Best British Short Stories 2019
(978-1-78463-185-7)
NEW FICTION FROM SALT
VESNA MAIN
Good Day? (978-1-78463-191-8)
SIMON OKOTIE
After Absalon (978-1-78463-166-6)
TREVOR MARK THOMAS
The Bothy (978-1-78463-160-4)
TIM VINE
The Electric Dwarf (978-1-78463-172-7)
MICHAEL WALTERS
The Complex (978-1-78463-162-8)
GUY WARE
The Faculty of Indifference (978-1-78463-176-5)
MEIKE ZIERVOGEL
Flotsam (978-1-78463-178-9)
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About the Author
Nicholas Royle has published three collections of short fiction: Mortality (Serpent’s Tail), short-listed for the inaugural Edge Hill Short Story Prize in 2007, Ornithology (Confingo Publishing), long-listed for the same prize in 2018, and The Dummy & Other Uncanny Stories (The Swan River Press). He is also the author of seven novels, most recently First Novel (Vintage), and a collaboration with artist David Gledhill, In Camera (Negative Press London). He has edited more than twenty anthologies, including nine earlier volumes of Best British Short Stories. Reader in Creative Writing at the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University and head judge of the Manchester Fiction Prize, he also runs Nightjar Press, publishing original short stories as signed, limited-edition chapbooks.
By the Same Author
novels
Counterparts
Saxophone Dreams
The Matter of the Heart
The Director’s Cut
Antwerp
Regicide
First Novel
novellas
The Appetite
The Enigma of Departure
short stories
Mortality
In Camera (with David Gledhill)
Ornithology
The Dummy & Other Uncanny Stories
anthologies (as editor)
Darklands
Darklands 2
A Book of Two Halves
The Tiger Garden: A Book of Writers’ Dreams
The Time Out Book of New York Short Stories
The Ex Files: New Stories About Old Flames
The Agony & the Ecstasy: New Writing for the World Cup
Neonlit: Time Out Book of New Writing
The Time Out Book of Paris Short Stories
Neonlit: Time Out Book of New Writing Volume 2
The Time Out Book of London Short Stories Volume 2
Dreams Never End
’68: New Stories From Children of the Revolution
The Best British Short Stories 2011
Murmurations: An Anthology of Uncanny Stories About Birds
The Best British Short Stories 2012
The Best British Short Stories 2013
The Best British Short Stories 2014
Best British Short Stories 2015
Best British Short Stories 2016
Best British Short Stories 2017
Best British Short Stories 2018
Best British Short Stories 2019
Copyright
published by salt publishing 2020
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Selection and introduction © Nicholas Royle, 2020
Individual contributions © the contributors, 2020
Nicholas Royle has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the editor of this work.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First published in Great Britain in 2020 by
Salt Publishing Ltd
12 Norwich Road, Cromer, Norfolk nr27 0ax United Kingdom
www.saltpublishing.com
Salt Publishing Limited Reg. No. 5293401
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
isbn 978 1 78463 235 9 (Paperback edition)
isbn 978 1 78463 236 6 (Electronic edition)
Typeset in Neacademia by Salt Publishing
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A