Fancy a trip to Pluto? Or how about a fearful drive along a stretch of country road, or a long, hot, dusty walk to Nairobi? Unless you prefer to go to church with a strange woman in green tights, her hair alive with electricity. Here you have 34 stories, each one a journey, whether planned or unexpected, funny or frightening, real or figurative, shared or dreadfully alone. ‘They had a long journey ahead of them’ was the prompt: the writers here, from award-winning authors to exciting new t...

Between 1995 and 2002, Dark Terrors: The Gollancz Book of Horror was Britain's premier non-themed anthology of original horror stories.Over six volumes, it published some of the biggest names in the field as well as many newcomers who have gone on to forge impressive careers in the genre.Edited by the World Fantasy Award-winning team of Stephen Jones and David A. Sutton, Dark Terrors established itself as a cutting-edge market for some of the most literary and disturbing fi...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2017ROUGH TRADE BOOK OF THE MONTHLRB BOOK OF THE WEEKCAUGHT BY THE RIVER BOOK OF THE MONTHSHORTLISTED FOR THE COLLYER BRISTOW PRIZEThis Is Memorial Device, the debut novel by David Keenan, is a love letter to the small towns of Lanarkshire in the west of Scotland in the late 1970s and early 80s as they were temporarily transformed by the endless possibilities that came out o...

‘Fuck everyone from Holden Caulfield to Bridget Jones, fuck all the American and English phoney fictions that claim to speak for us; they don’t know the likes of us exist and they never did. We are who we are because we grew up the Stornoway way. We do not live in the back of beyond, we live in the very heart of beyond …’Meet R Stornoway, drink-addled misfit, inhabitant of the Hebridean Isle of Lewis, and meandering man fighting to break free of an island he just can’t see...

Waiting by the canal in Malmö, a young cellist meets a disorientated junkie. The encounter sends him into a turmoil of memories, voices and associations. As the cellist oscillates between present and past, he is paralysed by doubt and confusion and he begins to question his own place in society. From sprawling social housing estates, via basement clubs and squat parties, and culminating in a dramatic role reversal, Wretchedness is a delirious trip through Europe's underbelly. With a rhythm...

Humour, gender, sexuality, sensuality, identity, racism, cultural difference: when do any of these things ever come together to equal poetry? When Jackie Kay's part of the equation. Darling brings together into a vibrant new book many favourite poems from her four Bloodaxe collections, "The Adoption Papers", "Other Lovers", "Off Colour" and "Life Mask", as well as featuring new work, some previously uncollected poems, and some lively poetry for younger readers. Kay's poems draw on her own ...

Featuring brand new short stories from Kevin Barry, Eimear McBride, Belinda McKeon, Lisa McInerney, Danielle McLaughlin, Stuart Neville, Sally Rooney, Kit de Waal and many more.Ireland is going through a golden age of writing: that has never been more apparent. I wanted to capture something of the energy of this explosion, in all its variousness...Following her own acclaimed short-story collection, Multitudes...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE TED HUGHES PRIZE 2015Tabard Inn to Canterb'ry Cathedral,Poet pilgrims competing for free picks,Chaucer Tales, track by track, it's the remixFrom below-the-belt base to the topnotch;I won't stop all the clocks with a stopwatchwhen the tales overrun, run offensive,or run clean out of steam, they're authenticand we're keeping it real, reminisce this:Chaucer Tales were an unfinished busines...

‘A natural storyteller with a Sedaris-like eye for black humour. There are sharp splinters of comic relief … compelling and nuanced.” Edel Coffey, Irish TimesQuick-witted, charismatic and generous; angry, vicious and hurt; in pubs all over Cork City, Noelle McCarthy's mother Carol rages against her life and everything she has lost. Soon after leaving college, in the early years of the millennium, Noelle flees. Even on the other side of the world, with fame...

Shatter a mirror, and rearrange the pieces. What shapes will you find in the splintered glass?Sinister forces roam London's streets, skulking through the neon-lit rain. They are not alone. Haunted by memories of the man who abandoned her, Amber goes walking in the deep night. The phone box she enters takes her on a journey she could never have imagined, one in which the past and the future will be rewritten. Others follow in her footsteps, their lives intertwining, and the...

A young man reluctantly on his way to an online date, tries to strike up a conversation with a girl on the tube. Despite her initial reluctance, she opens up slightly when she finds out his destination. As the train carries them onwards, both find their conversation moving them towards an unexpected conclusion.

We have always valued the short story as a way to make sense of the world, and our place in it. This anthology by leading Black and Asian British writers is filled with stories, which, like life, rarely end in the way we might expect...JACOB ROSS, KADIJA SESAY, SENI SENEVIRATNE, LEONE ROSS, DESIREE REYNOLDS, SAI MURRAY, RAMAN MUNDAIR, BERNARDINE EVARISTO, MONICA ALI, DINESH ALLIRAJAH, MULI AMAYE, LYNNE E. BLACKWOOD, JUDITH BRYAN, JACQUELINE CLARKE, JACQUELINE CROOKS, FRED D'AGUIAR,...