A Small, Good Thing

A Small, Good Thing
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"A Small, Good Thing" is a podcast about short fiction. In every episode, I get to discuss the short story form with writers, academics, publishers, and anyone who shares a passion for short stories.

  1. FEB 5

    Women of Wonder: Women Short Story Writers in Science Fiction (With Paul March-Russell)

    Paul March-Russell is the outgoing editor of Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, the co-founder of Gold SF, an intersectional feminist science fiction imprint of Goldsmiths Press, and the author of The Short Story: An Introduction for Edinburgh University Press. In this episode, Paul discusses the importance of women writers in science fiction and the legacy of the short story collection Women of Wonder (1974) edited by Pamela Sargent.    Works mentioned: Paul March-Russell, The Short Story: An Introduction (Edinburgh University Press, 2009).  ‘Definitions of SF’, in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, ed. by John Clute and David Langford https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/definitions_of_sf. China Miéville, ‘Cognition as Ideology: A Dialectic of SF Theory’, in Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction, ed. by Mark Bould and China Miéville (Pluto Press, 2009), pp. 231-48. Pamela Sargent (ed.), Women of Wonder: Science Fiction Stories by Women about Women (Penguin, 1974). On Margaret Atwood’s ‘talking squid in outer space’, see David Barnett, ‘Science fiction: the genre that dare not speak its name’, The Guardian (28 Jan. 2009), https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/jan/28/science-fiction-genre  Joanna Russ, ‘Nobody’s Home’, in Women of Wonder, ed. by Pamela Sargeant (Penguin, 1974), pp. 242-58.  David Harvey, ‘Time–Space Compression and the Postmodern Condition’, in The Condition of Postmodernity (Blackwell, 1990), pp. 284-307.  Tom Moylan, Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination (Peter Lang, 2014). Ursula K. Le Guin, ‘Vaster Than Empires and More Slow’, in Women of Wonder, ed. by Pamela Sargeant (Penguin, 1974), pp. 191-224. Robert Heinlein, ‘Waldo’, in Waldo & Magic, Inc (Macmillan, 1969). [See also Anne McCaffrey, ‘The Ship Who Sang’, in Women of Wonder, ed. by Pamela Sargent (Penguin, 1974), pp. 82-107.] ‘Symposium: Women in Science Fiction’, Khatru 3/4 (1975), https://fanac.org/fanzines/Khatru/Khatru03.pdf.   Joanna Russ, ‘The Image of Women in Science Fiction’, in Images of Women in Fiction: Feminist Perspectives, ed. by Susan Koppelman Cornillon (Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1972), pp. 79-94. Joanna Russ, To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction, ed. by Sarah Lefanu (Indiana University Press, 1995). Lisa Yaszek, Galactic Suburbia: Recovering Women’s Science Fiction (Ohio University Press, 2008). Isaac Asimov, I, Robot (Harper Voyager, 2013). Kingsley Amis, New Maps of Hell: A Survey of Science Fiction (Arno Press, 1975). Martin Scofield, The Cambridge Introduction to the American Short Story (CUP, 2006). Edith Wharton, The Writing of Fiction (Touchstone, 1997). Pamela Zoline, ‘The Heat Death of the Universe’, in The Heat Death of the Universe and Other Stories (McPherson & Company, 1988), pp. 13-28. [Published in the UK as Busy about the Tree of Life (The Women’s Press, 1988).]  E. J. Swift, When There Are Wolves Again (Quercus Publishing, 2025).  Vonda L. McIntyre, Little Sisters and Other Stories (Gold SF, 2024). James Tiptree Jr., Warm Worlds and Otherwise (Penguin Classics Science Fiction, 2021). James Tiptree Jr. ‘The Women Men Don’t See’, in Warm Worlds and Otherwise (Penguin Classics Science Fiction), pp. 156-98. Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wind’s Twelve Quarters & The Compass Rose (Gollancz, 2015).  Kit Reed, The Story Until Now: A Great Big Book of Stories (Wesleyan University Press, 2013). Other references: Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction (Journal) https://www.sf-foundation.org/  Gold SF https://mitpress.mit.edu/series/goldsmiths-press-gold-sf/ Podcast intro and outro credits: Shield, Leroy, Taylor Holmes, and Robert W Service. The shooting of Dan McGrew. 1923. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

    34 min

  2. JAN 15

    The Best of the Best: Literary Institutions and the American Short Story Canon (With Alexander Manshel)

    Alexander Manshel is Associate Professor of English at McGill University in Montreal (Canada). His research focuses on twentieth- and twenty-first-century American literature, multi-ethnic American fiction, and the cultural institutions that organize the contemporary literary field. How is contemporary short fiction in America influenced by the people and institutions that contribute to its production, circulation, and reception? Listen to find out! Works mentioned:    Alexander Manshel, ‘The Best of the Best: Anthologies, Prizes, and the Short Story Canon’, in The Cambridge Companion to the American Short Story, ed. by Michael Collins and Gavin Jones (Cambridge University Press, 2023), pp. 62-79. Charles E. May, ‘The American Short Story in the Twenty-First Century’ in Short Story Theories: A Twenty-First-Century Perspective, ed. by Viorica Patea (Rodopi, 2012), pp. 299-324. Perspective (Rodopi). Alexander Manshel, Writing Backwards: Historical Fiction and the Reshaping of the American Canon (Columbia University Press, 2023). Podcast intro and outro credits: Shield, Leroy, Taylor Holmes, and Robert W Service. The shooting of Dan McGrew. 1923. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

    35 min

  3. 12/24/2025

    Small, Good Things. A Special Episode

    (00:00:00) Intro (00:02:00) The Place to Find a Body (Ailsa Cox) (00:06:17) The Woman in the Tracksuit (Charlie Hill) (00:07:05) The Sunshine Skyway (Lauren C. Johnson) (00:13:53) New You (Shelley Roche-Jacques) (00:16:05) The Whites of Her Eyes (Molly Treweek) (00:21:58) Muguette (Elsa Court) (00:30:22) bill (Timothy Fox) (00:33:49) Spirits (Elizabeth Geoghegan) (00:37:01) Curtain Call (Niamh Swain) (00:43:24) A New Lease (Loghan Fellows) (00:45:29) Unbecoming (Sonya Moor) (00:50:09) She Will Sleep (Abi Millner) (00:53:05) The Man Who Walks Backwards (Charlie Hill) (00:54:12) Outro Ailsa Cox has published fiction in numerous magazines and anthologies, and twice been longlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. You can read her latest story, “Poltergeist”, in The Manchester Review. Precipitation, a mini-collection in collaboration with the artist Patricia Farrell, is available from Confingo. Other books include Writing Short Stories (Routledge 3rd edition 2025) and, as co-author, Reading Alice Munro’s Breakthrough Books (EUP 2024).“The Place to Find a Body” was first published in Suzanne Bray and Gérald Préher (eds.), Tomorrow’s World/ Le Monde de demain, Biennale Ecoposs, FLSH, Lille, 2022. Elsa Court is a French-born writer and translator based in London. She holds a PhD in English Literature from UCL, and completed The Stinging Fly Advanced Fiction Workshop with Seán O'Reilly in 2019. Her stories and essays have appeared in Granta, American Short Fiction, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and The TLS, and she has translated essays and interviews for publications including the Financial Times and Another Gaze. She teaches Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London. “Muguette” originally appeared in Issue Four of Worms Magazine, a London-based publication championing new writing by women and nonbinary authors, in 2021. Loghan Fellows is a Sheffield-based writer and performer who enjoys writing short-form fiction and spouting long-form balderdash. He is currently in his final year of a Creative Writing undergraduate degree at Sheffield Hallam University. He can be found on Instagram under the dashingly original moniker of @loghanfellowswriter. Timothy Fox lives and writes in London. His chapbook every house needs a ghost was recently published by The Braag. It was a finalist for the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize. His writing has appeared in, among others, The Molotov Cocktail, The Ghastling, Funicular Magazine and New Writing Scotland. In 2023, he was named a London Library Emerging Writer. Elizabeth Geoghegan was born in New York, grew up in the Midwest, and lives in Rome. She is the author of two short story collections eightball and Natural Disasters, and the bestselling memoir The Marco Chronicles. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, The Best Travel Writing, TIME, El Pais, Words Without Borders, BOMB, and elsewhere. “Spirits” is forthcoming in an anthology of writing about Naples in conjunction with the Giancarlo DiTrapano foundation. Charlie Hill is a writer from Birmingham. His work has appeared in publications such as Ambit, Stand, The Lonely Crowd, Confingo, Riptide and the Manchester Review, featured in songs and been taught in South Australian schools. “The Man Who Walked Backwards” first appeared in a pamphlet and “The Woman at the Bustop” in the online magazine Spelk. They were later included in Charlie’s second collection Encounters With Everyday Madness, which was shortlisted for the 2025 Edge Hill Prize. Lauren C. Johnson attributes her upbringing in Florida, America’s weirdest state, to her interest in the ecological and surreal. She lives in San Francisco, where she co-hosts Babylon Salon, a quarterly Bay Area reading series, and Club Chicxulub, a speculative reading and performance series. Her debut novel, The West Façade, is forthcoming from Santa Fe Writers Project on March 3, 2026. “The Sunshine Skyway” was first published on April 20, 2025, in The Sunlight Press. Abi Millner was born and raised in Dorset, England. She has completed a BA Hons degree and Masters degree in creative writing at Sheffield Hallam university, during which she discovered a love for short and flash fiction. She was shortlisted for the Bridport flash fiction prize in 2024 and her short story “Joy” was recently published in the Linen Press anthology Skeins. She lives in the Peak District with her husband and children. Sonya Moor is a French and British author and translator of short fiction. Her translation of Albertine Sarrazin’s The Crib and Other Stories is published by Cōnfingō, as is her collection The Comet and Other Stories. Her stories are widely published in literary reviews and anthologies, including Best British Short Stories 2024 and Best British Short Stories 2022, and recognised for awards such as the Cinnamon Literature Award, Seán O’Faoláin International Short Story Competition and Bridport Short Story Prize. Shelley Roche-Jacques’ work has appeared in magazines and journals such as The Boston Review, Litro, The Rialto and Brevity. Her poetry pamphlet Ripening Dark was published in 2015, followed by a collection of dramatic monologues, Risk the Pier, in 2017. Her work has been highly commended for the Bridport Prize for flash fiction and shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award and Wigleaf Top 50. Her current research is on flash fiction as a distinct literary form. She teaches Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University, where she is Course Leader for the BA Creative Writing programme. “New You” was first published in the Bridport Prize Anthology 2021 (Redciffe Press). Niamh Swain was born in Derbyshire and is currently in her second year of a BA Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University, which has sparked her love for short stories and flash fiction. She is an enthusiast of storytelling in all its forms, from novels to film to video games. The short story “Curtain Call”, like most of her work, is inspired by her love of the British comedy she was raised on. Part of her writerly mission is to inject that essence into as many genres as possible. Molly Treweek is a Leeds-based Creative who will be receiving her BA Hons Creative Writing degree from Sheffield Hallam University in June. She writes literary fiction and short stories exploring obsession and identity. Her poem “Just Nipping Out” was featured in The Flock Literary Magazine. You can find the rest of her short story “The Whites of Her Eyes” on her Instagram (Instagram) and Substack. Podcast intro and outro credits: Shield, Leroy, Taylor Holmes, and Robert W Service. The shooting of Dan McGrew. 1923. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

    55 min

  4. 12/04/2025

    Flash Fiction and Three-Dimensional Story Worlds (with Shelley Roche-Jacques)

    Shelley Roche-Jacques is a poet, flash fiction writer and Senior Lecturer of Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University (UK). In this episode, Shelley will be our guide into the world of Flash Fiction. How can a writer mobilise the story world and create three-dimensional stories when all they have at their disposal is a few hundred words? Listen and find out! Works cited: Shelley Roche-Jacques, ‘Flash fiction as a distinct literary form: some thoughts on time, space, and context’, in New Writing 21:2 (2024), pp. 171-89. Kim Chinquee, 'Flash fiction, prose poetry and men jumping out of windows: searching for plot and finding definitions', in The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, ed. by Tara L. Masih (Rose Metal Press, 2009), pp. 111-12. Tania Hersham, ‘Flash Fiction 2014 Judge’s Report’. The Birdport Prize, https://bridportprize.org.uk/. Ron Wallace, ‘Ron Wallace – Writers Try Short-Shorts', University of Wisconsin – English Department. https://dept.english.wisc.edu/wallace/?page_id=63. Accessed 26/10/2025.  Frank O’Connor, The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story (Melville House, 2011). Tony Williams, ‘Flash Fiction’, in The Handbook of Creative Writing, ed. by Steven Earnshaw (Edinburgh University Press, 2014), pp. 315-23.  Amelia Gray, The Swan as Metaphor for Love, in Joyland (December 2012), https://joylandpublishing.com/uncategorized/swan-metaphor-love/. Accessed 26/10/2025.  Tony Williams, ‘Gareth’, in All the Banans I’ve Never Eaten (Salt, 2012). Tania Hersham (editor), Fuel: An Anthology of Prize-Winning Flash Fictions Raising Funds to Fight Fuel Poverty (Tania Hersham Books, 2025).  Robert Shapard and James Thomas (editors), Sudden Fiction (Gibbs M. Smith, 1986).  James Thomas and Robert Scotellaro (editors), New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction (Norton, 2018).  Websites: SmokeLong Quarterly: https://www.smokelong.com.  Wigleaf: https://wigleaf.com.  Bath Flash Fiction Award Archive, https://www.bathflashfictionaward.com/tag/flash-fiction/.  Bath Flash Fiction Award Anthologies, https://www.bathflashfictionaward.com/tag/flash-fiction-anthologies/. Podcast intro and outro credits: Shield, Leroy, Taylor Holmes, and Robert W Service. The shooting of Dan McGrew. 1923. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

    32 min

  5. 11/13/2025

    Like Old Photographs in Second-hand Books (With Nicholas Royle)

    Nicholas Royle is a short story writer, a novel writer, the editor of the Best British Short Stories series. In this episode, I get to chat with him about his latest collection of short stories, Paris Fantastique (Confingo), and about his passion for second-hand books. Nicholas is also the founder of Nighjar Press, which publishes individual short stories as limited-edition chapbooks. Listen to find out more! Works mentioned: Nicholas Royle, Paris Fantastique (Confingo Publishing, 2025).  Nicholas Royle, Manchester Uncanny (Confingo Publishing, 2022).  Nicholas Royle, London Gothic (Confingo Publishing, 2020).  Nicholas Royle, Antwerp (Serpent’s Tail, 2005). Nicholas Royle (editor), The Best British Short Stories 2025 (Salt, 2025). Nicholas Royle, White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector (Salt, 2021). Nicholas Royle, Shadow Lines: Searching for the Book beyond the Shelf (Salt, 2024). C. D. Rose, ‘I’m in Love with a German Film Star’, in Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea, (Melville House, 2024).  Joel Lane, The Foggy, Foggy Dew (1986).  Alberto Manguel (editor), Black Water: An Anthology of Fantastic Literature (Picador, 1983).  Shelley Jackson, The Melancholy of Anatomy (Anchor Books, 2002).  Jamaica Kincaid, ‘Blackness’, in At the Bottom of the River (Picador, 1984). Confingo publishing: PARIS FANTASTIQUE by Nicholas Royle | confingo Podcast intro and outro credits: Shield, Leroy, Taylor Holmes, and Robert W Service. The shooting of Dan McGrew. 1923. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

    32 min

  6. 10/23/2025

    William Saroyan: Life at Full Volume (with Scott Setrakian)

    Scott Setrakian is the president of the William Saroyan Foundation. At the time we recorded this interview, he had just come back from Armenia, where he had taken part in a seven-day event called Saroyan Days. In this episode, he tells me about the life and works of Armenian American short story writer William Saroyan. Saroyan’s is a story of determination, perseverance, Pulitzer Prices, Academy Awards, and (above all) of superb writing!    Work mentioned:    William Saroyan, The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (Faber and Faber, 2024).  William Saroyan, ‘The Pomegranate Trees’, in The Atlantic (February 1938).  William Saroyan, Letters from 74 rue Taitbout (World Publishing Company, 1969).  William Saroyan, The Human Comedy (Harcourt, Brace, 1943)  William Saroyan, The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills (Scribner, 1952)  William Saroyan, Places Where I’ve Done Time (Davis-Poynter, 1973)  William Saroyan, Where the Bones Go (Pr at California st, 2002)    William Saroyan Foundation website: William Saroyan Foundation Podcast intro and outro credits: Shield, Leroy, Taylor Holmes, and Robert W Service. The shooting of Dan McGrew. 1923. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

    31 min

  7. 10/02/2025

    More Facts and Fiction of Short Story Writing (with Ailsa Cox) [Part Two]

    Ailsa Cox is a professor Emerita at Edge Hill University (UK) and a short story writer. In this second part of the interview we discuss famous pieces of short story writing advice like “show don’t tell”, the Freitag pyramid, ending with a moment of insight and much more! Listen to find out what is a fact and what is fiction!    Works mentioned:    Sarah Hall, ‘Sarah Hall on why we should have a short story laureate’, Guardian, Oct. 11 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/11/sarah-hall-short-story-laureate.  George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (Bloomsbury, 2021).  Katherine Mansfield, ‘At the Bay’, in Selected Stories (Oxford University Press, 2002).  Ailsa Cox, ‘How Loud the Birds’, in Katherine Mansfield and The Garden Party and Other Stories, ed. by Gerri Kimber and Todd Martin (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), pp. 143-52.  Susan Lohafer, Reading for Storyness: Preclosure Theory, Empirical Poetics, & Culture in the Short Story (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003).  C.D. Rose, Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea (Melville House, 2024).  Sarah Schofield, ‘Safely Gathered In’, in Safely Gathered In (Comma Press, 2021).  Charles Baxter, ‘Against Epiphanies’, in Burning Down the House. Essays on Fiction (Graywolf Press, 1997), pp. 51-78.  Chris Power, Survival of the smallest: the contested history of the English short story, New Statesman, 27 June 2017.  Malachi McIntosh, Parables, Fables, Nightmares (Emma Press, 2023).  Daisy Johnson, The Hotel (Penguin, 2024).  Elizabeth Strout, Anything is Possible (Viking, 2017).  Grace Paley, ‘A Conversation with My Father’,  The Collected Stories of Grace Paley (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1994), pp.232-237 (minute 28-29)  Paul March-Russell, The Short Story: An Introduction (Edinburgh University Press, 2009).    Writing on the Wall, https://writingonthewall.org.uk/. Podcast intro and outro credits: Shield, Leroy, Taylor Holmes, and Robert W Service. The shooting of Dan McGrew. 1923. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

    30 min

  8. 09/11/2025

    The Facts and Fiction of Short Story Writing (with Ailsa Cox) [Part one]

    Ailsa Cox is a Professor Emerita at Edge Hill University (UK) and a short story writer. In this first part of the interview, we discuss famous claims about short stories and short story writing, like reading short stories in one sitting, the connection between short stories and poetic language, and much more. Listen to find out if they are facts or fiction!    Works cited:   Ailsa Cox, Writing Short Stories. Third Edition (Routledge, 2025).  Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Philosophy of Composition’, in Essays and Reviews (Library of America, 1984)  Leila Martin, Kodavision (Nightjar Press, 2025)  Colm Tóibín, Mothers and Sons (Picador, 2006).  Helen Simpson, Constitutional (Vintage, 2006).  Allan Weiss, The Mini-Cycle (Routledge, 2021).  Zoe Gilbert, Folk (Bloomsbury, 2018)  Paul March-Russell, ‘Anthropocene feminism and the Weird temporalities of landscape’, Short Fiction in Theory and Practice, 15:1-2 (2025), pp. 81-95.  Katherine Mansfield, ‘Bliss’, in Selected Stories (Oxford University Press, 2002).  Janice Galloway, Blood (Vintage, 1991).  Raymond Carver, ‘Fires’, in Call If You Need Me (The Harvill Press, 2000), pp.  93-106.  Alice Munro, Runaway (Chatto & Windus, 2005). Nightjar Press, https://nightjarpress.weebly.com/ Podcast intro and outro credits: Shield, Leroy, Taylor Holmes, and Robert W Service. The shooting of Dan McGrew. 1923. Audio. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

    31 min
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"A Small, Good Thing" is a podcast about short fiction. In every episode, I get to discuss the short story form with writers, academics, publishers, and anyone who shares a passion for short stories.

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  • Creator
    A Small, Good Thing
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    17
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright A Small, Good Thing
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    A Small, Good Thing