Pondweed
Page 24
LISA BLOWER is an award-winning short story writer and novelist. Her debut collection, It’s Gone Dark Over Bill’s Mother’s, pays homage to her Potteries childhood and features ‘Barmouth’ (shortlisted for the BBC Short Story Award), ‘Abdul’ (longlisted for the Sunday Times Award), and ‘Broken Crockery’ (winner, The Guardian National Short Story Competition). Her novel Sitting Ducks was shortlisted for the Arnold Bennett Prize, the Rubery, and longlisted for The Guardian’s Not the Booker and the People’s Book Prize. She is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Wolverhampton University where she champions working-class fictions and regional voices. If she had a pound for every time she has travelled the Pondweed journey, she would be a millionaire. She lives in Shrewsbury.
Copyright
First published in 2020 by
Myriad Editions
www.myriadeditions.com
Myriad Editions An imprint of New Internationalist Publications The Old Music Hall, 106–108 Cowley Rd, Oxford OX4 1JE
Copyright © Lisa Blower 2020
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN (hardback): 978–1–912408–86–3
ISBN (ebook): 978–1–912408–73–3
Designed and typeset in Palatino
by www.twenty-sixletters.com
More from Lisa Blower
It’s Gone Dark Over Bill’s Mother’s by Lisa Blower
With a sharp eye and tough warmth, Lisa Blower strikes a new chord in regional and working-class fiction. In this fabulous collection of her award-winning short stories she makes the bleak funny, and brings to life the silent histories and harsh realities of those living on the margins.
From the wise, witty and outspoken Nan of ‘Broken Crockery’, who has lived and worked in Stoke-on-Trent for all of her ninty-two years, to happy hooker Ruthie in ‘The Land of Make Believe’, to sleep-deprived Laura in ‘The Trees in the Wood’, to young mum Roxanne in ‘The Cherry Tree’, the working-class matriarch appears in many shapes and forms, and always with a stoicism that is hard to break down.
‘Beautifully written from inside – real people, ordinary homes. Set pieces, hilarious and tragic – the caravan site, the spring cleaning, the drinking game. Each is crafted to perfection. These are short stories to die for.’
– Kit de Waal
‘Her stories are at times the laugh-out-loud funny of Alan Bennett and, at others, the achingly sad of the great David Constantine.’
– Paul McVeigh
‘If you enjoy funny, tough, sharp, surprising and unsentimental writing about family life, buy this book.’
– Chris Power
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