"Raconteur (issue 2)" (Raconteur publications, 1994)

This paperback (partly backed by "The European" newspaper) has articles, stories by famous authors (Ruth Rendell, John Mortimer, etc) and prizewinning stories from a competition that ran. It was published quarterly and was available in newsagents, etc. I don't think it lasted long. The pieces are mainstream.

The first article (about Writers Block) is by Graham Lord. He writes about Harold Brodkey (after a well-reviewed short story collection he took 27 years to produce his 837 page first novel), Casaubon in Middlemarch, Salinger, etc. Many writers have a fear of publishing rather than an inability to write. They fear they can't live up to the hype. Salinger wrote in 1974 that "There is a marvellous peace in not publishing. Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I have to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure." Dr Anthony Storr ("The Dynamics of Creation") thought that poets are especially vulnerable. Dannie Abse thought that poets are susceptible because "so many do very good early work then fall off. Maybe it's a fear of reviewers"

Rendell's piece was pedestrian. GW Fraser's was fun. The stories by Joe O'Donnell (an incident at a beach, largely from the perspective of a trinket-seller) and Sonia Melchett were good. John Campbell's story was too long. Jules Hardy's "Black Opal" starts slowly, then lurches twice, ending in Dreamtime. By the end it had impressed me. It won 1st prize. Sally Cline's piece has a narrator of a different gender to the author, for a change. I didn't like the pieces by Brian Birch, Dawn Dutchman, FJA Bateman, Roy Barnes or Ione Banner (the latter piece had an unlikely plot, insufficiently justified psychologically). There was too much explanation for my liking, too much show and tell.

Alice Thomas Ellis reviews some short story books. She writes that "Only good gossips can write compelling short stories" and "I do not enjoy having to work at short stories; I like them clear". Alice Munro's book is too much hard work. Preferable is Carol Lake's "Switchboard operators".