Taking Flight: Short Stories by New Sheffield Writers

Comma Short Story Course #15

by Molly Aitken, Dawn Ashford, Linton Greeny

These pieces were all written on the Comma Press Short Story Course facilitated by Emily Devane at the Workstation in Sheffield. The group met once a month for six months. Each session involved some critique from peers and the tutor of their own work, a close look at examples of stories from other writers as well as theory and practice of the craft. In the words of Emily Devane taken from her Circle the skies with defiant Spirit in Hannah Whiteoak’s ‘A Beautiful Day for Flying’, play a wonderfully surreal game of ‘City Break’ with Douglas Jensen, watch the world go by on beautiful ‘Savas’s Beach’ with Dawn Ashford, be spooked silly by a wooden doll in Tyn Shenton’s ‘It Likes It When’, face your fears with brave Lia in Kieran Rollin’s ‘Learning to Fly’, take a mind-bending trip beyond the confines of Endless Flooring with Asher of Dan Sumption’s ‘Office Equipment’, explore the medical files of the enigmatic Max Savage in Linton Greeny’s ‘Wild Things’, spend the weekend unravelling in Scarborough with widower Michael in Kathleen Pardoe’s ‘Holding Freddie’s Hand’, take the stairs with Hilde and her heavy, heart-breaking burden in Graeme Stonehouse’s ‘Hilde on the Stairs’ and, if you dare, listen to the troubled whisperings of Molly Aitken’s ‘The Last House’. You are in for a treat…

Kindle Edition

Published December 18, 2019

About the author

Molly Aitken is the author of Bright I Burn and The Island Child which was longlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award. Molly's short fiction has appeared in Ploughshares winning her the Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction and has been dramatised for BBC Radio 4.
Follow Molly on twitter at MollyAitken1 and Instagram molly.aitken