'Love is Strange' on  5 November 2023 is now SOLD OUT  + the Ten Stories and their Authors

On sale for just a week and a half, all tickets for 'Love is Strange' have now SOLD OUT so our ten authors will read to an audience of 150 people. 17 of our last 18 events sold out in advance. Thank you to everyone who has bought tickets.

The event takes place at the Cotswold Playhouse, Parliament Street, Stroud, GL5 1LW on Sunday 5 November at 7.30 (doors 7.00). There is a bar.

'Love is Strange' is the opening event of the Stroud Book Festival.

These brilliant stories will be read by their authors -

At the Nail Bar - Sallie Anderson (Cheltenham)

The Composer's Tall Trees - Steve Wheeler (Tewkesbury)

Date Night - Alfie Fox (Stroud)

The Dreaming - Sean W. Quigley (Gloucester)

For Darkness is as Light to You - Georgia Boon (Stroud)

Obituaries - Rebecca Klassen (Gloucester)

Prey for Love - Keith Errington (Stroud)

A Second Shot - James Sinkinson (Kingswood, Wotton-under-Edge)

She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not - Mark Rutterford (Filton, S.Gloucs)

Your Own Pre-Meditated Pelt - Gillian Metheringham (Stroud)

We particularly welcome our newcomers, Alfie and Keith, who will be the 128th and 129th writers to read at SSS. We also welcome back James after an 8 year break.

The event will have an amazing range of stories - from the beautiful, poignant and sad to the witty and hilarious and, in one case, the terrifying. Don't miss it!

John 

We are now closed for submissions for the 5 November event 'Love is Strange'. HUGE thanks to everyone who submitted their stories. 

We received a total of 106 stories, some 22 more than for our last event. These were the work of 79 local writers.

My co-judge Debbie Young and I will announce the ten winners who will read their stories at the 5 November 'Love is Strange' event on Wednesday 11 October. Please check out this website.

TICKETS, priced at £10, are available from the Cotswold Playhouse website on Friday 13 October.

The event takes place at the Cotswold Playhouse in Parliament Street, Stroud on Sunday 5 November at 7.30pm (doors 7.00). This is the opening event of the Stroud Book Festival.

This event will not be recorded.

John

We are currently open for your stories for our 5 November event 'Love is Strange'. Submissions close on Sunday 1 October at 23.59 (one minute to midnight). 

Love Stories and Stories about Obsessions are the joint themes. 

Here is the timetable -

1 October at 23.59 - Submissions close

4 October - *Long List announced

8 October - *Short List announced

11 October - Final Ten announced

13 October - Tickets, priced at £10, go on sale on the Cotswold Playhouse website

5 November at 7.30 (doors 7.00) - 'Love is Strange' event at the Cotswold Playhouse

* The L/L and S/L are only announced to the writers who have submitted for this event, and are only by title to maintain author anonymity 

The event is part of the 2023 Stroud Book Festival. 

This event will not be recorded.

Rules and How to Submit here.

Essential Read - Writing Tips: What we're Looking for here.

Please see the earlier post (below) for more information about the themes, submitting, the rules, judges and writing tips...

We are now open for your submissions for our next event 'Love is Strange' which will take place on Sunday 5 November 2023 at the Cotswold Playhouse

Love Stories or Stories about Obsessions are the joint themes

Submissions close on Sunday 1 October at 23.59

We select ten stories to be read by their authors. Any (every?) Gloucestershire writer may submit. As ever, it will be free to submit two short stories up to 1,500 words each. We accept both published and unpublished work. 

Submissions are judged 'blind' to ensure that the judges don't know the identity of the authors during the selection process. 

We are looking for all kinds of stories about love - romantic, silly, dark, ironic, quirky etc. Not just the love of people (although we do want these) but love of anything! So we welcome stories about obsessions too.

The title of the event is our little homage to the fabulous song 'Love is Strange' by the r&b duo Mickey and Sylvia.

This will be our first evening of love stories since 2017! Read to a packed house at Stroud's 150-seat Cotswold Playhouse. The event is also part of the 2023 Stroud Book Festival.

My co-judge this time will be the icon that is Debbie Young.

The Rules & How to Submit are here. (We also have a new rule this time - no AI-generated stories please).

Also, it's really important to check out my tips for writing for SSS here.

Subscribe now so you are kept up to date with all the latest info about submissions and about ticket sales. Subscribe here.

The event takes place at the Cotswold Playhouse in Stroud at 7.30 (doors 7.00) on Sunday 5 November. Tickets, priced at £10, go on sale on Friday 13 October from the Playhouse website.

Stroud Short Stories Volume Three 2018-2022 Short Listed for the prestigious Best Anthology Award in the 2023 Saboteur Awards

Our latest anthology was one of just five anthologies Short Listed for the prestigious 2023 Saboteur Award for Best Anthology in the UK published in 2002-23.

SSS Vol 3 was the only anthology of SHORT STORIES in the country to be short listed. The four other nominees were poetry and flash fiction anthologies.

John

Our New Anthology Vol Three 2018-22 + Videos of our seven Greatest Hits stories at Cheltenham Literature Festival

You can buy the new anthology in local shops or order it online for postal delivery from the same outlets. They are Made-in-Stroud in Kendrick Street, Stroud and the Yellow-lighted Bookshop in Nailsworth. 

It contains 69 stories by 48 Gloucestershire authors in 316 pages and sells for £12. 

More information about the anthology is here.

On 10 October we celebrated our ten year anniversary and our new anthology with a special Stroud Short Stories event at Cheltenham Literature Festival by presenting my seven favourite stories from the 69 in the new anthology Stroud Short Stories Volume Three 2018-2022.

If you pop over to the SSS YouTube page you can see the videos of all seven stories being read by their authors - Geoff Mead, Sally Jenkinson, Robin Booth, Emma Kernahan, Steve Wheeler, Jason Jackson and Sarah Hitchcock.

Simply unmissable. Please watch here.

John 

Time Event 30 October 2022

Thank you to everyone who came along to our Time-themed event on Sunday 30 October at the 150-seater Cotswold Playhouse. 

The event was a sell-out with a fabulous audience showing their full appreciation of the ten wonderful stories read by their authors. 

This was our 25th event and the opening event of the 2022 Stroud Book Festival.

Here are the authors in the order in which they read. 

Huge thanks for the images to Angela Fitch.

Robin Booth who read Shelf Life

Hannah Glickstein who read And is it too late now to learn Hebrew?

Nimue Brown who read Swallowed by Time

Mhairi Gray who read Silk Bomb

Archie Woolls who read The Basement

Nick Adams who read No-time

Val Ockwell who read The Arrangement

Philip Douch who read That Question

Simon Piney who read Birthday Present

Sarah Hancock who read The Globe

It's a busy time at Stroud Short Stories this autumn...see below

1. Our TIME-themed event is on Sunday 30 October - THIS EVENT HAS SOLD OUT

2. Images from SSS Greatest Hits at Cheltenham Literature Festival

3. New Anthology Vol 3 2018-22 now available

Read on...

1. Our Sunday 30 October event is on the theme of Time

THIS EVENT HAS SOLD OUT

TICKETS, priced at £10, are no longer available from the Cotswold Playhouse website for our 25th event on Sunday 30 October 2022 at the fabulous Cotswold Playhouse in Stroud, GL5 1LW. Starts at 7.30; Doors 7.00. There will be an interval and a bar.

It's the first event in this year's Stroud Book Festival.

Thank you to everyone who submitted stories for our Time-themed event. We received 84 stories from 66 Glos and South Glos writers.

Ten stories have been selected by my co-judge Chloe Turner (to whom enormous thanks) and me through our 'blind' judging process and will be read by their authors. 

Here are the ten writers who will read their work -

Nick Adams - No-Time

Robin Booth - Shelf Life

Nimue Brown - Swallowed by Time

Philip Douch - That Question

Hannah Glickstein - And is it too late now to learn Hebrew?

Mhairi Gray - Silk Bomb

Sarah Hitchcock - The Globe

Val Ockwell - The Arrangement

Simon Piney - Birthday Present

Archie Woolls - The Basement

For the Time event we welcome two newcomers, Val Ockwell and Archie Woolls, who will be the 126th and 127th writers to read at an SSS event since its inception in 2011. Well done and huge congrats, Val and Archie.

For our 25th event, it's also great to welcome back the other eight, all of whom have read at SSS before.

This event will not be recorded. I hope you can come along and support all these brilliant writers.

We will be selling copies of our new anthology at this event.

2. Images from Stroud Short Stories Greatest Hits at Cheltenham Literature Festival on Monday 10 October

It was a great honour for SSS to be at Cheltenham Literature Festival. The event featured my favourite seven stories from the 69 stories in the new anthology read by their authors. 

These images of the authors are in the order in which they read. Huge thanks to Pamela Harridine for the images.

Geoff Mead who read Raku

Sally Jenkinson who read Sharp Stars and Old Magic 

Robin Booth who read Two Towns

Emma Kernahan who read A Brief History of Lady Charlotte, Duchess of Beaumont

Steve Wheeler who read Puffballs

Jason Jackson who read Fat Man in Neon

 

 

Sarah Hitchcock who read The Day I took my Zombie to Alton Towers

3. We've launched our new anthology Stroud Short Stories Volume Three 2018-2022 

The brand new anthology covers the seven SSS events from Nov 2018 to May 2022, that's 69 stories by 48 Gloucestershire writers. At a whopping 316 pages, it retails at £12.

The anthology is available locally from Made-in-Stroud in Kendrick, Street, Stroud and from the Yellow-Lighted Bookshop in Nailsworth as well as from Amazon.

More information is here.

John