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fictionable

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The online literary magazine with short stories and comics from all around the world

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'The Unnamable’s sole remaining vehicle was voice and, in finding it, the writer arrived at his ultimate form'

Eimear McBride introduces Samuel Beckett's stripped-down novel, The Unnamable:

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2025/04/samuel-becketts-art-of-reduction

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Every book is an adventure. Andrzej Klimowski sets off on a journey around his latest graphic novel, Edifice.

Catch it at https://www.fictionable.world/blogs/andrzej-kilmowski-drawing-writing-graphic-novel-edifice

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Pages from Andrzej Klimowski's sketchbook, with the legend: 'I keep a lot of sketchbooks'
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Give your friends and family a year’s free access to the best short stories and graphic fiction from all over the world:

https://www.fictionable.world/gift_subscription.html

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A plain red background with text: Gift subscriptions – give the gift of exclusive fiction from Samantha Harvey, Jenny Erpenbeck, Daisy Johnson, M John Harrison, Ali Smith…
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"What tech companies are doing is neither 'fair use' nor 'fair dealing'. It is a blatant infringement of copyright."

Ambre Morvan tells Matilda Battersby that Meta's defence won't fly:

https://www.thebookseller.com/news/metas-fair-use-defence-for-training-ai-with-published-books-wont-work-in-uk-says-pa

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Fictionable arrives on paper with a stylish edition of Diana Evans' haunting story Broth, where three friends go out for dinner. But are they all ready to share?

Diana talks pared-back prose, female friendship and category errors on the @fictionable

https://www.fictionable.world/podcasts/diana-evans-broth-ordinary-people-a-house-for-alice-podcast-interview

Get your copy at https://www.fictionable.world/pages/fictionable-edition-broth-by-diana-evans

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Copies of Broth by Diana Evans on a pebble beach.
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'A treat for the international army of Janeites.'

Later this month, the illustrator Isabel Greenberg teams up with expert Janine Barchas to give us The Novel Life of Jane Austen:

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/janine-barchas/the-novel-life-of-jane-austen

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Billionaires are bending the knee to Donald Trump. It's time to defend democratic rights, says Annie Proulx:

https://www.fictionable.world/blogs/annie-proulx-donald-trump-plutocrats-free-speech

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The writer Annie Proulx, with tree trunks blurred in the distance and a quote from her blog: 'Are we free to write about what we see?'
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@ShovelTrouble @bookstodon … an interesting question. Two thoughts:

  1. I think you're referring to Annie Proulx's excellent piece. That's not us saying something, that's her saying something. Her free speech, if you will.
    You might like to check out some of the other things other contributors have freely said on our blog:
    https://www.fictionable.world/blog_front.html
  2. Short stories are connected to the world. Even SF, fantasy and romance are still reflecting our world back to us. So it's basically impossible for a story not to be political. (Even a story that studiously avoids politics is political, by endorsing the status quo.) So there's no way around it. Writing is political.
    That doesn't mean every short story is about politics. And plenty of the stories we publish aren't really about politics at all.
    You might also like to check out our archive:
    https://www.fictionable.world/issues_front.html
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… so here's thriller writer Michael Niemann on the politics inherent in classic crime fiction, like your example of a short story where opposites team up:

"The arc of the plot takes the protagonist through a series of challenges that keep increasing the tension until the climax when the crime is solved and the status quo ante is restored. The genre is therefore essentially conservative."

https://crimereads.com/the-politics-of-crime-fiction

He also cites Val McDermid arguing that recent crime fiction – she's writing in 2015 – has taken a turn to the left:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/apr/01/why-crime-fiction-is-leftwing-and-thrillers-are-rightwing

Not every story is about politics, as you say. And any individual story can set itself against the conventions of its genre. But, since we live in the world, the choices we make about what to say – and what to leave out – are unavoidably political.

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From How to Be an Antiracist to Implementing Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The full list of removed from the Naval Academy

Via the Literary Saloon:

https://www.complete-review.com/saloon/archive/202504a.htm#hh7

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Lights, camera, but will there be any action at the Imperial on East 14th Street? Julian George dims the lights in The Movie Lovers.

https://www.fictionable.world/stories/the-movie-lovers-julian-george

Image: Krish Shah

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A projector shines into a darkened movie theatre, with a quote from Julian George's story The Movie Lovers: 'They were gazing at the stars below…'
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'In my view, to fixate on words misses much of what translation is.'

Michelle Chan Schmidt talks to Matt Reeck about his philosophy of

Just don't call it a

https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2025/04/02/the-movement-of-language-matt-reeck-on-the-best-unexpressed

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A trip to India is a chance to start again in No One Here Knows You by Ben Sorgiovanni. But will they find what they’re looking for?

https://www.fictionable.world/stories/no-one-here-knows-you-ben-sorgiovanni

Image: Carl Wong

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A monkey hangs in a tree, with a quote from Ben Sorgiovanni's short story No One Here Knows You: 'Each time she picked a flower the macaques shrieked and hollered…'
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'The company has taken our books and used it to make money. It has money, but instead of paying us for our intellectual property instead of licensing a word, it's taking it all for free.'

Andrew Rogers talks to the authors standing up against

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c70w24j7jk1o

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A phone call is a signal from a life left behind in Rachida Lamrabet's Two Girls on Bicycles, translated from Dutch by Johanna McCalmont:

https://www.fictionable.world/stories/two-girls-on-bicycles-rachida-lamrabet-translated-by-johanna-mccalmont

Image: Nick Nice

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Birds perch on telephone wires beneath a blank sky, with a quote from Rachida Lamrabet's short story Two Girls on Bicycles, translated by Johanna McCalmont: 'Silence on the other end of the line…'
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'Punctuation controls two things: logical separation and breath… Writers weigh each role differently.'

Matthew Zipf on Renata Adler's commas:

https://theamericanscholar.org/in-the-matter-of-the-commas

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Helga Schubert reflects on beginnings and endings in On Getting Up, translated from German by Aaron Sayne and Lillian M Banks:

https://www.fictionable.world/stories/on-getting-up-helga-schubert-translated-by-aaron-sayne-and-lillian-m-banks

Image: Scott Walsh

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A fox stands in a field and looks directly at the camera, with a quote from Helga Schubert's short story On Getting Up, translated by Aaron Sayne and Lillian M Banks: 'Get up, get up, said the fox to the hare…'
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'Language is essential in the comic, and its physical appearance was as carefully crafted as the art itself.'

Nicole Rudick on how Futura captures the betwixt and between in Crockett Johnson's comic strip Barnaby:

https://pioneerworks.org/broadcast/barnaby-crockett-johnson-nicole-rudick

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'We're seeing a lot more media now about black love and black joy, instead of just black pain.'

The winner of Stormzy's new writers' prize, Abaka Debrah, on writing 'for the next generation of young black boys':

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0drg78797o

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Can the word really encompass the world? Joanna Kavenna investigates in her short story Notes on the Future:

https://www.fictionable.world/stories/notes-on-the-future-joanna-kavenna/

Image: Spitzer Space Telescope

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Clouds of dust and gas hang in space, with a quote from Joanna Kavenna's short story Notes on the Future: 'Around the orderly facts of science, there floats a dust-cloud of exceptional observations'
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"I just didn't think you could make art and be successful."

Ann Patchett talks to Katty Kay about kindness, smartphones and bookselling. Christopher Luu writes it up

https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20250320-ann-patchett-interview-influential-katty-kay

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… turns out the French novelist Victor Hugo was also a talented artist.

An exhibition of his drawings opens today at London's Royal Academy:

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/start-here-victor-hugo

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'You can’t use magic or make magic; you can only swim with its currents, occasionally choosing which stream will take you.'

Tyson Yunkaporta goes on an elliptical journey in The Time Traveler’s Wife’s Husband:

https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/the-time-travelers-wifes-husband

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Fictionable arrives on paper with a stylish edition of Diana Evans' story Broth, where three friends go out for dinner. But are they all ready to share?

Get your copy at https://www.fictionable.world/pages/fictionable-edition-broth-by-diana-evans

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A copy of Broth by Diana Evans stands on a pebble beach.
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When TV goes to Hollywood, you've got to watch the script, says Julian George.

Catch it at https://www.fictionable.world/podcasts/julian-george-movie-lovers-short-story-prose or via and more…

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A portrait of the writer Julian George, with a quote from his podcast interview: 'I want it to sing, but the song might be a dark one'
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'Here come Handbooks, a series of handmade micro-published collections of poetry, prose and images.'

Clare Pollard, Chris Meade, Will Ashon and more in glorious concertina editions:

https://blownrose.uk/handbooks

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'It opened up a whole new life for me.'

The UK is shuttering about 40 a year:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg117gdky1o

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On the @fictionable the writer Ben Sorgiovanni gives us his of

Catch it at https://www.fictionable.world/podcasts/ben-sorgiovanni-philosophical-tiger-short-story-fiction or via and more…

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A portrait of the writer Ben Sorgiovanni, with a quote from his podcast interview: 'This story did come out of a thought experiment'
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'Whether reading a koan or a passage from Malone Dies, one has a sense of glimpsing The Absolute through a letterbox.'

Jonny Pelham on the challenge of designing covers for

https://www.faber.co.uk/journal/book-cover-design-jonny-pelham-on-beckett

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Browse the @fictionable with more than 50 exclusive from writers including Samantha Harvey, Jenny Erpenbeck, @mjohnharrison and more…

https://www.fictionable.world/issues_front.html

Image: CM

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A set of rolling stacked bookshelves disappears off into the distance
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In a divided world, fiction can break through the barriers that keep us apart, says Rachida Lamrabet:

Catch her on the @fictionable at https://www.fictionable.world/podcasts/rachida-lamrabet-fiction-perspective-choice-bicycles

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A portrait of the writer Rachida Lamrabet, with a quote from her podcast interview: 'We live in very unequal times'
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'To read is to put our selves at risk, to make ourselves vulnerable by welcoming the presence of an other into our psychic space'

Is really good for you? Tara Isabella Burton investigates:

https://aeon.co/essays/how-books-can-sap-the-soul-and-poison-readers-with-ideas

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Broth makes it across the river, with a first appearance in

Get your copy of Diana Evans's 'lean, quiet and shocking' short story at the Book Art Bookshop on Pitfield Street N1, or at https://www.fictionable.world/pages/fictionable-edition-broth-by-diana-evans

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A snap of the Book Art Bookshop, 17 Pitfield Street N1 6 HB, on a grey London day.
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… calling …

The Casa di Goethe is exhibiting 'documents and testimonies that illustrate the extent to which Ingeborg Bachmann’s life followed an aesthetic concept that is inseparable from her work':

https://casadigoethe.it/en/exhibitions/temporary-exhibition

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When you assemble stories from fragments of real life, you need to take the long view, says Helga Schubert.

https://www.fictionable.world/podcasts/helga-schubert-story-distance-fragments

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A portrait of the writer Helga Schubert, with a quote from her podcast interview: 'I set myself to the task of constructing a sort of mosaic.'
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On the @fictionable we look for meaning in the world to come with the writer Joanna Kavenna:

https://www.fictionable.world/podcasts/joanna-kavenna-notes-future-world-meaning-characters

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A portrait of the writer Joanna Kavenna, with a quote from her podcast interview: 'Who's deciding the reality we all have to live in?'
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@smilingheretic @bookstodon … an extremely good point, well made. It's Daunt Books, Marylebone.

Here's another link you may prefer not to click on:

https://dauntbooks.co.uk/shops/marylebone

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Lights, camera, but will there be any action at the Imperial on East 14th Street? Julian George dims the lights in The Movie Lovers.

https://www.fictionable.world/stories/the-movie-lovers-julian-george

Image: Jason Dent

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A close-up view of a movie projector, with a quote from Julian George's short story The Movie Lovers: 'Matinees were sacred…'
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'To judge by the number of papers I read last semester that were clearly generated, a lot of students are enthusiastic about this latest innovation.'

Troy Jollimore on why can't give you an

https://thewalrus.ca/i-used-to-teach-students-now-i-catch-chatgpt-cheats

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A trip to India is a chance to start again in No One Here Knows You by Ben Sorgiovanni. But will they find what they’re looking for?

https://www.fictionable.world/stories/no-one-here-knows-you-ben-sorgiovanni

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A cow munches leaves in front of purple cloth, with a quote from Ben Sorgiovanni's short story No One Here Knows You: 'The street below them slowed to the pace of a solitary cow…'
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'There is something that we, the book industry, can do… And that’s to stop linking to your book on Amazon.'

Drew Broussard lays it on the line:

https://lithub.com/stop-linking-to-amazon-already

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'Don’t you crave a return of indie culture? Don’t you hope for a resistance movement? Don’t you want to see a backlash to uniformity and standardization?'

Ted Gioia on the flattening of culture and the emerging

https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-world-was-flat-now-its-flattened

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