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In a Jar

Morgan Talty

‘It was a glass jar filled with hair and corn and teeth. The teeth were white with a tint of yellow at the root.’

A story by Morgan Talty.

In Bright Light

Paul Dalla Rosa

‘The hard thing, as Alice saw it, was that something bad had happened to her and it was private and then it wasn’t.’

In Shinjuku

Yang Sok-il

‘I found myself sitting on a bench in Shinjuku Central Park, dazed like a junkie, when the wind plastered a sports tabloid to my legs and an advertisement jumped out at me‘

In Summer Camps

Jayne Anne Phillips

‘The sky burned white to blond to powder to an almighty blue; the sun fell unobstructed.’

In the Light of What We Know

Zia Haider Rahman

‘My wife and I were both the children of Pakistanis, immigrants, Muslims, and we had faith that our union was of things greater than ourselves.’

In-flight Entertainment

Helen Simpson

‘All you needed for the modern world was to know how to work a remote control.’

I’ve Been Away for a While

Dan Shurley

‘When the world releases him from its oily grip will there still be a world?’

James

Madeleine Thien

‘You can follow the trail but you can’t know in which direction you are headed’

Jesus Who?

Alison Smith

‘Jesus came walking across the lawn, a grin on his face. I waved. “Hi, Jesus.”’

Jill

Darcey Steinke

‘I had a new persona I’d been planning to introduce the first day of school: a girl wise beyond her years who was not at all nerdy or spastic or prone to crying jags.’

Johnny Kingdom

Chris Power

'Andy doesn't like any of the names for what he does. He rejects 'impersonator', and resists 'tribute act', although he knows it comes closest.' From Chris Power's exceptional collection of short fiction, Mothers

Just Right

Zadie Smith

‘There’s no romance in that child whatsoever. No clue of the magic of storytelling. I’ll bet you a dollar she wears a girdle already.’

Keepers Of The House

Lisa St Aubin de Terán

‘Lydia Sinclair was just seventeen when she arrived on her husband's estate in the Andes.’ Lisa St Aubin de Terán's fictional memoir.

Kick the Latch

Kathryn Scanlan

‘You live at the track, your life is full.’

An excerpt from Kathryn Scanlan’s new work of fiction, Kick the Latch.