Ailsa Cox is a Professor Emerita at Edge Hill University (UK) and a short story writer. In this first part of the interview, we discuss famous claims about short stories and short story writing, like reading short stories in one sitting, the connection between short stories and poetic language, and much more. Listen to find out if they are facts or fiction!
Works cited:
Ailsa Cox,
Writing Short Stories. Third Edition (Routledge, 2025).
Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Philosophy of Composition’, in
Essays and Reviews (Library of America, 1984)
Leila Martin,
Kodavision (Nightjar Press, 2025)
Colm Tóibín,
Mothers and Sons (Picador, 2006).
Helen Simpson,
Constitutional (Vintage, 2006).
Allan Weiss,
The Mini-Cycle (Routledge, 2021).
Zoe Gilbert,
Folk (Bloomsbury, 2018)
Paul March-Russell, ‘Anthropocene feminism and the Weird temporalities of landscape’,
Short Fiction in Theory and Practice, 15:1-2 (2025), pp. 81-95.
Katherine Mansfield, ‘Bliss’, in
Selected Stories (Oxford University Press, 2002).
Janice Galloway,
Blood (Vintage, 1991).
Raymond Carver, ‘Fires’, in
Call If You Need Me (The Harvill Press, 2000), pp. 93-106.
Alice Munro,
Runaway (Chatto & Windus, 2005).
Nightjar Press,
https://nightjarpress.weebly.com/Podcast intro and outro credits: Shield, Leroy, Taylor Holmes, and Robert W Service.
The shooting of Dan McGrew. 1923. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.
