The Alchemy of Chocolate and Other Tales

The next Stroud Short Stories event is on Sunday 19 April 2015 at the SVA, John Street, Stroud, GL5 2HA. Doors 7.30 for prompt 8.00 start. Tickets online in advance only (details below).

SSS organiser, John Holland writes -

A record-smashing 91 Glos/South Glos authors submitted a total of 128 stories for our April event. A heartfelt thank you to all those authors. The very high quality of the writing made my decisions very difficult indeed - certainly the most difficult of any SSS event I have organised. Eventually, I made a long list of over 40 stories, all of which worked really well, and then narrowed it to 25, which were, in my view, of a standard that meant they could well have been selected for previous SSS events. It was sad not to be able to select more than ten.

These are the stories and authors chosen - in the running order for the evening.

Le Fromager - Martin Spice (Nailsworth)

Cows Can't Jump - Philip Bowne (Cheltenham)

The Alchemy of Chocolate - Debbie Young (Hawkesbury Upton, South Glos.)

Ways of Seeing - Richard Vick (Stroud)

Daffodils - Katherine Mitchell (Brimscombe, Stroud)

The Sweetest Smile - Rod Griffiths (Cheltenham)

The Giant meets the Christ-child - Anthony Hentschel (Nailsworth)

The Casablanca - James Sinkinson (Wotton-under-Edge)

The Bronze Garden - Chloe Turner (Wotton-under-Edge)

The Spinsters - Mary Omnes (Stroud)

It is inevitable, in the end, that the choices made were personal ones, but I love these stories, and hope that you will too. Huge congratulations to the authors. I have no doubt that they will provide a most stimulating evening's entertainment.

Tickets are only available online in advance from the SVA/Site Festival website. This is because we had to turn people away at the door last time.
Please be warned - from my personal experience of buying a ticket, it is emailed to you but may well go to your Spam inbox, so please check! Be warned too that we will sell out.

Anthology - Only a few copies of the first Stroud Short Stories Anthology 2011-2015 will be available at the 19 April event. Instead there will be a launch/get-together at The Ale House in John Street on Friday 8 May from 7pm onwards. Pre-ordered copies must be collected then and not at the 19 April event.

We are now closed to submissions for the 19 April Stroud Short Stories event. 

I am very grateful, indeed completely humbled, by the receipt of 128 stories submitted by 91 Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire authors, figures which obliterate all previous records.

Huge thanks too to Christiane, our administrator, for recording, spreadsheeting, compiling, querying, maintaining the authors' anonymity and only sometimes arguing with me.

I have been reading the stories as they arrive, but there remains a huge task in deciding the final ten. I intend to make an announcement by 8 April at the very latest - earlier if I can.

When our friends at the SVA make tickets available online I will post that information immediately.

John Holland 
Organiser, Stroud Short Stories
stroudshortstories@gmail.com

Stroud Short Stories is now accepting submissions for its event to be held on Sunday 19 April 2015 (earlier this year in line with Stroud’s Site Festival), the deadline for which is Saturday 21 March at 23.59. Ten stories will be selected from those submitted to be read by their authors at Stroud Valleys Artspace (SVA), John Street, Stroud, GL5 2HA at 8pm. It will be our ninth event.

For the two events last year the SVA sold out with 80 people packed into the venue.  Tickets for the April 2015 event will be available online in advance from the SVA/Site Festival website some time in March.

For the 19 April 2015 event we are again seeking stories from writers from across Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire.

Excitingly, we are also publishing an anthology of short stories from all eight events to date, and also the opportunity for the stories selected for the April 2015 event to be included.

We are greatly looking forward to reading your stories. 

Click on the tabs above or links below for more information.

How to Submit

Rules

Judges

Anthology

Our submissions email is  submissions.sss@gmail.com

Our general email is  stroudshortstories@gmail.com

Keep up to date on Twitter   Stroud Short Stories@StroudStories

Alice Jolly, who read her story Signing Off at October's Stroud Short Stories event, has won the £1,000 V.S.Pritchett Memorial Short Story Award 2014 with her story Ray the Rottweiler.

Congratulations to Alice from Stroud Short Stories.

Thank you to everyone who attended our sell-out event in October 2014. Stroud Short Stories will be back in April 2015 as part of  Stroud's Site Festival. And will open for short story submissions in January or February. 

If you want to join our email list contact me on stroudshortstories@gmail.com

Or follow us on Twitter @StroudStories

Stroud Short Stories Event Sunday 26 Oct at SVA

80 people crammed into the SVA to hear ten of Gloucestershire's most talented writers read their superb stories. Thank you and congratulations to these brilliant authors.

Here they are - in performance order -

Nimue Brown reads Imaginary Friends

Andrew Stevenson reads Barry Parry

Ali Bacon reads Preparing for Winter

Joe Eurell reads The Tigers' Ball

Jo Bousfield reads Public Transportation

Michael Amherst reads Erosion

Laurence Cotterell reads J

Philip Douch reads Trog and Kron Attempt to Re-fuel

Stephanie Smith reads The Handmaiden

Alice Jolly reads Signing Off

Photos by Tim Byford. Thank you, Tim.

Stroud Short Stories event 26 October 2014 

Doors 7.30 for 8.00 start. SVA, John Street, Stroud. £5 on the door.

Running Order and Authors'  Websites

Imaginary Friends  Nimue Brown  (Stroud)

https://www.facebook.com/nimue.brown

www.druidlife.wordpress.com
www.hopelessmaine.com

Barry Parry  Andrew Stevenson  (Nailsworth)

Preparing for Winter   Ali Bacon  (Emersons Green, South Gloucs.)

http://alibacon.com

The Tigers’ Ball  Joe Eurell  (Cheltenham)

www.joeeurell.co.uk/wp

Public Transportation  Jo Bousfield  (Stroud)

www.jobousfield.co.uk

Erosion   Michael Amherst  (Tewkesbury)

www.michaelamherst.com

J   Laurence Cotterell  (Cam)

http://the-re-view.org/author/laurence-cotterell/

Trog and Kron Attempt to Re-fuel  Philip Douch   (Stroud)

www.philipdouch.org.uk

The Handmaiden   Stephanie Smith  (Broadwell, Forest of Dean)

Signing off   Alice Jolly  (Stroud)

http://www.alicejolly.com/

http://unbound.co.uk/books/dead-babies-and-seaside-towns

http://www.independent.co.uk/biography/alice-jolly-9657774.html