Review by Kate Durban of "In Their Absence" by Hannah Stevens

Countless people are lost every year. Hannah Stevens’s debut collection of short stories is a haunting exploration of what it means to be missing, both for those that disappear and those left behind. She follows her characters so closely that the reader can’t help but feel part of each devastating experience. Each story is breathtaking, and lingers in the memory long after the last beautiful page. 

One after another, the stories deal with yet another view of what it means to lose or be lost or to bear witness to loss: there is death, abduction, and abandonment. There is the couple on holiday who visit a café, where their toddler disappears from under the table when they are momentarily distracted. Then there is the hotel room where a man and a woman have sex after meeting in a bar. They drink and snort cocaine and then she jumps out of the window. And there are numerous others, each as painful and memorable as the last.

Hannah’s seemingly effortless prose brings her stories alive with devastating details that are both deeply authentic and agonisingly poignant. One couple, who are moving out of their house following the disappearance of their child, leave behind an empty swing in the back garden. The worn spots beneath it are being covered over by grass, now growing unimpeded by the feet of the missing child. There is the man who throws himself under a train, witnessed by the woman who innocently follows him to the platform. She likes his Fedora and picks up his still-warm coffee cup from the platform on which he stood just moments before.  The imagery is sparse but beautiful. 

The stories are sometimes connected which adds texture and augments the impact of each already powerful narrative The wife of the man in the fedora  receives his suicide note by text and doesn’t know which service to ask for when she dials 999.There is the story of a woman who runs away and joins the circus, followed by the story of her husband scanning the garden from which she has just disappeared. 

It might be tempting to avoid this book, which shines its lens so relentlessly into the darkness of what it means to be missing. But these stories are like jewels, small, but beautifully complex and bright. In them, perhaps we recognise our own secret desire to renounce our responsibilities, to disappear, as well as the losses we all inevitably experience in life.

About the reviewer
Kate Durban is a Cancer Wellbeing Specialist Nurse who lives in Northamptonshire with her husband and two dogs. She is currently completing an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester.

Review by Jon Wilkins of "High Spirits: A Round of Drinking Stories," ed. Karen Stevens and Jonathan Taylor

I have seen High Spirits advertised on social media for months and had always thought its sub title was A Round of Drinking Songs. A bit bold I thought, but I do enjoy a good song. So without reading the blurb, I assumed there would be plenty to choose from! Then when I received my copy, I realised it was Drinking Stories. Sucking up the disappointment I began to read them.

So Drinking Stories: would this be an uplifting, joyous approach to the theme of having a carousing time and the benefits of being let loose through alcohol? No. What I did learn is that, on a very basic level, drinking is not that good for your body, your mind or your soul. Just some of the outcomes in the short stories here include death through drinking too much, suicide, and a woman scarred when she is burnt, who loses an eye after excess consumption. There is an emboldened paedophile. There are catastrophes that follow people's divorce and the estrangement from their children. Another character is lost in an underground labyrinth, and presumed dead. We also see intoxication resulting in cheating on a dead husband with his brother, then infidelity with new neighbours. 

Though sometimes depressing, the stories are all very well written and surprising in every sense. If you did want to be uplifted, this is not the right book; if you want to read clever description and subtle depictions of relationships under pressure then this is the right book for you. We go deep into characters who, though under the spell of alcohol or alcoholics, are able to show life in a clear, even visceral way.

There is such variety. No two stories have the same theme: drink may be the cause of problems and is never the solution, but we see this in every which way. We see how children are affected. In "The Ballad of Barefoot Bob" by David Swann, it is not enough for young Bobby to have an alcoholic father; he also has to suffer his own mental torments. In "May Day" by Alison Moore, we see Gareth trying to do right by his daughter now living with his estranged wife and her new partner, battling the bottle and also his jealousy of the new man. He sinks into his own metaphorical and literal maze and we are left asking: does he survive or not? For me, the most evocative tale, "Bones" by Hannah Stevens, concerns Henry, who sees his drunken partner Bethan topple from his bedroom window to her death. It underlines the futility of drinking to oblivion.

This collection is a vibrant, thought-provoking set of stories. A collection that makes us think, makes us confront a way of life that is so self-destructive, yet so attractive until events take over and control is lost. You may not be singing along at the end of reading this book, but the stories will remain with you and are accessible in a way that that begs us to challenge and to discuss the outcomes. The editors have done a fine job in bringing these carefully crafted stories to us.


About the reviewer
Jon Wilkins is sixty-three. He has a gorgeous wife Annie and two beautiful sons, and loves to write. He is a retired teacher, lapsed Waterstone's bookseller and former Basketball Coach. He taught PE and English for twenty years and coached women’s basketball for over thirty years.  He has always loved books and reading.

Interview with Hannah Stevens

Hannah Stevens is a writer currently based in Leicester in the UK and has a PhD from the University of Leicester where she is also a tutor in creative writing. She has co-founded and currently co-runs Wind and Bones (http://windandbones.com/),  in collaboration with Dr. Will Buckingham. She writes short stories and flash fiction and has just completed her first book-length collection, In Their Absence. Her pamphlet collection, Without Makeup and Other Stories, was published in 2012 by Crystal Clear Creators, to critical acclaim. Her website is: http://hannahstevenswriter.com/ 

Interview with Sandra Pollock

SP:  When did you first know that you wanted to become a writer? 

HS:  Being or becoming a writer has been a gradual thing. It was a fluke that I started to write at all. It was something I enjoyed so I just kept doing it. 

SP:  What type of writing or genre first caught your interest and why? 

HS:  Poetry initially. I used to read lots of modern poetry. I love the Bloodaxe trilogy that started with Staying Alive. Poetry is a balm during difficult times, I think.  Later it was short stories. I mostly read short stories now because I love the form but I often go back to poetry.  

SP:  Who would you say has had the most influence on you as a writer?

HS:  Daphne Du Maurier. Her short story ‘The Birds’ bowled me over when I first read it and inspired me to try my hand at short story writing. I also like her novels but I love her short story collections in particular.  Joyce Carol Oates has also been a big influence. Her short stories are devastatingly brilliant and often explore tensions around gender and in the domestic sphere. They’re dark and immaculately crafted.

SP:  When did you begin to see yourself as a writer?

HS:  It’s been a gradual thing. I love to write and so just kept doing it. I don’t really think of myself as a writer generally, which is odd really because it’s a big part of what I do. 

SP:  Where did you study your writing?

HS:  I studied Creative Writing at De Montfort University initially.  Originally, I was just going to study English but that year DMU had just started to offer creative writing as a joint option. I had no idea I would love it so much. After my undergraduate degree I had quite a gap from studying because I did some travelling, working and hanging around with interesting people. I didn’t study a Master's degree and went straight into a PhD. I completed my PhD at the University of Leicester. 

SP:  What would you say is the main thing studying Creative Writing taught you or helped you with?

HS:  It was good for introducing me to new authors and forms of writing and for connecting me with other people who write. 

SP:  Where does the inspiration for your stories come from?

HS:  It really varies. It can be something that I’ve read in the news, a small interaction I’ve had with somebody, an image, a line in a song. Inspiration comes from so many different places. 

SP:  Most of your stories in the pamphlet Without Makeup and Other Stories are tinged with sadness some more than others.  Is this how you see life?

HS:  Though sad and difficult things happen to everybody, I think that I’m generally quite an optimist. The current political climate in view of the Conservative government and Brexit are definitely making this more difficult currently, though. I’m appalled by the Conservative government and how they are making people suffer. 

SP:  In Without Makeup and other Stories why did you go for six mini stories in place of, say two longer ones?  

HS:  It wasn’t a conscious decision: each story just felt ‘right’ I guess. I do find it easier and more satisfying to write shorter rather than longer pieces, though. 

SP:  What made you decide to create a pamphlet? 

HS:  It was actually the result of entering a competition run by the small press publishers Crystal Clear Creators and funded by Arts Council England. There were six winners in total. Individually we all worked with a writing mentor and wrote our resulting pamphlets. 

SP:  What did you need to learn about that you did not know before?

HS:  It was the first time I’d worked on a sustained writing project, rather than just ad hoc pieces. So that was interesting because it took sustained work to generate ideas and then edit a number of pieces at the same time. 

SP:  What advice would you give new writers?

HS:  I would encourage anyone who enjoys writing to continue to do it. It might be unlikely that you’ll be able to make a living solely from writing but if it makes you happy then find the time to do it. As much as possible do things that make you happy.  

About the interviewer

Sandra Pollock loves fiction, fantasy and poetry and is taking an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester.

Review by Hannah Stevens of "Used To Be" by Elizabeth Baines

Used To Be (published by Salt, 2015) is a collection packed with bursts of intense short stories, written in clean, sharp prose. The stories are immersive and gripping. I read this book in one sitting.

There is a breathlessness and urgency to the rhythms of this collection and stories are dark and full of damaged people. Most of the characters you will encounter on these pages don’t have names but in spite of this feel knowable: there are parts of me in these characters that I recognise.

The collection is punctuated with disturbing and dark description: in "Used To Be" – the title story – there is a "stomach flat as a teenage anorexic’s." In "That Turbulent Stillness" – "a hole was punched in the… day, and also her heart." In "Where The Starlings Fly" – "the sound of bickering haemorrhaged in." There is violence and wreckage in these stories but ultimately there is an undercurrent of redemption and hope: nothing in this collection is definite and, as in life, there are different and alternative endings and we can choose them.

About the reviewer
Hannah is from Leicester and is a PhD student in Creative Writing at Leicester University. She has a short story collection called Without Makeup and Other Stories (2012) and has had stories published in Crystal Voices: Ten Years of Crystal Clear Creators (2015) and The New Luciad (2015).

Review by Laura Millward of Hannah Stevens’ five stories in “The New Luciad: 2014/15”

When I tell people about Hannah Stevens’ collection of 5 stories in The New Luciad and that those 5 stories are on 3 pages they don’t believe it is possible. Stevens’ ability to create characters that you care about and empathise with in around 100 words is incredible.

Like all great works of art, Stevens’ writing gives us enough to start, but also allows the reader to add their own interpretation. In Wasps a small boy is in a car waiting for his dad. Stevens does not actually tell the reader that the child is a boy… the ability that Stevens has to encourage her reader to conjure up images is fantastic. This is the story that has really stayed with me, Your back really hurts now. You don’t know what you should do. What happens next? Stevens has written something that tells us so much, but still leaves us hanging and all this is in 94 words!

Another story that stayed with me is Robin. Opening on peaceful, hot sunny day, I was instantly in the garden with the protagonist. Suddenly the mood of the story changed with the discovery of a robin’s “ropes of tiny, white intestines” and a “thud” of a spade…

Bread has us witnessing what are perhaps the last minutes of a man’s life. “The room flips” the world is literally turned upside down as he may be reaching his final breath. And, again, we never know.

All of the stories are distinctly separate but all with the recurring theme of something or someone leaving. There is death, there is violence, and there are moments of compassion. You will be left with the feeling that you know the protagonists well when in fact you know nothing at all and this makes it flash fiction at its very best.

About the reviewer
Laura Millward was born in Northampton and has lived in Leicester for 7 years. She is a big fan of art, books, tattoos and coffee. Lots of coffee.

Review by Jennifer Morris of "Without Makeup and Other Stories" by Hannah Stevens

Hannah Stevens' pamphlet is available from Crystal Clear Creator's website

Each one of this collection of six short stories left me wanting to know more about its characters. Stevens tells us little about what lies on the surface of her protagonists but so much about their inner depth. She does this without sentimentality, refusing to tell us how to feel, and demonstrating a respect for her reader.

The pieces are laced with beautiful prose, allowing the reader to see the world in new ways. In The Noises of Being Torn, Stevens describes the emptiness of a collapsing relationship in the line, "You can’t tie someone to nothing and expect them to stay." At other times, she shows a deep understanding of human emotion and behaviour, describing how the cheated-on woman in the story decides "to bargain with the calendar for a bit more time" as people often do when a difficult change is imminent.

It is possible that the stories are linked, but this isn’t made clear, leaving the reader to decide. However, there is a common thread of self-destruction running through these stories. Alcoholism or alcohol as self medication is seen in four of the six stories and destructive or broken relationships feature in all but one. Death and violence are also featured throughout, sometimes just in the thoughts of the characters, for instance in Lilac Tree the protagonist wonders "what it would be like to be slapped and spat at."

On the title page, the writer states: "Because if you hadn’t asked the right questions, we’d never even know." In this collection of stories, Stevens gives us an extremely engaging glimpse of what can lie behind, "I’m fine thanks." She shows us the truths we hide when we are afraid of how things will unravel if we reveal ourselves Without Makeup.

About the reviewer
Jennifer Morris was born in Leicester and has lived here most of her life. She has a husband and two children and a mad dog called Florence. She enjoys baking and drinking red wine with her friends.