Mick Herron’s six Slough House novels have been shortlisted for eight CWA Daggers, winning twice, and shortlisted for the Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year three times. The first, Slow Horses, was picked as one of the best twenty spy novels of all time by the Daily Telegraph, while the most recent, Joe Country, was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. We talk to him about the overlaps between his short stories and novels.

Patrick Gale’s seventeen novels include Take Nothing With You (2018), which was his fourth Sunday Times bestseller, Rough Music (2000), Notes From an Exhibition (2007), A Perfectly Good Man (2012) and A Place Called Winter (2015). In 2017 his two part drama Man in an Orange Shirt was screened by BBC2 as part of the Gay Britannia season. We talk to him about the process of crafting a novel and what inspires his writing.

Tim Hannigan is the author of several narrative history books including Murder in the Hindu Kush, which was shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Prize; Raffles and the British Invasion of Java which won the 2013 John Brooks Award. His most recent book is The Granite Kingdom (Head of Zeus, 2023). We talk to him about fiction, travel writing and inspirations drawn from Cornish landscape and folklore.

Rob Magnuson Smith is the author of The Gravedigger and Scorper, described by the Independent on Sunday as ‘an odd, original, darkly comic novel… Kafka crossed with Flann O’Brien’. His third novel is Seaweed Rising. Rob’s short fiction has appeared in Granta, the Guardian, Ploughshares and elsewhere. He has won the Elizabeth Jolley Award and been longlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. We talk to him about inspirations, writing, and teaching.

Shelley Trower worked as a Professor of English Literature at the University of Roehampton before returning to Cornwall. Books include Senses of Vibration (2012), Rocks of Nation (2015), and Sound Writing (2023). Shelley now works with libraries, and since leaving academia has published short stories including ‘Seagulls’ in Litro Magazine (nominated for Pushcart in 2023), and is currently funded by Arts Council England to develop her novel writing. We talk to her about writing, both creative and academic.

Tom Vowler’s short story collection, The Method, won the inaugural Scott Prize and the Edge Hill Readers’ Prize. His debut novel, What Lies Within, is a psychological suspense set on Dartmoor, and his second, That Dark Remembered Day, is meditation on fatherhood, war and the natural world. Tom is an associate lecturer at Plymouth University. Dazzling the Gods is his latest collection of stories, and Every Seventh Wave is his most recent novel. We talk to him about the short form.

Emma Timpany’s publications include short story collections Three Roads and The Lost of Syros, a novella Travelling in the Dark, and the anthology Cornish Short Stories: A Collection of Contemporary Cornish Writing. Emma’s writing has won awards including the Hall and Woodhouse DLF Writing Prize and been published in journals internationally. We talk about short stories and the process of editing a collection.

D. Parker has a keen interest in experimental writing and has an MA in Creative Writing. Her debut pamphlet, Rush, was published by Bullshit Lit Mag + Press in February 2023. We talk to D. about her visual and textual work, her day to day process, her main inspirations and influences, how she came to create hybrid and experimental work, what it’s like editing Needle Poetry, Dadaism and Oulipo, and what she’s up to next.

Graham Mort is emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at Lancaster University, and a prolific writer and poet. ‘The Prince’ won the Bridport short fiction prize in 2005 and his short story collection, Touch, won the Edge Hill Prize in 2010. A further collection, Terroir, appeared in 2015 and Like Fado and Other Stories, was published by Salt in 2020. We talk to him about short fiction, flash fiction, and what inspires his writing.

Kathy Fish has written and published over 200 short stories and flash pieces. Her fifth collection, Wild Life: Collected Works from 2003-2018, is now in its 3rd print run with Matter Press and she teaches a highly successful series of online workshops. We talk about her favourite authors and influences, the difference between writing flash fiction, prose poetry and short stories, and the process of putting together a collection.