Tag: short story

Holding Hands Uncovered

mythic3With Mythic, a new quarterly SF&F magazine publishing my piece of short fiction, Holding Hands, next month, I wanted to give you a little back story about this rather personal tale.

A while ago my son and I were having some difficulty getting on. After around six months of very little communication between us, either verbally or physically, we happened to be walking back from town, him trailing behind in silence like usual. As we did so, I felt his hand slip in mine. It was wonderful, brief, and a beginning.

It was that moment which I attempted to capture in writing, and from that, Holding Hands developed. I’m not proficient enough as a writer yet to have done that, but I’ve tried. I hope you enjoy the story.

The late William Trevor on short story writing: “I think it is the art of the glimpse. If the novel is like an intricate Renaissance painting, the short story is an impressionist painting. It should be an explosion of truth. Its strength lies in what it leaves out just as much as what it puts in, if not more. It is concerned with the total exclusion of meaninglessness. Life, on the other hand, is meaningless most of the time. The novel imitates life, where the short story is bony, and cannot wander. It is essential art.”

(source: The Guardian)