Mary Medlicott, Storyteller and Author - Storyworks

A Long Run in Short Shorts

A Long Run in Short Shorts is here. And it feels exhilarating. 40 short personal tales make the contents – tales about all kinds of things, strange coincidences, extraordinary encounters, childhood adventures, wise things people have said. Some I’ve told in my work or to friends.  Many have not been previously aired.  And one reason I’m proud of the collection is that it feels like a declaration of the value I’ve always given to the personal tale in the course of my storytelling.

Writing the stories was just the start. A Long Run in Short Shorts is self-published by Storyworks Press and it feels like the realisation of a long-thought idea. After actually writing the stories – hence all my stuff about telling and writing last week – they sat in my filing cabinet for a couple of years, quietly protesting. Then one day I got them out and worked on them again, editing and refining. After that, I sent them to a few agents and publishers, though not with much hope of success. They’re probably too quirky for mainstream publishing and, anyway, publishers are apparently not taking much on right now. 

So why not publish them ourselves? The idea came up just a few months ago. It has involved a lot of work – beautiful work on the part of our book designer, Olly Fowler, a friend who is a professional book designer in Wales, and also the long-suffering organisation of the printing and marketing process on the part of my brilliant Paul. The printing has been done by excellent Gomer Press, the Welsh press that printed my two children’s novels and also Shemi’s Tall Tales.

So now the book is here and ready for sale. We haven’t put it on Amazon (a bit too complicated for us at this stage). We won’t be selling it through book-shops (apart from a few local ones in London and Pembrokeshire). We’re doing the selling ourselves and hoping we’ll eventually cover our costs. More important than that, we’re hoping the book will bring readers pleasure. So if you’d like a copy – and maybe another to give as a present – you can purchase the book right here on my website. If you are overseas, however, drop me a line first so I can get your address, let you know how much the postage will be and suggest how you can pay. And – I nearly forgot! – you can listen to one of the stories from my book by clicking on Listen to a Story on the website.

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