Tag: short story

Longlist for World’s Richest Short Story Prize Announced

‘Richest’ here does not mean substantial content of the short stories — although each of these eighteen stories undoubtedly has that too. ‘Richest’ here literally means the most money. The winner of this award will receive £30,000 ($38,074.95), which is the largest amount offered in any English language short story prize contest. 

The prize in question is for The Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award. It is open to any writer who has been published in Ireland or the UK. The story must be under 6,000 words. The longlist has just been announced and the eighteen writers include both well known names and less familiar up and coming writers. 

 

Emma Cline and The Girls

 

The more well known names include A.M. Homes and Emma Cline. Homes, the author of over ten books, is nominated for her story, “The National Caged Bird Show.” Cline, the author of the bestselling novel The Girls, is nominated for her story, “What Can You Do With a General.” 

 

The full list:

Kathleen Alcott, “Natural Light”

Kevin Barry, “The Coast of Leitrim”

Emma Cline, “What You Can Do With a General”

Paul Dalla Rosa, “Comme”

Joe Dunthorne, “All the Poems Contained within Will Means Everything to Everyone”

Wendy Erskine, “Inakeen”

A.M. Homes, “The National Caged Bird Show” 

Caoillin Hughes, “Prime”

Louise Kennedy, “In Silhouette”

Toby Litt, “Impatience” 

Danielle McLaughlin, “A Partial List of the Saved”

Gerad Mckeague, “Wet Bloody Country”

Alecia McKenzie, “Trees”

Paddy O’Reilly, “All the Languages”

Nicholas Petty, “It is Summer at Camp Pomodoro”

Brian Van Reet, “Lazarus”

Kevin Wilson “Biology”

Olivia Cooke Will Star In Sci-Fi Romance “Little Fish” Adaptation

Olivia Cooke stole the show in Ready Player One. Jack O’Connell won our hearts with his performance in Unbroken. Now, these two actors are teaming up for an exciting new adaptation that you’ll be sure to remember for decades to come… even if its protagonists end up remembering nothing at all. (You’ll just have to wait and see!)

 

Images Via IMDb

 

The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that Cooke and O’Connell will star in Little Fish. The film is based off of Aja Gabel’s short story of the same name, an ambitious, speculative romance that tells the story of a couple struggling to stay together in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. And here’s where the speculative fiction comes in: the pandemic erases people’s memories, “Little Fish” was initially published in the literary magazine Phoebe. You can read a small excerpt of the story on Gabel’s website to get hyped for the film.

Though there is no word yet on a release date for the film beyond a general estimate (2020), other details are available: the film will be directed by Chad Hartigan and written by Mattson Tomlin. In addition to her starring role, Olivia Cooke is also among the many executive producers of the film. While we don’t yet know which roles these actors will play, Raul Castillo and Soko have also been cast in the adaptation.

Fortunately, shooting will begin later this month, so we don’t have to wait too long!

 

 

Featured Image Via Bustle

Rafiki

Film Depicting Lesbian Love Wins African Film Festival Award

Rafiki, a film by Kenyan director Wanuri Kahiu that depicts lesbian love, has been recognized at the largest African film festival, Fespaco. The festival has awarded Samantha Mugatsia “best actress” for her portrayal of Kena Mwaura.

According to IMDb, the film tells the tale of Kena and Ziki, two girls who “long for something more. When love blossoms between them, the two girls will be forced to choose between happiness and safety.” It is inspired by the short story “Jambula Tree”  by Ugandan writer Monica Arac de Nyeko.

 

 

Rafiki Stars

IMAGE VIA HUMANMOVENT

 

The award is significant because the film is banned in Kenya, the country it was directed in—an extension of the laws against homosexuality in the country.

The laws, though “recent” as far as their imposition in 20th century by British colonial rule, seem to reflect public opinion of much of the country; 90 percent of respondents to a Pew survey conducted in Kenya in 2013 said that “society should not accept homosexuality.” The laws and public aversion to homosexuality fuel each other in a hateful cycle, since “family members and neighbors sometimes report suspected homosexuals to the police.”

 

Rafiki Stars

IMAGE VIA PINKNEWS

The country’s High Court is set to either uphold or overturn its ruling against gay sex on May 24th, several months after it was originally supposed to decide in February.

In the midst of such conflicting public opinion, the film’s being recognized by Fespaco is an undeniable achievement, and hopefully foreshadows what’s to come for gay rights in Kenya!

FEATURED IMAGE VIA SCREENAFRICA

Jaime Bell to Star in Short Story Adaptation ‘The Chain’

The trio who previously worked together on Donnybrook are now teaming up once again, this time for an adaptation of Tobias Wolff’s short story “The Chain”! How exciting!

 

According to Deadline, Jaime Bell and Margaret Qualley will be starring in director Tim Sutton’s  upcoming thriller, The Chain. Denise Gough (Colette) and Sebastian Stan (Avengers: Infinity War) are also rumored to have joined the feature adaptation.

 

Image Via comingsoon.net

 

Tobias Wolff’s award-winning short story “The Chain” follows a story of a man’s daughter who is attacked by a dog, setting off a chain of events driven by vengeance. Jonathan Deckter, president and COO of Voltage Pictures, told Deadline: 

“The incomparable Tobias Wolff is one of my favorite authors and we’re even bigger fans of Jaime Bell since working with him on the powerful feature skin.”

 

 

Rumble Films’ David Lancaster (Whiplash, Nighcrawler, Eye in the Sky) and Stephanie Wilcox (Small Crimes, Donnybrook) will produce.

In case if you’re not familiar with Bell’s and Qualley’s catalog, and what other projects you might recognize them from: Bell recently starred in Skin, Sutton’s Donnybrook, AMC’s Turn: Washington’s Spies, Fantastic Four, and Snowpiercer, and upcoming projects are Rocketman, and The Adventures of Tintin: Prisoners of the Sun. Qualley is best known for HBO’s series The Leftovers, and she starred in The Nice Guys, Netflix’s 10, and Donnybrook. She will be seen in FX’s mini series Fosse/Verdon starring with Sam Rockwell, Michelle Williams, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Click on here to listen to the audio version of The Chain, and immerse yourself into the story before it hit the screens! The Chain will begin production in April.

 

Featured Image Via Youtube

Sylvia Plath: Newly Discovered Short Story Now Available

We can never get enough of Sylvia Plath. A short story, a ‘lost’ story, Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom, is now available published by Faber Stories 55 years after her death. We first reported on this in October, when it was announced that the story would be made available in 2019, and now here we are! The story was published by Faber on January 3rd, and is now available on Amazon.

 

Image Via Faber.co.uk

 

Plath was twenty-years-old when she submitted this story to Mademoiselle magazine, who rejected it, though she had won the publication’s fiction contest the year before. According to The New Yorker, critic and academic Judith Glazer-Raymo unearthed the story while doing research into Plath’s works and other archives.

 

Image Via Thenational.scot

 

Harper Perennial is expected to publish the book with an alternative book cover design—illustrated with train tracks following the sunset—available on Amazon, January 15th. Here is how the cover looks like along with its Amazon synopsis:

 

Image Via Amazon

 

Never before published, this newly discovered story by literary legend Sylvia Plath stands on its own and is remarkable for its symbolic, allegorical approach to a young woman’s rebellion against convention and forceful taking control of her own life.

Written while Sylvia Plath was a student at Smith College in 1952, Mary Ventura and The Ninth Kingdom tells the story of a young woman’s fateful train journey.

Lips the color of blood, the sun an unprecedented orange, train wheels that sound like “guilt, and guilt, and guilt”: these are just some of the things Mary Ventura begins to notice on her journey to the ninth kingdom.

“But what is the ninth kingdom?” she asks a kind-seeming lady in her carriage. “It is the kingdom of the frozen will,” comes the reply. “There is no going back.”

Sylvia Plath’s strange, dark tale of female agency and independence, written not long after she herself left home, grapples with mortality in motion.

 

Check out a preview of the story from The Guardian here!

 

Featured Image Via BBC.co.uk