Who likes short shorts? We like short shorts!

Short Stories
Do you write them? Do you hate them? Do you think they're lovely but there's no market for them? For those who wish to be published, many people will tell you that short story publications get your foot in the door. And while that is definitely true, I'm not sure how many people really focus on the short stories. So tell me about your own views on them. Have any been published? Are you looking to publish some?

I love reading and writing short stories - I would say 75% of the stories I write are shorts or flash. I like the challenge of creating a well fleshed out character and making a fully fledged story in a limited amount of words, and there's so much that you learn from short stories that you can then transfer into novels to make them better.

I haven't had any shorts published yet but I'm looking to do so. I've got a little pile of shorts at various stages of editing that are waiting for me to get back to them ready to submit somewhere.


Bonus: What is your favorite magazine/anthology of short stories? Send us a picture of the cover! (Especially if you have a favorite issue.)

I suppose my favourite magazine would have to be the People's Friend. My grandma used to get it regularly and I would look at the children's pages, and now my mum gets them occasionally and leaves them in the bathroom for reading when you're, ahem, 'sitting down'... I like that the stories are inoffensive and generally feel-good, and that you get all sorts of stories in one issue.

I like anthology story books as well, and the best one I read recently was Other Worlds, a collection of 10 YA sci-fi/fantasy stories by Rick Riordan, Shaun Tan, Tom Angleberger, Ray Bradbury and others.