Short stories are often considered an ephemeral form: in the twentieth century, in particular, they played a significant role in the dynamism and impact of transatlantic literary magazines, which in turn shaped the medium of the short story and careers of its writers. As legacy media is made accessible by digitisation and online magazines provide new opportunities alongside print magazines, the short story is thriving – but what guarantees our access to the long history of the short story, and especially of short stories by women, whose work is often less anthologised or collected?

Against the backdrop of the unique Troup Horne short story collection at Senate House Library, this event celebrates the work of women writers and the presses that publish them, mingling contemporary voices with keeping histories and legacies alive. From Leonora Carrington, Maeve Brennan and Mavis Gallant to Kadija Sesay, Juliet Jacques and So Mayer, we’ll enjoy the long and winding history of the short story.

The event will be comprised of two discussions and a reading: it will open with a conversation between four editors who are significantly shaping the landscape by republishing out-of-print women short story writers, from British Library Publishing, Daunt Books Publishing, Peninsula Press and Silver Press, chaired by Gill Partington, and be followed by readings by Juliet Jacques, So Mayer and Kadija Sesay, who will then be in discussion with short story researcher Ben Fried, about short story writing, editing and publishing now, and the futures of the short story that they hope to see.

Speaker Biographies

British Library Publishing actively publish from the Library’s collection to bring forgotten stories and original non-fiction to new audiences. They publish thought-provoking books to showcase unexpected treasures from the Library collections.

Daunt Books Publishing is an independent publisher based in London. Founded in 2010, they grew out of Daunt Books. They publish new writing in English and in translation, and modern classics in bold editions with introductions from the best contemporary writers.

Peninsula Press is an independent publisher of boundary-pushing fiction and essays, mixing contemporary writers with archival finds such as David Wojnarowicz’s The Waterfront Journals, Mark Hyatt’s Love, Leda and two volumes by Maeve Brennan.

Silver Press is an independent feminist publisher, based in London, whose list includes Leonora Carrington, Audre Lorde, Nell Dunn, Chantal Akerman, Diane di Prima, Akwugo Emejulu, Ursula K. Le Guin, m. nourbeSe Philip, and Pauline Oliveros.

Ben Fried is a British Academy Newton International Fellow at the Institute of English Studies, where he is undertaking a research project on “Migrant Editors: Postwar Migration and the Making of Anglophone Literatures, 1967-1989.” This project draws on numerous archives and original interviews to explore the postwar transformation of London’s publishing houses and magazines by immigrants from the wider Anglophone world, among them Margaret Busby (Allison & Busby), Carmen Callil (Virago Press), Sonny Mehta (Picador), and Bill Buford (Granta magazine).

Juliet Jacques (b. Redhill, Surrey in 1981) is a writer, filmmaker, broadcaster and academic based in London. She has published six books, including Trans: A Memoir (2015), two short story collections including Variations (2021) and The Woman in the Portrait (2024), Front Lines: Trans Journalism 2007-2021 (2022), and a novella, Monaco (2023). Her fiction, journalism and essays have appeared in the Guardian (including her ‘Transgender Journey’ column, longlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2011), New York Times, Frieze, London Review of Books and many other publications; her short films have screened in galleries and festivals across the world. She teaches at the Royal College of Art and elsewhere, hosted the arts discussion programme Suite (212) on Resonance 104.4fm, and is a co-host of Novara FM. She has played football for Clapton Community FC, Horley Town and Surrey.

So Mayer is a writer, editor, bookseller, film curator and organiser based in London. Their first collection of short stories Truth & Dare was published by Cipher Press in 2023, and longlisted for the 2024 Republic of Consciousness Prize. With Adam Zmith, So co-edited Unreal Sex for Cipher in 2021, an anthology of LGBTIQ+ erotic science fiction, fantasy and horror stories, and with Sarah Shin, So co-edited Space Crone (Silver Press, 2023), a collection of Ursula K. Le Guin’s essays, which is a finalist for the 2024 Locus Award for Non-Fiction. So is head of sales and outreach at Silver, a bookseller at Burley Fisher Books, and a member of queer feminist film curation collective Club Des Femmes. Their recent short fiction has appeared in Extra Teeth, Lunate and Gutter, as well as in a Belgian digital audio theatre production.

Gill Partington is Fellow in Book History at the Institute of English Studies. Her research focuses on unorthodox histories of reading and unconventional book formats, and she is co-founder and editor of Inscription: Journal of Material Text. 

Kadija Sesay’s doctoral research was on Black British Publishers and Pan-Africanism. She is the Publications Manager for Inscribe/Peepal Tree, publisher and editor of short stories and anthologies including Dreams, Miracles and Jazz: New Adventures in African Fiction and Glimpse: An Anthology of Black British Speculative Fiction. She has published her own short stories, poetry and essays in anthologies and a poetry collection, Irki. She is a co-founder of Mboka Festival in Gambia, and founder of the International Black Speculative Writers Festival and founder of an app, ‘AfriPoeTree’. She has received awards and fellowships for her work in the creative arts, her research and has judged several prizes including being the resident judge for the SI Leeds Literary Prize and The Caine Prize for African Writing.