Things That Make the Heart Beat Faster

João Morais is from Cardiff. He has a Portuguese name as his father's side of the family hail from Cabo Verde. He holds a PhD from Cardiff University. He has been shortlisted for the Rhys Davies Short Story Competition, the Percy French Prize for Comic Verse, and the All Wales Comic Verse Award. He was longlisted in the New Welsh Writing Awards 2017: Americymru Prize for the Novella and is a previous winner of the Terry Hetherington Prize for Young Writers. He has also had many short stories, reviews, and poems published in the New Welsh Review and Wales Arts Review. twitter: @_JoaoMorais

João Morais's contemporary debut collection of stories beats paths through a capital city from street food markets and art galleries to the park and the pub. From illegal raves to prison visits, Morais turns his unflinching beam on the quickened pulse of urban living: spliffs, fights, and hearts spark as relationships and power struggles are tested. Often comic, sometimes tragic, these stories detail the moments in their characters’ lives when everything changes and their hearts beat faster.