Best British Short Stories 2020 by Nicholas Royle (best novels to read for students txt) 📕

Press) edited by Catherine Taylor, and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘The Further Dark’, copyright © Jeff Noon & Bridget Penney 2019, was first published in The London Reader issue Autumn 2019, ‘Existential Dread in the Digital Void’, and is reprinted by permission of the authors.

‘Nudibranch’, copyright © Irenosen Okojie 2019, was first published in Nudibranch (Dialogue Books), and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘Backbone’, copyright © KJ Orr 2019, was first published in Mslexia issue 81, and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘Whale Watching’, copyright © Diana Powell 2019, was first published online on the Chipping Norton Literary Festival website and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘Greetings From the Fat Man in Postcards’, copyright © David Rose 2019, was first published online in Litro and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘Safely Gathered In’, copyright © Sarah Schofield 2019, was first published in Wall: Nine Stories From Edge Hill Writers (Edge Hill University) edited by Ailsa Cox and Billy Cowan is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘Dreams Are Contagious’, copyright © Adrian Slatcher 2019, was first published online in LitroUSA and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘The White Cat’, copyright © NJ Stallard 2019, was first published in The White Cat (The A leph), a nd i s reprinted by permission of the author.

‘Purity’, copyright © Robert Stone 2019, was first published online in The Write Launch and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘Same Same But Different’, copyright © Stephen Thompson 2019, was first published in The Good Journal issue 3, and is reprinted by permission of the author.

‘Vashri’, copyright © Zakia Uddin 2019, was first published in The White Review issue 24, and is reprinted by permission of the author.

BEST BRITISH SHORT STORIES

Best British Short Stories 2011

(978-1-907773-12-9)

Best British Short Stories 2012

(978-1-907773-18-1)

Best British Short Stories 2013

(978-1-907773-47-1)

Best British Short Stories 2014

(978-1-907773-67-9)

Best British Short Stories 2015

(978-1-78463-027-0)

Best British Short Stories 2016

(978-1-78463-063-8)

Best British Short Stories 2017

(978-1-78463-112-3)

Best British Short Stories 2018

(978-1-78463-136-9)

Best British Short Stories 2019

(978-1-78463-185-7)

NEW FICTION FROM SALT

VESNA MAIN

Good Day? (978-1-78463-191-8)

SIMON OKOTIE

After Absalon (978-1-78463-166-6)

TREVOR MARK THOMAS

The Bothy (978-1-78463-160-4)

TIM VINE

The Electric Dwarf (978-1-78463-172-7)

MICHAEL WALTERS

The Complex (978-1-78463-162-8)

GUY WARE

The Faculty of Indifference (978-1-78463-176-5)

MEIKE ZIERVOGEL

Flotsam (978-1-78463-178-9)

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About the Author

Nicholas Royle has published three collections of short fiction: Mortality (Serpent’s Tail), short-listed for the inaugural Edge Hill Short Story Prize in 2007, Ornithology (Confingo Publishing), long-listed for the same prize in 2018, and The Dummy & Other Uncanny Stories (The Swan River Press). He is also the author of seven novels, most recently First Novel (Vintage), and a collaboration with artist David Gledhill, In Camera (Negative Press London). He has edited more than twenty anthologies, including nine earlier volumes of Best British Short Stories. Reader in Creative Writing at the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University and head judge of the Manchester Fiction Prize, he also runs Nightjar Press, publishing original short stories as signed, limited-edition chapbooks.

By the Same Author

novels

Counterparts

Saxophone Dreams

The Matter of the Heart

The Director’s Cut

Antwerp

Regicide

First Novel

novellas

The Appetite

The Enigma of Departure

short stories

Mortality

In Camera (with David Gledhill)

Ornithology

The Dummy & Other Uncanny Stories

London Gothic

anthologies (as editor)

Darklands

Darklands 2

A Book of Two Halves

The Tiger Garden: A Book of Writers’ Dreams

The Time Out Book of New York Short Stories

The Ex Files: New Stories About Old Flames

The Agony & the Ecstasy: New Writing for the World Cup

Neonlit: Time Out Book of New Writing

The Time Out Book of Paris Short Stories

Neonlit: Time Out Book of New Writing Volume 2

The Time Out Book of London Short Stories Volume 2

Dreams Never End

’68: New Stories From Children of the Revolution

The Best British Short Stories 2011

Murmurations: An Anthology of Uncanny Stories About Birds

The Best British Short Stories 2012

The Best British Short Stories 2013

The Best British Short Stories 2014

Best British Short Stories 2015

Best British Short Stories 2016

Best British Short Stories 2017

Best British Short Stories 2018

Best British Short Stories 2019

Copyright

published by salt publishing 2020

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

Selection and introduction © Nicholas Royle, 2020

Individual contributions © the contributors, 2020

Nicholas Royle has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the editor of this work.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by

Salt Publishing Ltd

12 Norwich Road, Cromer, Norfolk nr27 0ax United Kingdom

www.saltpublishing.com

Salt Publishing Limited Reg. No. 5293401

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

isbn 978 1 78463 235 9 (Paperback edition)

isbn 978 1 78463 236 6 (Electronic edition)

Typeset in Neacademia by Salt Publishing

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A