Courttia Newland is the author of seven works of fiction. His latest, The Gospel According to Cane, was published in 2013 and has been optioned by Cowboy Films as TV Serial for the BBC. He was nominated for the Impac Dublin Literary Award and The Frank O’ Conner award, as well as numerous others. His short stories have appeared in many anthologies and broadcast on Radio 4. He is Associate Lecturer in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London, UK, and is completing a PhD in Creative Writing. Tania Hershman is an award-winning writer of short and very short stories which have been widely published in print and online and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4. Her first collection, The White Road and other Stories (2008) was commended, 2009 Orange Award for New Writers. Her second, My Mother Was An Upright Piano: Fictions (2012), contains 56 very short fictions and was longlisted for the 2012 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Tania is founding editor of The Short Review, curator-in-chief of UK & Ireland short story hub ShortStops, and regularly teaches workshops on short fiction and using science as inspiration. Her website is www.taniahershman.com

Hershman and Courttia Newland explore the craft (even that word is challenged) through their own experiences of writing and reading short stories. In place of rules, they offer advice.

• ForewordPrefacePart 1The History Of The Short Story: TaniaCrime, Tricks, And Tales: Genre And The Short Story: CourttiaThe Shorter End Of Short Stories – Boundaries With Poetry: TaniaStories: Those Little Slices Of Life: CourttiaReflections On Writing And On Books On Writing: TaniaReflections 2: The What, When, How, Why And Where Of It For Me: TaniaReflections On The Evolution Of A Short Story: CourttiaThe Evolution Of A Short Story: Under The Tree: TaniaReflections: Permission And Risk: TaniaPart 21. Alison Moore 2. Anthony Doerr 3. Elspeth Sandys 4. Alexander MacLeod 5. David Vann 6. Jane Rogers 7. Edith Pearlman 8. Vanessa Gebbie 9. Di Speirs 10. Jenn Ashworth 11. Tom Lee 12. Toby Litt 13. Adam Thorpe 14. Ryan O'Neill 15. Henrietta Rose-Innes 16. Clare Wigfall 17. Alison Macleod18. Olive Senior Part 3A Note On Craft And Critique: Writing Is Not A Democracy: TaniaFrom Beginning To End: CourttiaWhere To Start – Ideas And Inspiration: TaniaWhere To Start: Titles, Beginnings And Endings: TaniaMovement And Syncopation In Fiction: Writing The Long Short Story: CourttiaPlot Versus Story – Where's The Tension?: TaniaEditing And Revising: CourttiaTenses: TaniaStep Into A World – Thoughts On Structure: CourttaStructure And How To Use It: TaniaWhat Gets Left Out And Minimalism: TaniaSpeaking Their Minds - Character And Voice: CourttiaWriting Flash Fiction, Liberation Through Constraint: TaniaA Brief History Of Time In The Short Story: TaniaAnother Perspective – Point Of View In The Story: CourttiaHarvesting – On Writing Your Collection: CourttiaShort Story Collections - How Do They Work And How To Get One Published: TaniaVoice And Dialogue, Using Scenes: TaniaClose Reading Of Between My Father And The King By Janet Frame: TaniaExperimenting And Experimental Short Stories: TaniaPublishing Short Stories: TaniaShort Story Competitions – How To Make Your Story Stand Out: Tania60 Favourite Short Stories: Tania And Courttia 50 Favourite Collections: Tania And Courttia