Introduction

In one of my selected stories, an unnamed narrator is asked what she’s been reading lately. Her mind goes blank and the present moment is distilled as the author skilfully depicts the multitudinous thoughts that pass in the space between thought and speech. When first asked which stories I’d like to include in my anthology, a dozen rose like a flash – an instinct. The stories were not fully formed but composed of impressions and my memories of reading them: where I’d been, how I’d felt, how, when I’d finished, I glanced away from the page or the screen to see the world slightly anew. There are connective threads in this collection: of representing women’s experience, of the potentiality of form and expression, of the short story and also of art and what they have given to me and my writing over the years.