Jon McGregor on reworking his first published story from the female perspective, his enduring fascination with Lincolnshire and his new short story collection, This Isn’t The Sort Of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You.
Photograph © Dan Sinclair
‘She must have loved gold seeing that everything in the penthouse was gold. We didn’t sit. Fear didn’t let us see where to sit.’ A story by Adachioma Ezeano.
‘I had also, a week earlier, been fired for trying to sleep with my boss’s husband. I got the idea from a book, or maybe every book.’ A story by Emily Adrian.
‘The Mitsubishi conglomerate controls a forty per cent share of the world market in bluefin tuna; they are freezing and hoarding huge stocks of the fish every year.’ Katherine Rundell on extinction speculation.
‘Two roof tiles are missing to the rear: the kiss of death. Without repair, ruination is now inevitable. Until then, this is my best hope of shelter.’ Cal Flyn visits the island of Swona in northern Scotland.
‘I’m on the cliff of myself & these aren’t wings, they’re futures. / For as long as I can remember my body was a small town nightmare.’ A poem by Ocean Vuong.
‘In winter there’s no danger of falling into the sky / Our bodies anchored to the ground by the weight of the light.’
‘He must have taken thousands of services in that time, but this still feels like the holiest thing he’s ever done.‘
‘I’m on the ground, and he is standing over me. Everything is muffled. I’m aware of the sound of running water somewhere.’
‘Twain does have his literary heirs, as Hemingway pointed out in his famous proclamation that all American literature comes from one book, Huck Finn.’
