Short stories are an underappreciated literary art form: we should all read more short stories! They often get neglected as they are not seen as marketable as novels, but these talented writes are proving to be masters at the art of an elegant, compelling short story. Check out these writers and collections for some engaging short story reads.
Wendy Erskine: Belfast newcomer
A super talented writer, Wendy Erskine is Belfast-based and she often chooses to depict the city and its people in her stories. She has a real knack for writing stories that feel real and true. She began writing seriously in her late 40s while teaching English and joined a workshop run by The Stinging Fly, which later published her debut collection, Sweet Home (2018). The book won the 2020 Butler Literary Award and was shortlisted for multiple prizes. Her debut novel, The Benefactors, is out in the summer of 2025.
Sweet Home (2018)
“Dark memories haunt these acutely observed portraits of love, loneliness and everyday ennui in Belfast”. (Lara Pawson, Guardian).
Wendy Erskine’s debut collection, Sweet Home, comprises ten stories set in East Belfast, focusing on the intricacies of everyday life. Her characters—beauty salon owners, widows, teenagers, and middle-class couples—navigate themes of loneliness, grief, and the desire for connection.
Erskine’s writing is noted for its sharp dialogue and understated prose, capturing the essence of her characters’ experiences. The stories often reveal the complexities beneath ordinary situations, offering insights into class, memory, and emotional resilience.
These stories taste of life.
Keywords: Poignant, addictive, funny, original.
Dance Move (2022)
In her second collection, Dance Move, Erskine continues to explore the lives of Belfast residents, delving into themes of memory, loss, and the passage of time. The eleven stories feature characters confronting personal histories and societal expectations.
Erskine’s prose remains precise and evocative, with a focus on the subtle moments that define her characters’ lives. The collection has been praised for its depth and the author’s ability to portray complex emotions with restraint.
Tessa Hadley: South-west storyteller
Tessa Hadley is a British author and Professor, renowned for her insightful explorations of family dynamics, memory, and the subtleties of everyday life. Born in Bristol in 1956, she began publishing fiction in her mid-forties, with her debut novel, Accidents in the Home, released in 2002. Her work is celebrated for its psychological depth, elegant prose, and nuanced portrayal of domestic and social relationships.
I love the confessional and documentarian style of Hadley’s writing: it’s precise, intelligent, and never frivolous. Her style shines really through in her short stories: she gets to the heart of the matter quickly.
Recently, I did a bit of research into what people were saying about Hadley as a writer. Others have also noticed that while her prose is high-quality, classic, and musical, her topics are quite ordinary: it’s this juxtaposition that’s so striking. One critic described her prose as very similar to classic 19th-century writers.
Married Love and Other Stories (2013)
In this collection you have an ill-advised marriage, a disappointing sexual encounter, a family photo: moments that are quite everyday and domestic. The intelligent prose elevates these scenes and Hadley absolutely cuts to the heart of the matter. Short stories can be difficult to read and write, but when you get them absolutely spot-on, they are really amazing to read.
This is a really good collection. I’ve read a couple of her short story collections and they all just seem to hang together with no twee overarching theme. It’s not an obvious set of stories and narratives to put together but there’s real life, vibrancy, and quiet intensity here.
After the Funeral (2023)
These stories are all varied, but they tend to follow the lives of women in moments of high stress or high emotion. I especially enjoyed the story about a woman going to see her ex-husband in his new house… A delicious relationship autopsy. Then there’s the three sisters in their old house while their mother dies in hospital. How will childhood rivalries surface?
The way Hadley builds atmosphere through setting and incisive emotional commentary is genius. Her stories feel “so real” – anchored in contemporary society, yet universal.
I think some of the subjects of these stories are ultimately relatively banal, but that just makes them all the more true and compelling. They say a lot without having to push out into the magical or surreal.
The Travelling Bag and Other Ghostly Stories (2017 edition) by Susan Hill
A collection of five spooky short stories from the master of classic horror with a contemporary twist, I loved the different themes Hill gets into in this collection. You may know Hill from her bestseller, The Woman in Black (adapted for stage and screen).
I think the Alice Baker story was my personal favourite of this collection: it brought a real chill down my spine in the way it played with urban horror. It really manages to make working at a city centre office block incredibly sinister, which is no mean feat,
There’s medical horror, family horror, ghostly visitations, and some murder too. A real great all-rounder of a collection with Hill’s trademark masterly prose.
Under The Jaguar Sun by Italo Calvino (1988)
Published as a collection, these stories were actually meant to make up a book that Calvino never finished: I cinque sensi (The Five Senses).
There are only three finished stories in the collection, but they pack a punch—vivid, sensual, strange. Each story was originally intended to explore one of the five senses, though Calvino sadly passed before he could complete the set. What we do get, though, is deeply imaginative and richly atmospheric.
The titular story, Under the Jaguar Sun, is all about taste—an unsettling, almost feverish journey through Mexico where food, desire, and death blur together. It’s weird and wonderful in a way that only Calvino can pull off.
Then there’s A King Listens, which dives into sound with a deeply internal, paranoid monologue. And The Name, The Nose, a wild and playful exploration of scent, identity, and longing.
Calvino’s stories aren’t about plot as much as they are about experience. Not your typical short story collection, but if you’re in the mood for something sensory, philosophical, and a little surreal—this is one to try.
Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales by P.D James (2017)
P.D James is a beloved crime author, known for her charismatic detective, Adam Dagliesh. Writing in the tradition of Agatha Christie, P.D James is a really astute crime writer.
This posthumous book is a great collection of six short stories from this master crime writer. These murderous tales are especially good for when you want to switch off with something entertaining and insightful. There’s just something about a murder that really works in a short story format: the quick building up of suspense for example.
I read these all very quickly, and the tales are fascinating and psychological, but not especially ghoulish. I love the creepy perspective of getting into the murderer’s head and I think “The Victim” is a masterclass in this.
Hope this got you excited about reading more short stories!
Leave a Comment