During my MA in Creative Writing at Chichester University we followed a module on the short story. I wrote a story published in the Lightship Anthology 1 by Alma Press, winning a £1000 prize. The story is included in this collection under the title A Fish out of Water. When I wrote the Fish story, I hadn’t envisaged a collection of stories connected with death. I just wrote. All the stories based on my life experiences. With time and imagination, the stories grew and developed. Short stories take years to write. Not days, or weeks or months but years. In spite of the shared theme, none of the stories are gloomy. Most are amusing, one or two bring a tear to the eye. The first and last story are the same incident written in the very different voices of the two narrators. Book-end stories.Whichever kind of writing you like to read, you’ll find several to please you in this collection.