Salt Publishing double book launch at Blackwell’s

It’s like all your Christmasses have come at once at Blackwell’s this December, as the bookshop hosts a two-for-one Salt Publishing special, launching both the Best British Short Stories 2022 anthology and the brand-new Modern Stories series.

The evening will be hosted by Nicholas Royle and feature readings from himself as well as Neil Campbell and Alison Moore, from their Modern Stories releases, and Sara Sherwood from Best British Short Stories 2022.

The evening will be hosted by Nicholas Royle and feature readings from himself as well as Neil Campbell and Alison Moore, from their Modern Stories releases, and Sara Sherwood from Best British Short Stories 2022; Sara has previously been highly commended in the prestigious Bridport Prize and her story How To Find Yourself featured in Test Signal, an anthology of northern writing published by Liverpool’s Dead Ink Books in 2021.

Nicholas Royle is the series editor of Best British Short Stories, the critically acclaimed annual guide to the short story, now in its twelfth year. Including these 12 volumes, he has edited more than 25 anthologies of short stories in total, and he is also an author in his own right. His seven novels include The Director’s Cut and First Novel, and his five short story collections are Mortality, Ornithology and The Dummy & Other Uncanny Stories, plus the first two in a trilogy, London Gothic and Manchester Uncanny, just out with Manchester’s Confingo Publishing. Also with Confingo, he has published his translation, from the French, of Vincent de Swarte’s novel Pharricide, and with Salt Publishing he published non-fiction book, White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector last year. He also runs Nightjar Press, publishing short stories as signed, limited-edition chapbooks. Manchester Review of Books called him a “master of the uncanny”.

The Modern Stories series is Salt’s showcase of contemporary short story writers born, or working in, the British Isles. The books are pocket editions, in A format paperback with classic Salt covers, perfect for story enthusiasts and book collectors alike. The first set of six titles are Jane Fraser’s Connective Tissue, Andrew Hook’s Candescent Blooms, Brian Howell’s The Man Who Loves Kuras and Other Stories and Giselle Leeb’s Mammals, I Think We Are Called.

Reading tonight from Licensed Premises is Manchester-based Neil Campbell and from Eastmouth and Other Stories is Manchester-born Alison Moore. Alison Moore’s short stories have been included in previous Best British Short Stories and Best British Horror and broadcast on BBC Radio. Her first novel, The Lighthouse, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Awards, winning the McKitterick Prize. Both The Lighthouse and her second novel, He Wants, were Observer Books of the Year. She recently published her fifth novel, The Retreat, and a trilogy for children, beginning with Sunny and the Ghosts, and she has another collection, The Pre-War House and Other Stories, whose title story won the New Writer Novella Prize.

Tickets are £3 or free when purchasing a copy of Best British Short Stories 2022. The anthology and all six titles in the Salt Modern Stories series will also be available to purchase on the night.