Best British Short Stories 2018

Nicholas Royle has published four collections of short fiction: Mortality (Serpent's Tail), Ornithology (Confingo Publishing), The Dummy & Other Uncanny Stories (Swan River Press) and London Gothic (Confingo Publishing). He is also the author of seven novels, most recently First Novel (Vintage), and a collaboration with artist David Gledhill, In Camera (Negative Press London). He has edited more than two dozen anthologies, including eleven earlier volumes of Best British Short Stories. He runs Nightjar Press, which publishes original short stories as signed, limited-edition chapbooks. His most recent book is White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector (Salt Publishing) and forthcoming is another short story collection, Manchester Uncanny (Confingo Publishing).

Owen Booth is the author of What We're Teaching Our Sons (4th Estate). He was the winner the 2015 White Review Short Story Prize, and won third prize in the 2017 Moth International Short Story Competition.

Kelly Creighton was born in Belfast in 1979. She teaches creative writing to community groups and has curated The Incubator, an online short story showcase, since 2014. She is the author of Bank Holiday Hurricane, a short story collection shortlisted for a Saboteur Award and longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize. Her debut novel The Bones of It is on the Political Violence degree reading list in the USA, and was the San Diego Book Review 2015 Novel of the Year.

Colette de Curzon was born in 1927. The daughter of the then French Consul General, she wrote 'Paymon's Trio' in 1949 in Portsmouth, at the age of 22. Having no knowledge of available routes to publication, she tucked it away in a folder of her work, where it remained until 2016. Mother of four grown-up daughters and three grandchildren, she died in March 2018.

Mike Fox is married and lives in Richmond. His stories have appeared in, or been accepted for publication by, The London Journal of Fiction, Popshot, Confingo, Into the Void, Fictive Dream, The Nottingham Review, Structo, Prole, Riggwelter, Communion and Footnote. Four other stories have been published in paperback by the Bedford International Writing Competition. His story 'The Violet Eye' is forthcoming from Nightjar Press as a limited-edition chapbook. Contact via polyscribe.co.uk.

M John Harrison is the author of eleven novels (including In Viriconium, The Course of the Heart and Light), five short story collections (most recently You Should Come With Me Now, longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize), two graphic novels, and collaborations with Jane Johnson, writing as Gabriel King. He won the Boardman Tasker Award for Climbers (1989), the James Tiptree Jr Award for Light (2002) and the Arthur C Clarke Award for Nova Swing (2007). He reviews fiction for the Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement and lives in Shropshire.

Tania Hershman's third short story collection, Some Of Us Glow More Than Others, was published by Unthank Books in May 2017, and her debut poetry collection, Terms & Conditions, by Nine Arches Press in July. She is also the author of a poetry chapbook, Nothing Here Is Wild, Everything Is Open, and two short story collections, My Mother Was an Upright Piano, and The White Road and Other Stories, and co-author of Writing Short Stories: A Writers' & Artists' Companion (Bloomsbury, 2014). She is curator of short story hub ShortStops (shortstops.info), celebrating short story activity across the UK & Ireland, and has a PhD in creative writing inspired by particle physics. Hear her read her work at https://soundcloud.com/taniahershman and find out more here: taniahershman.com.

Brian Howell is an author and teacher living and working near Tokyo, Japan. He has published three novels and over thirty-five short stories online and in print, including one short story collection in 2004 and inclusion in Best British Short Stories 2018 (edited by Nicholas Royle). His novels have often dealt with themes around Dutch genre painting and optical devices. He writes poems, is a keen cinema-goer and cyclist, and listens to many podcasts.

Jane McLaughlin's fiction and poetry has appeared in many magazines and anthologies. She was longlisted in the National Poetry Competition 2012, shortlisted in the Bridport Prize 2013, and has been commended and listed in other competitions. She was selected for the Cinnamon Press mentoring programme in 2013. Her e-book, The Abbot's Cat, a crossover novella for adults and older children, was published by Cinnamon Press in 2014 and some of her stories appeared in the anthology Quartet in 2015. Her debut poetry collection, Lockdown, was published by Cinnamon Press in 2016. She lives in London, where she belongs to several writers' groups and works as a consultant in adult and further education.

Alison MacLeod's latest story collection, all the beloved ghosts (Bloomsbury), was shortlisted for Canada's Governor General's Award for Fiction and chosen as one of the Guardian's 'Best Books of 2017'. Her stories are often broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her most recent novel, Unexploded, was long-listed for the 2013 Man Booker Prize and, in 2016, she was a joint recipient of the Eccles British Library Writer's Award. Alongside her writing, MacLeod has appeared at numerous international literary festivals and has served as a judge for a variety of literary awards. She is Professor of Contemporary Fiction at the University of Chichester. alison-macleod.com

The nation's favourite annual guide to the short story, now in its eighth year.

Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover - or more accurately, by its title. This new series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere. The editor's brief is wide ranging, covering anthologies, collections, magazines, newspapers and web sites, looking for the best of the bunch to reprint all in one volume.

This new anthology includes stories by Owen Booth, Kelly Creighton, Colette de Curzon, Mike Fox, M. John Harrison, Tania Hershman, Brian Howell, Jane McLaughlin, Alison MacLeod, Jo Mazelis, Wyl Menmuir, Adam O'Riordan, Iain Robinson, C. D. Rose, Adrian Slatcher, William Thirsk-Gaskill, Chloe Turner, Lisa Tuttle, Conrad Williams and Eley Williams.

Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover - or more accurately, by its title. This new series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere.

• Nicholas Royle - Introduction
• Colette De Curzon - Paymon's Trio
• Adam O'Riordan - A Thunderstorm in Santa Monica
• Jane Mclaughlin - Trio for Four Voices
• William Thirsk-Gaskill - How to Be An Alcoholic
• Alison Macleod - We Are Methodists
• Adrian Slatcher - Life Grabs
• M John Harrison - Dog People
• Jo Mazelis - Skin
• Conrad Williams - Cwtch
• Kelly Creighton - And Three Things Bumped
• Wyl Menmuir - In Dark Places
• Owen Booth - The War
• Tania Hershman - And What if All Your Blood Ran Cold
• Mike Fox - The Homing Instinct
• Brian Howell - Mask
• CD Rose - Sister
• Chloe Turner - Waiting for the Runners
• Eley Williams - Swatch
• Lisa Tuttle - The Last Dare
• Iain Robinson - Dazzle
• Contributors' Biographies
• Acknowledgements