Creative Digest #17: a milestone, and holiday reading
The latest edition of our departmental Substack
Welcome to the seventeenth edition of Creative Digest, the Substack from the Creative Writing team at City, University of London, where we teach on undergrad and postgrad degrees in the School of Communication and Creativity. We hope you enjoy it.
A Personal Anthology
by Jonathan Gibbs
This December saw a particular milestone for me: the 300th edition of A Personal Anthology, which is an online short story project I’ve been running since 2017. It’s a simple idea that works up a parlour game into something more interesting. The parlour game version is: ‘What are your favourite short stories?’, which I worked up into something more interesting, for book lovers at least, by framing it as: ‘If someone gave you the opportunity to edit a collection of short stories, what twelve stories would you put in it?’
It’s a mix between that radio classic, Desert Island Discs, in which a ‘castaway’ picks eight records to soundtrack their years of isolation, and the old-fashioned mix tape, in which a sense of curation and even presentation become more important. A short story anthology – by which I mean a print one: a real actual book – is a fascinating, even wondrous artefact, after all, and the idea of having one that you yourself collated is a delicious one.
The project takes two forms: first as a weekly email (apersonalanthology.substack.com) that goes out to subscribers, in which the ‘guest editor’ introduces their dozen short stories, in the order they choose, with publication details, and links to read them online, if they exist; and then as an archive (apersonalanthology.com), in which the anthologies are broken up into individual entries – there are now over 3,500 of them – and searchable by author.
This allows for another kind of parlour game: who are the most picked authors, living and dead? I’ll preface the answer by pointing out that this is far from a scientific exercise. Guest editors for the project are a mix of people I ask, and who ask me: in both instances it is somewhat self-selecting. I might want the project to be as diverse and international as possible, but it lives in my corner of the bookish internet, with all the biases this suggests.
So, as of edition 300, we have 3,500 individual stories picked, with twelve authors featuring 20 times or more. (Two people have picked single-author anthologies – featuring Kafka and Hemingway – but these only count for one in this calculation.)
They are, in ascending order:
in joint eighth place, with 20 picks each:
Raymond Carver
Angela Carter
Italo Calvino
Anton Chekhov
and Sarah Hall.
At 7: James Joyce (21)
6: Franz Kafka (22)
5: Eley Williams (23)
4: Katherine Mansfield (26)
There is a tie as well for second place, with Jorge Luis Borges and Lydia Davis both being picked 27 times...
But beating them all, sneaking in at first place with appearances in 28 Personal Anthologies, is Alice Munro.
No one is doubting her brilliance as a short story writer, but it will be interesting to see if her dominance remains following revelations that for years Munro ignored the abuse of her daughter Andrea Robin Skinner by Skinner’s stepfather, Munro’s partner.
So we have three living authors and nine dead; eight writing in English and one each in Italian, Russian, Spanish and German; six each men and women.
The top three individual stories in terms of picks are: Joyce’s ‘The Dead’ (picked seven times), Angela Carter’s ‘The Bloody Chamber’ (eight times) and Carmen Maria Machado’s ‘The Husband Stitch’, which has been picked for anthologies ten times.
But the joy of the project is not just that we see familiar names and stories pop up, and given back to us anew through the editors’ insights and reflections, but that we find new writers all the time. Why not sign up and see what you can find?
Holiday Reading
by Jessica Andrews
My holiday reading list this year is:
Ruins, Child by Giada Scodellaro
I was lucky enough to be sent an advance copy of this book, which won the Fitzcarraldo novel prize earlier this year. It is formally experimental and focuses on six women sharing a crumbling apartment in what may be the future, in order to examine Black American realities.
What Am I, A Deer? by Polly Barton
I love Japanese translator Polly Barton’s non-fiction work, and I’m excited to read her debut novel. It is about obsession, authenticity, fantasy, romance, intoxication and karaoke, ‘echoing with the sounds of Whitney Houston and The Cure’.
My Work by Olga Ravn
Everyone is talking about Olga Ravn, and I’m yet to read her work. This book blends literary forms – fiction, essay, poetry, letters – to explore new motherhood.
The Devil Book by Asta Olivia Nordenhof
I loved the first book in this seven-novel series, which loosely explores the Scandinavian Star ferry disaster in the 90s. It is such an interesting way to use a real historical event as a starting point for fiction, and I can’t wait to see what Nordenhof has done this time.
On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle
Another Scandinavian seven-novel series (what’s going on?) where a woman lives the same day on repeat. This repetition gives way to philosophical musings on time and the meaning of existence – sounds like a standard day in my life.
The New Oxford Annotated Bible
Yes, really! I’m working on a project about Catholicism, so hoping to get some work-related reading in there too – a girl can dream.
More Holiday Reading
by Joe Thomas
About to Fall Apart by Ashley Hickson-Lovence
The new novel-in-verse by City St Georges alumnus and MA Creative Writing dissertation supervisor, Ashley Hickson-Lovence, is out with Faber in April. I’m excited to read this short, powerful novel, described as ‘a thrilling kaleidoscope of one man’s thoughts, failures and hopes, set over the course of a weekend’.
Devotions by Lucy Caldwell
A gift of my writing life is to have a first reader relationship with the acclaimed, multi-award-winning novelist, short story writer and dramatist Lucy Caldwell. Her new collection of stories is also out with Faber in April, and while I’ve read all the stories in manuscript and draft form, I can’t wait to read the final versions – and in the order conceived of for the book.
The Last of Earth by Deepa Anappara
Creative Writing lecturer and all-round City St Georges icon, Deepa’s new book is ‘a stunning historical novel about two outsiders who venture into the Forbidden Kingdom of Tibet, both driven by a motive they are desperate to keep secret.’ This is my public plea for a proof copy so that I can read it now! (I don’t really want to wait for publication in February…)
Peekaboo Bosh by John King
Described by Irvine Welsh as ‘one of England’s finest writers’, John King’s new novella is about animal rights activism, structural inequality and police and state corruption, and it shows, once again, that he is a singular, moral talent and one the great chroniclers of English working-class life. John writes books like no one else.
V13: Chronicle of a Trial by Emmanuel Carrère
Carrère is one of my favourite writers and his latest book covers the trial of those who carried out the Paris terror attacks in 2015. For once, the publisher’s copy feels absolutely spot on: ‘Over the course of his career, Emmanuel Carrère has reinvented non-fiction writing. In a search for truth in all its guises, he dispenses with the rules of genre, fusing passion, curiosity and a profoundly humane intellect, making him one of the most distinctive and important literary voices today.’
The Hunter by Tana French
Tana French has long been one of my favourite crime writers. Such an atmospheric and suspenseful novelist! This novel is a follow-up to The Searcher, which featured a former Chicago detective who relocates to the west of Ireland. French’s slow burn pace and deeply etched characterisation and setting, and moments of extreme violence, made it a perfect winter read. Although this new one does seem to be set in the ‘blazing summer’, so let’s see if it simply turns out be another perfect read!
The Wolves of Eternity by Karl Ove Knausgaard
This is the second novel is Knausgaard’s Morning Star series. I loved the first one, very long and sprawling and weird and lots of descriptions of people cooking or shopping or eating or drinking (mostly drinking, is my memory of the novel) and yet also a sort of existential enquiry into the cosmos. So, I’ll be reading this by the fire in France, topping up with red wine, I expect.
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
I’ve just started this dystopian novel, described in the Guardian by Madeleine Thien as ‘about an island where disappearance is a way of life… [it] is a masterpiece, meditating on totalitarianism and resistance as well as the rhythms of life and death.’ I’m about 40 pages in and it’s very good so far, infused with a lilting prose style and a wry, worldly yet naïve narrative voice, and it all feels enjoyably uncanny and mysterious…
Thanks for reading! Do get in touch if you have any questions or comments. If you want to find out more about the programmes offering Creative Writing teaching at City, University of London, then do explore here:
You can find details of open days and evenings, and taster sessions, here
Contributing writers:
Jonathan Gibbs is the author of Randall, The Large Door and Spring Journal. He is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at City, and is currently writing a book on the non-academic or ‘literary’ essay.
Jessica Andrews is the author of Saltwater and Milk Teeth
Joe Thomas’ next novel True Blue is published in January, the final part of his east London trilogy, following White Riot and Red Menace.
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