Cornwall in Short: A Collection of Cornish Writing

by Kate Horsley, P.T. McAllister (editor)

On the rocks at Carne, flotsam washes in alongside memories of lost love. A family picnic at Lostwithiel leads to the rediscovery of ancient Cornish language stories. In The Three Ferrets at St Ives, a weary barmaid dreams of sailing away on a yacht with a dubious stranger, and a man in search of love is tricked by the Queen of Fey at Rough Tor.

This captivating anthology showcases Cornwall’s most exciting contemporary writers, both established and emerging. This is an amazing range of new short stories and non-fiction that makes Cornwall feel fresh and unexpected; writing that engages with folklore, history, and landscape in an emotionally compelling way, celebrating a love of Cornish history and wildlife. Moving through time and space with each story, you’ll find contemporary retellings of folklore, compelling memoirs, and flash fictions that brim with tension and discovery.

This anthology has been generously supported by the Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch Memorial Fund Award.

Authors in this Anthology: Rebecca Johnson Bista, Anastasia Gammon, Tim Hannigan, Kate Horsley, Clare Howdle, Adrian Markle, Tim Martindale, P. T. McAllister, Rob Magnuson Smith, Mark Plummer, Katherine Stansfield, Jackie Taylor, Karen Taylor, Shelley Trower, Emma Timpany, Tom Vowler, Ella Walsworth-Bell, Elaine Ruth White and Becky Wildman.

222 pages, Paperback

First published November 28, 2024

About the author

Born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1952, Kate Horsley Parker, the youngest of five children, loved to read. Her mother, Alice Horsley Parker, inspired that love, which is part of the reason that she chose to write under her mother’s maiden name. In her mother’s world, young women were to be educated and refined and passionate. While in a private girl’s school in Virginia during the sixties, Horsley protested against the Vietnam War and worked in the Civil Rights movement. And then she went off to college and off to Paris for summer school. Every event in life was marked by a book, an almost prophetic glimpse into what would become a passion. After reading a book by Alan Watts, Horsley’s flirtation with Zen Buddhism became a lifelong fling. Flying to Paris, she read Black Elk Speaks, one of several works on or by Native Americans that inspired her to move to the West. It was her Masters Thesis work on Laguna Pueblo writer Leslie Silko that propelled her to travel to New Mexico where she has lived since 1977. She got a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of New Mexico. The research she did on women in the American West inspired her to make novels out of the dimly known but awesome lives of ordinary people in extraordinary times. Horsley has been teaching college English in New Mexico for over twenty years and is involved in hospice work.

Horsley dedicated her first published novel to her mother, and the other five to her son Aaron, who died at the age of eighteen in 2000.

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of short stories all written about Cornwall. The sense of place comes through in each story, but each author's approach is so different that the book conveys not just the sense of Cornwall as a special place, but also its diversity. The stories refuse to be stereotyped and constrained, and consist of a range of styles and a range of themes. Watch out for the story by one of the editors, Kate Horsley, which elegantly carries quite an emotional punch, as does the surrealist writing of Becky Wildman. Some stories are pleasantly disturbing, and others just lovingly written, with some wonderful little details and observations.

It is always the case with a collection of short stories that some will have more resonance than others, and what a reader gets from them depends a little on what the reader brings to them, but a strength of this collection was that none of the stories disappoint. If you can't come to Cornwall, this is a great way to visit the place virtually.