The Short Story Writer's Workbook

Available now. Click on the cover.

Here's one of the reasons I've been slow to write a new blog. Say hello to the second in the series of CreativeWritingMatters guides! 
The success of The Creative Writing Student's Handbook has been lovely and we have been touched by the appreciative feedback.
The Short Story Writer's Workbook is a practical guide to writing all different kinds of short stories. For a long time we have been telling our students that it's important to find out where a story will fit. A story that has won an open competition is unlikely to be suitable for a commercial magazine even if it is brilliant. 
We look at five different kinds of story in depth: open competition, commercial magazine, one-thousand-worder, flash and micro. There are practical exercises in each section. At the back of the book we include five previously published stories, and each one is followed with a deconstructed version to show how and why those stories succeeded. We feel very strongly that if you want to write short stories then it's important to read them too.
Margaret and I would like to thank David Andrews, Trish Leake and Sophie Duffy for giving us permission to include their wonderful stories.

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My apologies, I couldn't resist including this screen shot from Amazon.de. It was a few weeks ago now, but I do so love those little No 1 best seller flags!

No 1 in Germany!