Although we don’t do a lot of social media here at The Fiction Desk, we are now on Bluesky. You can follow us at @thefictiondesk.com for news of upcoming projects, new books, and submissions opportunities.

One of the fun things about being a small publisher is that we can experiment with ways to find a home for the kinds of stories that are traditionally hard to publish.

Following some feedback from authors regarding the limited market for longer short stories, we’re extending our maximum word count to 15,000 words. This is a great length for fiction, giving plenty of space to develop ideas, without being as long as a full novella.

As ever, you can find full submissions information, including the new word count limits, on our submissions guidelines page.

Today we’re launching our new themed submission call, for short stories about games of all kinds.

The deadline for this one is Friday, 30th May, and you can find out more about it in the submissions section of our website.

Our spring submissions period is open now, and will run until Friday, 30th May 2025.

The submission form is available today if you’d like to send in work for our general fiction call (you can find out more about that here), but we’ll also be announcing a special themed call at the start of March. Both calls will run until the deadline.

In the meantime, we’ll be busy reading your submissions and preparing our next anthology. There will also be some exciting news to share with you in the coming months, so keep an eye out for that.

As ever, be sure to read our submission guidelines before sending in your work – and why not read one of our anthologies to get up to speed before submitting? Our latest volume is called Inside Voices, and it’s out now.

It’s always a pleasure to announce a new winner of the Fiction Desk Writer’s Award.

If you’re not already familiar with the Writer’s Award, it’s presented to the author of the best story in each of our anthologies, as voted for by the contributors themselves. We’re always fortunate with the quality of the stories we publish, and it’s a close competition.

The Award for Inside Voices was particularly tough, with no fewer than two previous winners among the contributors: both Alastair Chisholm (for his story ‘Exhalation’ in Somewhere This Way), and Jo Gatford (who won it for ‘Yellow Rock’ in New Ghost Stories IV). All of the other contributors to Inside Voices were new to us, so it was always going to be an interesting contest.

The stories themselves represent the Fiction Desk’s usual range of literary and supernatural fiction, and were as strong as ever. Here’s a quick recap:

It opens with Jo’s story ‘Inside Voices’, which gave the anthology both its title and a strong start with its story of a couple taking an emotionally tense road trip across the USA. Next up is Alastair’s story ‘Mayflies’, which takes a haunting look at the way people and lives can form into patterns, repeating themselves over and over.

The third story, David Malvina’s ‘Book Burning’, starts off on what feels like familiar territory, before taking things in an unexpected (and unexpectedly moving) direction, while Eva Carson’s ‘The Business at Tradeston’ is a wonderful piece of science-fiction in a classic British style. That’s followed by Lauren O’Donoghue’s ‘Black Hill’, with its superb psychology and characterisation.

The anthology concludes with Ian Critchley’s ‘Ghost Walks’, a story of doubles and relationships and lives gone astray, and finally Tina Morganella’s evocative tale of lockdown, ‘The Loop’.

And the winner?

It’s Tina Morganella, for ‘The Loop’.

Congratulations to Tina, and thank you to all of the contributors, both for their superb stories, and for voting in the award.

And if you’ve not yet read Inside Voices yourself, you can grab your copy here.

We’re delighted to see that Ben Tufnell’s story ‘An Invocation’, which we featured in our anthology New Ghost Stories IV, has been chosen for inclusion in this year’s Best British Short Stories anthology.

If you’re not familiar with the Best British Short Stories series, it’s an annual collection of new short fiction from both established and new writers, edited by Nicholas Royle for Salt Publishing. This is the second time they’ve picked up one of our stories, and it’s always a pleasure to see our writers have an opportunity to meet more readers through the series.

Ben’s story is still available in New Ghost Stories IV (get your copy here!), and you can find out more about Best British Short Stories 2024 over on Salt’s website.

As the nights get longer and suspiciously colder, here’s a quick guide to what’s happening this winter here at The Fiction Desk.

First, our new anthology is out now, and is well worth a read, particularly if you’ve not picked up one of our anthologies for a while. It’s called Inside Voices, and you can find out more about it here.

We’re also running two submission calls this winter:

• Our general submission call is for stories on any theme, in any of the genres we usually feature in our pages. This is open now, with a deadline of 31 January 2025.
• Our annual ghost story submission call, for all kinds of supernatural fiction. This call is also open now, and runs until the end of January.

As always, don’t forget to read our submission guidelines, and please read at least one of our anthologies before sending in your work – why not start with Inside Voices?

Always one of the most popular (and entertaining) parts of our editorial year, our annual ghost story submission call is now open.

Supernatural fiction has always been an important part of our output here at the Fiction Desk – just as it’s always been an important part of the history of the short story as a form. This annual call is about celebrating that, as well as finding a home for some some superb new ghost stories.

You can read more about the call here. (And if you’re in need of inspiration, you’ll find our latest supernatural fiction in New Ghost Stories IV, which you can get right here.)

Finally, if you’re not into ghost stories, don’t worry: our general call is open now too. Find out more about the general submission call here.

Photo: John Need Media

Many years ago, Lynsey May’s short story ‘Two Buses Away’ was the very first story featured in our very first anthology, Various Authors. Now her debut novel, Weak Teeth, has been published in its paperback edition, and this month it’s been selected as Waterstones’ Scottish Book of the Month. We thought it would be interesting to catch up with her for a chat about her experience of publication and her approach to writing, among other things…

Q. Firstly, congratulations on the paperback publication of Weak Teeth. How have you found the experience of publishing your debut novel?

A. Thank you so much. I’m incredibly grateful for Waterstones’ support and for the support of all the fantastic indie bookshops who’ve been so good to me and the book. It’s such a joy to see it out in the world.

I’ve been writing with the hope of being published for a long time and I have a lot of friends who’re writers, so in many ways I was well prepared for the experience. That said, I still feel like I’m coming out of a period of suspended animation. There was almost exactly a year between the publication of the hardback and the paperback, and I felt a little like it was a sentence opened and not closed. This feels like a full stop to the experience, or perhaps a comma.

Q. That’s an interesting point about the difference between hardback and paperback publication. How does publication in the two formats feel different to you as an author?

A. I think the big difference is the feeling that I’m getting a second bite of the apple, as it were. The launch of a new format gives you an excuse to have another little party and, in this case, it very luckily also gave me a shot at being selected as Scottish Book of the Month by Waterstones. That said, with the cost of living so drastically reducing people’s spending power, I’m not at all surprised to see lots of publishers opting to go straight to paperback for all sorts of titles. On the other hand, we’re also seeing lots of special editions and spredges. It will be really interesting to see how these two trends play out in the next wee while.

Q. Prior to publishing Weak Teeth, you’ve also had success over the years with your short stories. How did you come to write a novel, and how did you come to write this particular novel?

A. I’ve always enjoyed writing both short stories and longer pieces. I’d say I was drawn to novels first, because I didn’t know about all of the wonderful shorter works out there. I then went through a phase of reading and writing a lot of short stories before, finally, settling into an alternation between the two.

For Weak Teeth in particular, I knew from the start I wanted it to be about a family and that teeth were going to factor prominently. I could also tell straight away that I wanted it to be a novel, although it took a little longer to work out exactly what kind of novel it would be.

Q. On the subject of length, when you find yourself with an idea for a story or a situation or a character, and you start writing it, do you usually make a conscious decision at some point about how long a story you’re going to write, as you did with Weak Teeth? Or are you more inclined to just set your ideas down, and see what happens?

A. Hmm. I think that most of the time, it’s a visual or a particular feeling that comes to mind first and often I can tell if it’s going to be something short or part of something longer straight away – but I think that might often have more to do with my mindset than the content. If I’m in a shortform state of mind, then I’m thinking about how to turn that fragment into a small whole. When I’m getting stuck into something longer, I’m looking at those little ideas through a different lens and working out whether they’re thematically or tonally relevant. If they aren’t, but the idea continues to glimmer, then I’ll see if it’s a short story in its own right.

Q. Something that’s always struck me about your writing is your attention to character: you give the impression of really caring about the people in your stories, and as a result they come very much to life. How would you describe your approach to creating and writing your characters?

A. This is a wonderful compliment, I very much appreciate it. I’m definitely a very character-driven writer and reader. I’m fascinated about all the commonalities we can recognise in each other, as well as the endless variations that make us all ourselves. I very much care about the characters I write and also the ones I invest in. I’m terrible for crying at movies, TV shows, books, theatre; my heartstrings are very tuggable.

Q. The other thing that comes across strongly in your writing is your connection to Edinburgh. It’s one of the great cities in terms of literary heritage, but it’s also been through a lot of changes over the years, both culturally and economically. The city has been hit particularly hard by the cost of living crisis, with the council declaring a housing emergency last year and rents rising steeply – which isn’t great given that fiction writing is rarely a high-income activity. But there’s something about Edinburgh that can get under your skin… what do you think of today’s Edinburgh as a city for writing in, and writing about?

A. I’ve always lived in and around Edinburgh and have been in Leith for over a decade now. It’s amazing to be connected to a place with such a strong literary heritage and I hope that we’re able to continue to invest in current and future generations of writers and creatives in the capital, as well as throughout Scotland.

While Ellis in Weak Teeth is lucky enough to have a parent who owns a property now worth a sizeable amount, she’s one of the many people who can’t afford to buy a home on her own salary. It was important to me to reflect a little of the current housing struggles, even though it wasn’t the main thrust of the book. Many of the people I know, especially (although not exclusively) those in the arts, are struggling to exist in their own city. If we want people to be able to authentically write about Edinburgh, we need to make it somewhere that those writers can afford to live.

Q. As well as writing fiction, you’ve also done a lot of work in related roles: you’ve been books editor of The List, and you’ve worked with Scottish Book Trust, The Edinburgh Review and the Edinburgh City of Literature Trust. Do you think that those experiences have helped to shape your approach to writing?

A. I think that these experiences, all of which have been part time, have massively shaped my understanding of the literature sector and the importance of the creative arts in general. They’ve been so valuable, especially in exposing me to writers and arts workers I might never have come across otherwise.

When it comes to approach, though, I suspect my process is more shaped by the fact I’m a freelance copywriter by trade. I used to manage a copywriting department for a large online marketing company and struck out on my own over ten years ago. The nature of the job means that I have to work to deadlines and not be too precious, while also being open to criticism and change – all of which has come in very handy when it comes to fiction. I treat my own writing like a different beast to the copy work, but there are few things better for curing the fear of the blank page than having to sit down and string sentences together every day.

Q. Finally, are you working on any fiction at the moment? And do you have any upcoming publications that people should look out for? (Once they’re done with Weak Teeth, naturally.)

A. I am currently working on a second novel, which I did intend to have finished ages ago. Life does have a habit of uprooting the best laid plans! But I hope to be finished soon and then I look forward to immersing myself in some shorter fiction again. I’ll be launching the paperback at an event chaired by the fab Lucy Ribchester at Waterstones, Sauchiehall Street on 17 May at 7pm.

You can find out more about Lynsey on her website: lynseymay.com.

The first and most important thing to do if you’re planning to submit short stories to a magazine or series publisher is read them first. Pick up a couple of issues, or anthologies, or whatever it is they publish, and read them closely. Work out what they’re trying to do as publishers, and whether what you write is a good match. If so, think about which of your unpublished stories would fit best.

Not only does this save you a lot of time and disappointment (and if you don’t like a publisher’s output, your own work is probably not going to be a good match for them), but it is also a great way to keep inspired and engaged with what’s happening in today’s short fiction world.

To supplement this process, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of the short stories that we’ve published recently here at The Fiction Desk, and think about why we chose them, and what they say about us and the kind of stories we publish.

All of the following stories appear in our last-but-one anthology, Houses Borders Ghosts, which contains a mixture of general and genre fiction.

I should make it clear that this list is not a ‘best of’: as publishers, we naturally love all of our (adopted) children equally. Instead, I’ve tried to highlight stories that might best shed a light on our editorial approach.

‘Name’ by Andrew Cochrane

Although many of the stories we publish have a fairly classic plot-driven structure, we do regularly feature pieces that try to do something different: what matters is that they are successful on their own terms, and that they engage the reader.

Andrew Cochrane’s story ‘Name’ is a good example of this: it takes place in a council office, where two new parents are trying to register their baby’s name. The clerk is trying to explain why the (unspecified) name they have chosen is not appropriate. They don’t accept his reasoning. The conversation pushes back and forth, but they are essentially deadlocked for the entire story; when it ends, no progress has been made on either side.

Some readers were thrown by this. (Keep reading …)