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Catherine will join the line-up of writers for the Bangalore Literature Festival which takes place on 14-15 December. Authors include a host of Indian bestsellers and Internationals - a stunning event to round off a busy literary year!
Catherine will be joining another exciting edition of the AUSTRALIAN SHORT STORY FESTIVAL in Perth in November, a celebration of the form through the work of the country’s most talented writers. A series of events examining all aspects of the creation and publication of stories, at one of Australia’s warmest and most inclusive festivals.
The Carnal Fugues joins four other brilliant Australian books on the shortlist for this year’s prestigious PRIME MINISTER’S LITERARY AWARDS in the fiction category. An unbelievable feat and an achievement for short story writers! The judges had this to say: The sentences in The Carnal Fugues are darkly brilliant, biting, vital, comic. They flash along, discharging an energy that is full of sex and savagery. Different people from different places are all captured in these same currents of desire, laid bare to their own bodies, their sensual minds.
The sentences make up longer stories – intricately structured, narratively complex – as well as micro-stories less than a page long; these are very different difficulties, and Catherine McNamara surmounts them both with skill. What is most delicious in these stories is the element of surprise: at no moment as a reader can we be sure where we’re being taken; at no moment do we feel we’re in anything but masterly hands.
Gathered over a decade of writing, Catherine McNamara’s short stories in The Carnal Fugues are a repository of energy and eros that should power writers and readers for generations to come.
Catherine will be joining authors Lindz McLeod (short stories) and Kristine Esser Slentz (poetry) as a judge in this year’s F(r)iction Series Writing Contest with prizes totalling $1600! Catherine will be Flash Fiction Judge. Entries open in July 2024 and close 1st November 2024, with winners announced in April 2025. For submission guidelines look here. Send me your best stories ! Good luck!
Bookings have opened for Italian Writing Retreats - we open from late May 2024 to mid-October 2024. See web page for details and CONTACT page to get in touch. A five-night stay in the Veneto countryside, in an art-filled farmhouse surrounded by vineyards, with a chance to visit Venice and nearby Vicenza, to hike in the hills or just drink Spritz Campari! This year Venice’s Art Biennale is open from April to November so why not make a visit on the way in or out?
Why are some writers so original and alluring? Why does other sex writing make us cringe? How can your writing achieve balance and sensuality that engages the reader? Join Catherine McNamara for a masterclass series that will develop your voice through stimulating in-class exercises, critiquing of your work, and the development of a submission-worthy story. You will study style and technique of contemporary greats and saucy classics.
This four-week course will guide beginner and intermediate writers through the process of writing sex and sensuality. From overcoming the fears that keep us from putting sexuality into our writing, all the way to submission tactics, this online writing workshop will give you confidence to develop a successful draft.
Very grateful for Debra Adelaide’s astonishing review of The Carnal Fugues in the Australian Book Review.
Intriguing and cosmopolitan, her stories are infused with historical weight and a worldly wisdom suggestive of timeless, even epic, narrative. They also reflect a keenly observant, well-travelled life (McNamara has lived and worked in France and West Africa, and currently runs a writing retreat in Italy.)
RETREAT WEST’S SIXTH ONLINE FLASH FEST IS HAPPENING ON SUNDAY 3RD MARCH 2024. WHERE IS IT HAPPENING? ON ZOOM. WHAT TIME IS IT? 10.00 – 18.00 (UK TIME)
Catherine McNamara’s session (13.15-14.45) is called Writing Between the Cracks. We will discuss how crossing borders can enrich our writing; how being on the outside can transform us into observers who are equipped with the tools required to write alluring fiction, teaching us to observe, to wait, to listen. We will learn how to be fearless and clear-minded in the task of creating meaningful fiction. A session where we will think about observation, empathy and the purpose of our work.
TICKETS Everyone who buys a ticket for the live event will also be sent the recordings afterwards, or you may buy a Recordings Only ticket. Ticket Costs: £25 Recordings Only / £35 Community Members / £40 Non-Members
I call this series the jetlag series - three short flash pieces written before dawn in early winter after my trip to Australia. Very grateful to the editors for choosing these stories. It’s always a massive buzz to have work accepted, and I know how much reading editors do to make their selections!
‘Our Lady of the Snows’ in Tiny Molecules
‘Negligent’ in Ghost Parachute
‘Istanbul’ in MoonPark Review
Catherine will be reading from The Carnal Fugues at Vienna’s wonderful Shakespeare & Company Booksellers, Sterngasse 2. Introducing Catherine will be Australian writer Sylvia Petter, author of All the Beautiful Liars and Co-Director of the 13th International Conference on the Short Story, Vienna. The reading will take place on Australia Day, and the authors will also discuss what it means to be ‘Australian’ abroad, and at home.
From the 2023 introduction by guest editor Catherine McNamara:
This is a vast menagerie of potent works, ranging from the complexities of fish bone ingestion to the murderous insouciance of mermaids. As a whole, there is a feeling that our world is suffering, our family bonds are constricted and rueful, we still long to satisfy/break from our parents; some of us have been uprooted or span the friction between cultures; women are at risk, in frequent danger, defenseless—until they collude and fight back. There is an arduous search for love and its sustenance, the flux of depression and the nearby presence of the dead, as well as an unexpected abundance of wolves. There is often an awareness of the rifts between our inner and outer realities, and our helplessness as we traverse between the two. In all, this is a bold, sumptuous array of contexts where I found true representations of realities that were dented, pulled out of shape, crystallizing, captivating.
Best Small Fictions is the first-ever contemporary anthology solely dedicated to anthologizing the best internationally published short hybrid fiction in a given calendar year. Now in its ninth year of existence, Best Small Fictions features the best microfiction, flash fiction, haibun stories, and prose poetry from around the world. Published by Alternating Current Press, order your copy here !
Catherine will be joined by Puncher & Wattmann publisher Ed Wright to speak about The Carnal Fugues, short stories and being an Australian writer living abroad. Join us at Better Read than Dead Bookshop in Newtown for a drink and avid discussion.
Catherine will join Australian and international short story luminaries at the Australian Short Story Festival in Adelaide, South Australia, in November. An wonderful opportunity to share short story passion with other writers and send The Carnal Fugues out into the world. Check out the exciting line-up!
To finish off the retreat season if you bring a writer friend I will add a mentoring session (90mins) and story critique (one short story or three flash fictions). Autumn is when the heat tapers off but days are still light-filled and warm, all the better to write short fiction, go for a good hike, visit Venice and drink good wine!
The Carnal Fugues is a wayward, wanton selection of stories grounded in displacement, desire, and the wish coursing through us to accede to the state of love. There is torment and illness, crude reality and distant fragrant places, peopled by characters that reside close to our bones, our psyches, our flesh. Are we an unthinking species, condemned to misunderstand one another? Or do our near misses amount to valid templates for modern existence? There is diseased love, frugal love, contorted love, where the inroads of the past – and convention – colour and confine us; there is the love of life in the face of death, and the persistence of our carnal compulsions.
Catherine has been invited to be Guest Editor of this year’s prestigious Best Small Fictions Anthology 2023, Editor in Chief Nathan Leslie and Managing Editor Michelle Elvy, to be published by Alternating Current Press in October this year.
Best Small Fictions is the first-ever contemporary anthology solely dedicated to anthologizing the best internationally published short hybrid fiction in a given calendar year. Now in its ninth year of existence, Best Small Fictions features the best microfiction, flash fiction, haibun stories, and prose poetry from around the world.
Originally founded by Tara L. Masih, Best Small Fictions is now steered by series editor Nathan Leslie, who has served in this role since 2019. Guest editors have included Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Olen Butler (2015), PEN/Malamud Award-winner Stuart Dybek (2016), PEN/Malamud Award-winner Amy Hempel (2017), two-time Pushcart Prize-winner Aimee Bender (2018), PEN/Faulkner-nominee Rilla Askew (2019), Sonder Press operator Elena Stiehler (2020), PEN/Bingham Prize-winner Rion Amilcar Scott (2021), and Bridport Prize-winner Elaine Chiew (2022). For the 2023 edition, we’re pleased to welcome Catherine McNamara as the guest editor!
Many of us look to our own lives for starting points, triggers or material for our stories. Is this a bad thing? What are the dangers entailed here? Catherine will lead a 2-hour session investigating the problems that can crop up, including perspective, distance and true fiction. Where do we stop and where does our fiction begin? Is it okay to plumb your life experience or the lives of others? How can this limit or enrich your work? This session will include discussion and prompt exercises, and will challenge you to rethink your creative techniques.
Writing retreat bookings are open for this year! First bookings available from Sunday May 22nd and going through the steamy Veneto summer towards cooler October. Individual writer retreats from Sunday-Friday to suit your dates. And also Flash Fiction Workshops for 3-4 people in an Italian farm house full of West African art and photography. Readings in the evening! Onsite food and wine, and optionals including a day-trip to Venice, an afternoon hike in the Euganei Hills, a trip to nearby Vicenza for gelato and a stroll. Or extra mentoring and critiquing specific to your project. We look forward to seeing you! For booking info go to CONTACT page. Grazie!
A Kind of Shelter Whakaruru-taha
An anthology of new writing for a changed world
Edited by Witi Ihimaera and Michelle Elvy
Sixty-eight writers and eight artists gather at a hui in a magnificent cave-like dwelling or meeting house. In the middle is a table, the tēpu kōrero, from which the rangatira speak; they converse with honoured guests, and their rangatira-kōrero embody the tāhuhu, the over-arching horizontal ridge pole, of the shelter. In a series of rich conversations, those present discuss our world in the second decade of this century; they look at decolonisation, indigeneity, climate change . . . this is what they see.
Read a collaborative contribution by Catherine McNamara and Ghazaleh Golbaksh on ‘Overturning Motherhood’ - it was a great joy to write this dark creative non-fiction piece together!
Catherine’s short fiction appears in two fab anthologies published recently: ‘Of Nooses and Baby Fat’ in HOME Lifespan Vol. 7 by Pure Slush, and ‘Tales from Bodri Beach’ (2011) and ‘Propellor’ (2021) in A Cluster of Lights, edited by Michelle Elvy and John Wentworth Chapin, also from Pure Slush, a series of 10-years-on stories. Both wonderful collections of work and beautiful volumes to behold.
One-hour weekly Flash Fiction online workshops with Litro’s Award winning Flash Friday Editor, Catherine McNamara, where you will learn techniques to write flash fiction and tools to confidently put your work out there.
There are a thousand and one reasons not to write. It’s hard. Not enough time. Too tired. It’s lonely. There’s no point. These are all true, but to publish a story, you have to write one (probably several). Every story started as a blank page. This course will be a mix of pragmatic exercises to understand, through discussion and workshops, what is impeding your writing practice. Each week we will have writing exercises to get those blank pages filled and practical examples of how to get those now-filled pages to be good enough for publishers and agents to take seriously.
He rose early when the morning felt fresh and uninvaded. He was stiff. His windows were high, cutting him across the chest, the sky lay scrolled upon the roofs, a helix over the city. He opened one of the sashes to hear its thrum. Just before dawn this thrum stopped and isolated sounds arose. To him these were the sounds of love, grief, regret.
Today his daughter Bethsabée was passing by after school. He felt this with a charged heaviness. It was not that he felt no responsibility, but the child was not a part of his life. He knew they shared traits. Though their skins were different shades he knew she was of him, as did she. After the child’s mother left he had entered a long period of incarceration that no love had entered. It had been shoved under the door on a brutal metal dish, it had pierced him in slices of light.
In January 2023 I will be back at the favolosa Casa Ana to mentor a group of up to 10 international writers. Anne’s hideaway is in a mountain village in the Alpujarra between Malaga and Grenada, with the most beautiful sweeping views, deliciously healthy food, gorgeous hikes and light and instant inspiration. I will be leading group discussions around the fireplace, but mostly you will be working at length on your projects. One-to-one mentoring is optional. Winter cosiness is included! Do make your bookings here: Casa Ana
Join me again for a session with Amanda Saint’s Retreat West Zoom Workshop series. An intense hour-long session where we’ll be speaking about voice and authenticity in today’s writing world. What makes us listen to voice? What makes us believe in character and engage with a story? How do we hit the right note when we begin a flash fiction piece, and sustain this throughout? How do we transpose experience and knowledge into effective story? Are we allowed to borrow voices? What is the difference between invention and appropriation? What is the zone where voice becomes real, reliable, relatable? Join this enquiry into authenticity and voice with a series of exercises to make your stories agile and engaged.
Though I missed the event last week, my short story ‘Vevey’ was placed second in this year’s Willesden Herald Short Story Prize! Winners and finalists are published in New Short Stories 12, available at your nearest bookshop. The story speaks of homelessness from two diverse perspectives: a wealthy Moroccan Jewish woman whose just-deceased husband has embezzled their money and rendered her homeless, and the local train station clochard, who has a frightening connection to the protagonist. Looking forward to receiving my copy and reading the other works. A lovely way to swing into autumn !
I’ve been resident Flash Friday editor for Litro Online since late 2016 and this year Litro is a spotlight magazine in the BEST SMALL FICTIONS 2022 ANTHOLOGY. Read my interview with BSF and Litro Editor-in-Chief Eric Akoto in this year’s anthology.
‘The Question’, originally published in Ellipsis Zine in December 2021, was selected to be in this year’s Best Small Fictions Anthology. Joining this array of fantastic authors is an unexpected honour! For short fiction aficionados copies are available here.
Summer retreats have started again! Our first group has been a flash fiction boot camp and we look forward to hosting other writers over the summer. Retreats generally go from Sunday to Friday. We have single writer retreats for you to work on a project or hone your work, flash fiction boot camp for small groups (max 4 students), or an inspiring fiction writing retreat with Tom Vowler in early September. Retreats include onsite food, optional excursion to Venice or a hike in the nearby hills. And gelato! Contact page for info** or read through the relevant pages.
‘The Question’, first published in Ellipsis Zine in December 2021, has been selected for the Best Small Fictions 2022. Absolutely thrilled that this little story will be in this outstanding anthology this year.
Why are some writers so original and alluring? Why does other sex writing make us cringe? How can your writing achieve balance and sensuality that engages the reader? Join Catherine McNamara for a masterclass series that will develop your voice through stimulating in-class exercises, critiquing of your work, and the development of a submission-worthy story. You will study style and technique of contemporary greats and saucy classics.
This four-week course will guide beginner and intermediate writers through the process of writing sex and sensuality. From overcoming the fears that keep us from putting sexuality into our writing, all the way to submission tactics, this online writing workshop will give you confidence to develop a successful draft.
INFO HERE
*10% off for new students - just use the code WINTER
