Tag: Still

Still: ‘The Staircase Treatment’ by Myriam Frey

3rd October 2012 / David Hebblethwaite / 1 Comment

The photograph: a staircase viewed as it curves around into a new flight. We can’t see where the stairs lead, only that they are shabby and dusty.

The story: after our narrator gave birth, she developed memory problems. Thinking of different words as she climbed stairs helped her recover – but she lost touch with her son as an adult. Now she goes to visit him for the first time in years. There’s a neat reversal in this story, and I like Frey’s use of the staircase as an image and venue.

Link: Myriam Frey’s website / interview with Frey on her story

This is one of a series of posts on the anthology Still. Click here to read the rest.

Still: ‘Corridor’ by Evie Wyld

2nd October 2012 / David Hebblethwaite / 2 Comments

The photograph: the end of a wood-panelled corridor. Light streams in through the windows in a door to the left; but the dark wood and the solid wall ahead make the overall feeling oppressive.

The story: a very short piece whose narrator describes how her childhood self tried to keep bad dreams at bay by imagining a corridor as a neutral space. Wyld keeps the atmosphere suitably unsettling, and any hope she offers comes with its own nagging doubt.

Link: Evie Wyld’s website

This is one of a series of posts on the anthology Still. Click here to read the rest.

Still: ‘Sanctuary’ by Andrew Blackman

29th September 2012 / David Hebblethwaite / 1 Comment

The photograph: a stopped clock on a wall. The wall is bare white, apart from trails of rusty water streaming down from the base of the clock.

The story: an armed man being chased by the police claims sanctuary in a modern church. This story is really enriched by its context, because, like the Still exhibition (albeit in a very different way!), it’s about a space being repurposed. I also love the way Blackman transforms the imagery of dirt trailing down a wall; the ending of ‘Sanctuary’ becomes as much a tableau as one of Bakker’s photographs.

Link: Andrew Blackman’s website / interview with Blackman on his story

This is one of a series of posts on the anthology Still. Click here to read the rest.

Still: ‘My Wife the Hyena’ by Nina Killham

27th September 2012 / David Hebblethwaite / 1 Comment

The photograph: through an open office door, we see a dusty desk with a cardboard folder placed in front of the chair. The eye is drawn beyond the desk to an empty coat-stand in the corner of the room.

The story: a man tells of his relationship with his wife, who is indeed a hyena. I love the matter-of-fact tone of this story (‘Her cooking is never memorable. It is difficult to cook with four paws’). What Killham describes is absurd, doesn’t make sense even on its own terms if you think about it too closely… But, for those four pages, the author convinces you it’s all true.

Link: Nina Killham’s website

This is one of a series of posts on the anthology Still. Click here to read the rest.

Still: ‘Midnight Hollow’ by Mark Piggott

26th September 2012 / David Hebblethwaite / 2 Comments

The photograph: a close-up of the view through a keyhole. The doors and corridors beyond could as well be a set of abstract shapes.

The story: an old man named Edward explores the empty town hall where he used to be a caretaker. He finds his old floor buffer, and gives the place a polish for old times’ sake. This piece is a poignant evocation of time passing, and reflecting on what’s been lost in a life. And the ending is a real shock to the system

Link: Mark Piggott’s website / interview with Piggott on his story

This is one of a series of posts on the anthology Still. Click here to read the rest.

Roelof Bakker (ed.), Still: Short Stories Inspired by Photographs of Vacated Places (2012)

26th September 2012 / David Hebblethwaite / 36 Comments

Still is the first title from Negative Press London, and it’s a very intriguing prospect indeed. Artist-photographer Roelof Bakker invited contributors to write a short story inspired by one of his photographs of Hornsey Town Hall in north London (there are examples on Bakker’s website). So this anthology is the book of Still the exhibition, but it also gives Bakker’s images a new context. For me, the mix of writers is so interesting that I want to do a story-by-story review. Here are the stories:

Mark Piggott, ‘Midnight Hollow‘
Nina Killham, ‘My Wife the Hyena’
Andrew Blackman, ‘Sanctuary’
Evie Wyld, ‘Corridor’
Myriam Frey, ‘The Staircase Treatment’
Jan van Mersbergen, ‘Pa-dang’
Ava Homa, ‘A Rose for Raha’
Nicholas Royle, ‘The Blind Man’
James Miller, ‘From the Archive‘
Tania Hershman, ‘Switchgirls’
Mary Rechner, ‘The Playwright Sits Next to Her Sister’
Aamer Hussein, ‘The Tree at the Limit’
Richard Beard, ‘Lift Under Inspection Do Not Touch’
Preeta Samarasan, ‘Odd Job’
James Higgerson, ‘Noise’
S.J. Butler, ‘A Job Worth Doing’
David Rose, ‘Sere’
Sarah Ladipo Manyika, ‘Morayo’
Justin Hill, ‘Waiting’
Jan Woolf, ‘Ten a Day’
Barbara Manghami-Ruwende, ‘Opportunity’
Claire Massey, ‘In the Dressing Room Mirror’
Nicholas Hogg, ‘The Owl at the Gate’
S.L. Grey, ‘Still’
Deborah Klaassen, ‘How to Make a Zombie’
Xu Xi, ‘Winter Moon’

The titles of those stories will turn into links as I work my way through the anthology. I’m looking forward to the exploration.

%d