apologise for any frustration or disappointment this causes. Please visit our website for more details: bit.ly/4iHKKn8

Our chums @TLCUK's Self Editing Fiction Course is back. It’s a must for writers looking to refine structure, strengthen storytelling & polish prose. Perfect for WIPs & first drafts, whether published or not… Interested? More info here: literaryconsultancy.co.uk/event/self-e...

The first print issue of fallow magazine, based in Ireland and out soon, includes: Helen Charman, Oisín Fagan, Wayne Koestenbaum, Patrick Nathan, Ellen Dillon, Eva Griffin, Chris Beausang, and Greg Gerke, & interviews with Gabriel Josipovici and Pascale Sardin. fallowmedia.com/shop/fallow-01

‘Ghosh’s story is one of silence and suppression. The opium trade was rarely acknowledged in 19th and early 20th-century Bengali society, just as it was swept under the expensive carpets laid in the mansions of the Boston Brahmins.’ Nandini Das on opium: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

@saltpublishing.com Look what a gorgeous table I found at the Grove Bookshop in Ilkley - so much temptation! #Ilkley #gorgeousbooks

“Sensual, ephemeral, dream-like…. a powerful debut.” @apnews.com reviews 💙We Contain Landscapes by @patrycjasara.bsky.social ! apnews.com/article/cont...