Mother & Child
This is one of my favourite stories, although it’s been knocking about for a while and a lot of readers aren’t keen on it. It’s a dialogue, and I’ve heard many readers say that it would be better as a radio script. No, it wouldn’t. If it was radio, the mother’s voice would need to be clarified from the start. It only works…
Gran's Story
This story began with a problem. As a historian, I was used to tracing an issue over a period of time, sometime for decades or even longer. How could you do this for a single person in a short story? I thought I’d try focusing on three crucial turning-points in a person’s life. And so, Gran came into being. There’s also a sort…
Dead on Time
A while ago, I attempted to write a series of linked short stories centred on Mary Cove, a generic ‘hospice worker’. The project as a whole didn’t work, but some of my stories were published. This, I think, is one of the best. Unusually for my fiction, it’s pretty tautly plotted. Dead on Time – Sharif Gemie
Five at Four
Back in the days before Lockdown, I joined a Zoom-based Creative Writing course run by Stephen Jenkins. It proved an invaluable support during Lockdown. I looked forward to the regular meeting with other people. Stephen has a very relaxed, permissive approach to writing. He encouraged all of us to experiment with different forms, often saying ‘it’s all just words’. As a result, I…
Leading the Way
A long-ish short story with an eco theme, set in Abergavenny. I wrote it partly as a test, but it is also partly inspired by Gaia Vince’s brilliant, terrifying and thoughtful book Nomad Century. My story is on p. 125 of this PDF. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/613eba5595ed212144cde6c4/t/64d2829f0021f0317f551f86/1691517613648/Journal+Seven+Refuge+08+08+2023+FINAL.pdf
The Artist, the Duke and the Mad, Mad Girl
This is one of my favourite stories. It was written after a visit to the Leonardo da Vinci museum in Venice. This was a wonderful place: partly designed for children, so you could touch and play with most of the exhibits. I felt a strong sense of Leonardo’s personality, his playfulness but also the constrained nature of his life. In was published in…