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Free Shorts – March update, plans for the next anthology

I’m about to send out the March story in my Free Shorts project – a free short story sent to a selected list of my readers each month in 2024. The March story is rather experimental in form, so let’s see what the readers think.

I’ve had terrific feedback from the January and February stories, along with comments on how I might fine tune them – although when the advice is contradictory, it’s hard to know what to do! Just to remind you, I’ve copied the year’s story titles below.

I’m starting to plan the book of the stories, to be published at the end of 2024. I’ll certainly use the shorts image somewhere in the cover, but I guess that ‘Free’ shorts will be somewhat redundant when the book goes up for sale. I’ve set myself a dilemma here with the ‘shorts’ pun, but I’ve got ten months to figure it out.

The project has had great side benefits: One is that it has forced me to keep in touch with old friends, some of whom I’ve neglected over the years. Another great bonus is that people have latched onto my other work. It’s really pleasing to glowing feedback in the last few weeks for The True History of Jude (fantastic!) and The Sunset Assassin (couldn’t put it down!). Those who know me would be aware that I’m too lazy to go out looking for an agent and publisher (I once had both). But I get a huge sense of validation (yes, that’s what insecure fiction authors crave) from somebody I respect enjoying my work. And lastly, the project has unbunged the massive creative blockage I suffered during COVID.

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I’m entering stories in competitions this year, with a couple of successes in the UK and Australia so far. Right now I have a few awaiting results, and several more cooking. One of the Free Shorts stories is being expanded for a prestigious Australian competition, with the characters modified to meet the competition criteria. And I’m working on a brand new story for a local comp. This one falls into what I’ve realised is a consistent theme in my work – men constrained by their innate flaws. Maybe I need help! And lastly, I’ve been working on a story in the style of Doris Lessing, a British writer who I admire enormously. It’s a dark story with what I hope is an uplifting ending, starring – guess what – a man constrained by his innate flaws!

Looking further ahead, I’m musing over a collection of stories based on a cruise ship. I recently took the Queen Elizabeth from Sydney to Tasmania, confirming my suspicion that a cruise ship is an incredibly rich environment for a writer: Thousands of people crammed into a floating hotel marooned from their daily routines of work and shopping and cooking; guests stiff in gala outfits fresh out of mothballs; the curious relationship between the holidaymakers and the toiling staff. I spent the time between vast silver service meals alternating between reading Keith Thomas’s monumental Religion and The Decline of Magic and making notes on the micro-dramas (as I imagined them) being enacted in every corner of the ship.

Writer at work on the high seas.

I have the vague outline of a circular collection, with each story linked through a character from the previous story, and an overall plot arc that links the end back to the beginning. (My writing buddy Sarah Bourne used this structure very elegantly in The Train.) For more inspiration I should find out who’s streaming Ship of Fools, an almost flawless 1965 film I’ve seen many times (its only flaw is that Vladek Sheybal wasn’t in it). I could drone on and on about Ship of Fools, but I’ll finish by mentioning a dismal building that I photographed in Burnie, Tasmania that will definitely be a setting for one of the stories.

The Hotel Regent, Burnie, Tasmania.

If you want to join the Free Shorts project, email me at stuartcampbellauthor@gmail.com . You’ll get a personal email each month with your story, not the packet rubbish from an automated email list.

January 20242861Your Own Luck: A man with a past stows away on a cruise ship to Brisbane.
February 20241498An Afternoon Under the Paperbark: A hidden observer witnesses a family drama on a hot afternoon in Sydney.
March 20243753The Unmasking of Mr French: A new neighbour in a luxury apartment block is not what he seems.
April 20242220Ninety-nine Names for Rain: A nineteenth century scholar discovers a deadly Shangri-La.
May 20242508The Afternoon of the Jackal: Uncle Christopher’s Boxing Day BBQ doesn’t go to plan.
June 20241941Birdbrain: A lonely woman prefers to be a bird.
July 20242801Thanks Dad: The Vice Chancellor of a university struggles with Imposter Syndrome.
August 20242010Belfast: When an Australian searches for his roots in Belfast, things get complicated.
September 20243690Fireworks: A man loses his memory in an accident, so his wife tries to redesign him.
October 20242879Lawrence of Arabia’s Box: An update on the fate of the lost manuscript of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
November 20242987Happy Days: History is rewritten at a school reunion.
December 20242048Balti Lamb: A dinner date at a Heathrow Airport restaurant goes pear-shaped.

Great review of my latest novel!

Here’s a terrific review from an Australian reader:

In The True History of Jude, Stuart Campbell dares you to look away from the world he presents on the page. But the thing is, you can’t. Told through an epistolary form, and through the eyes of young Jude and distinguished professor Sue (or is it?), the story traces their struggles and journeys–and ultimately their love–in a post-Australia world. The world-building is exceptional as are the characters who populate this story. The story brings front and centre the possible future of Australia, and the world, we currently glimpse in our peripheral vision. If you are after an intellectual dystopian love story, then I highly recommend The True History of Jude.

Click here for vendor links.

Young people don’t read novels by old blokes!

There’s nothing like selling your books at an arts market to learn about your readership demographic. I was quickly able to spot a potential buyer browsing at the stall. Amazingly they looked like me – over sixty, fashionably crumpled, and likely to visit an arts market! So this gave me some insights when I put some time this year into freshening up my backlist of five novels with new cover designs and updated manuscripts.

While Kindle, Apple and Kobo remain my main sales channels, I’ve produced new paperback editions that are available through an international distributor, making them readily available for libraries and booksellers to purchase. I was ridiculously excited the other day to see my latest book in the Brooklyn Public Library in the US.

Sometimes I’m asked which of my novels is my favourite. Silly question – I love all my children. But if I’m pushed, my favourite is An Englishman’s Guide to Infidelity, which I first published in 2014. It’s my top seller with 2000+ Kindle downloads and sales, and it won a coveted Amazon Best Seller badge in 2016 – not bad for an independently published book. I should add that I have been exclusively self-publishing since parting (amicably) with my agent and publisher some years ago.

Here’s the blurb: Jack, the owner of a failing bookshop, is embezzling from a client. Thea is a philosophy lecturer with a taste for pinching cash. There’s something amiss with their marriage, but an occasional spot of larceny provides the frisson to keep it going, as well as the funds for the kids’ school fees. But things start to go badly wrong when an old lover turns up demanding a slice of the action. Could you live with a would-be murderer? This is the question for Thea and Jack in this fast-moving psychological drama with an undercurrent of black comedy.

This book’s now on its third cover. For the 2014 version my designer compressed the main story elements into a romcom-style image with nail polish and fun fonts. The moody 2016 cover ditched the plot and tried to capture the essence of the male protagonist, as well as tying in with covers in the same style for two other novels. The 2023 cover makes no direct reference to plot or character, but unashamedly appeals to an older demographic, the key readership of this book. If I’ve learned one lesson in promoting An Englishman’s Guide to Infidelity, it’s that novels by old blokes aren’t read by young people.

Here are some lovely things people have said about this book on Amazon and Goodreads:

‘A fascinating tale I couldn’t put down. Told from three very unique points of view. Two deaths. Murders? Or accidents? It depends on who’s talking.’

‘I was engaged from start to finish, relishing the descent of ordinary people into the seamier side of life that slips beyond their control into unimagined complications and implications with surprising consequences.’

‘… realistically, funny portrait of a man struggling to do the right thing by his wife and family’

‘… a riveting psychological bender touched with wit and imperfectly charming characters.’

‘A thoroughly enjoyable read, a mystery that unfurls with just enough twists and turns to keep readers guessing right to the closing pages.’

‘… funny, irreverent, witty read. A brilliant story, fast paced and fun, told from three different points of view, with an element of mystery thrown in. Couldn’t put it down.’

‘… it has that intangible ingredient that forces the reader to read one more chapter in the hope that all will be revealed.’

And here’s me on a literary research trip back to the UK, the Raven Inn at Bath to be exact.

Find out more about my books here – especially if you’re an older reader!

Tell me what you think about An Englishman’s Guide to Infidelity

I love to get feedback on my novels. Readers’ comments motivate me to keep writing, and help me to spread the word about my work.

If you enjoyed An Englishman’s Guide to Infideliy, scroll down to the Leave a Reply box below and tell me why. You can write an essay or just a few words!

Thank you very much!

Stuart

Seven new stories – seeking feedback

After writing six novels, I need a break from emotionally draining two-year projects.

Over the last six months I’ve immersed myself in short stories – reading some of the best authors of the genre, and learning the craft of writing an entire work in 2000-3000 words.

I’m hopeless at remembering what I read (I’ve been promising for years to keep a list), but the standout short story authors have been Hilary Mantel, Peter Carey, Seamus Deane, Lucy Caldwell, and Wendy Erskine. The latter three are from Northern Ireland, and I chose them to help get my creative mind in good shape for a visit to Belfast in May 2023; one of my projects is to develop a piece of biographical short fiction based on a fragment my late father wrote on his early life in Belfast.

The Northern Beaches Writers Group, based at Manly here in Australia, have been a great support in critiquing one of my story drafts and exposing me to local short story writers.

And to show I’m really serious about this, I’ve entered stories in four competitions!

I have a collection of seven unpublished stories that I’d love to get more feedback on. The stories are mostly set in Australia and range from An Afternoon under the Paperbark, where a hidden observer witnesses a deadly family bust-up on the lawn, to Your Own Luck, a tale of desperate man who jumps off a cruise ship in search of a new life.

If you want to receive a copy, email me at stuartcampbellauthor@gmail.com .

HAPPY READING!