Academic Inspiration

As part of our mission to support and encourage short story writing, The Fiction Desk makes regular distributions of free anthologies to students at universities across the UK.

Through the Academic Inspiration project, our anthologies are handed out by lecturers to students on creative writing and literature courses, and either used as a basis for formal class discussion, or simply read and (we hope) enjoyed.

The project aims to stimulate interest in short stories among new generations of writers and readers.

To date, we've given out books worth a total of more than £10,000.

Register your interest

We will next run Academic Inspiration in the summer of 2025, in time for the next academic year.

We'll have a limited number of copies available, for undergraduate or postgraduate writing courses at universities anywhere in the UK.

If you're a course leader or lecturer and would be interested in taking part, please drop us a line.

For updates on Academic Inspiration in 2025, please sign up for our email newsletter (in the box below).