Flying High

Leonard Tyler

SOMEONE TO SEE YOU (#litres_trial_promo)

Isa Moynihan

NORTHERN LIGHT, SOUTHERN COMFORT (#litres_trial_promo)

Sheila Kelley

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Foreword (#ulink_5f37be3d-18c8-5b34-8683-dc0c941ecac2)

The sixteen stories that you are about to read emerged from over three and a half thousand entries for this year’s Ian St James Awards.

There have been several new developments in the last twelve months: the introduction of a shorter category of fiction under five thousand words alongside the established category of up to ten thousand words; for the first time this year, we opened our doors to writers in the English language from outside these shores and this volume contains stories by writers from New Zealand and the United States; the launch of Acclaim, a bimonthly magazine featuring stories by shortlisted writers in these Awards. Acclaim will publish sixty-four stories in six issues and include writers from Namibia and South Africa. All the activities associated with these Awards are co-ordinated at The New Writers’ Club. In the summer, the Club organized its first Short Story Workshop as part of the 9th Birmingham Readers and Writers Festival. There will be more to come.

Every writer who enters the Ian St James Awards – and they have to be over eighteen without a published work of full-length fiction to their name – receives an appraisal of their work. The success of this operation can be measured by the receipt at The New Writers’ Club of only eight letters consigning (a few of) our readers to the darkest depths. Not a bad ratio from such a large entry. The critiques are by no means definitive. In the time and space available, they can’t be, but they are intended to highlight a story’s strengths and weaknesses and are, hopefully, of great value to writers who find feedback so hard to come by. In addition, the Club also now appraises stories by member-writers outside the entry dates for the annual Awards and these more detailed reports are proving to be very popular.

To all the readers who have helped us arrive at this book, many thanks. Similarly, our thanks go to this year’s panel of judges who gave freely of their time to decide on the stories that would be published in these pages. I am sure that the stories that have been selected – and there is as always a real cross-section of styles and subject matter – will entertain.

To all the writers who sent us stories this year and missed out, thank you for entering, good luck with your writing and there’s always next year. This is the fifth Ian St James Awards book to be published in as many years by HarperCollins. Our thanks go to the many people at the publishers who helped with the production of this book and to all our supporters in the book trade. Finally, many congratulations to this year’s sixteen Award-winning writers who are now, without doubt, ‘Flying High’.

Merric Davidson

Director, The New Writers’ Club

Judges (#ulink_de8b823b-191d-5f84-91c1-aaad5d3402b3)

CLARE COLVIN

Writer, journalist and book reviewer

DANIEL EASTERMAN

Novelist

CORINNE GOTCH

Marketing Executive, Booksellers Association

ELIZABETH HARRIS

Novelist

MARK ILLIS

Novelist

IAN ST JAMES

Novelist

NICK SAYERS

Publisher

CAROLINE SHELDON

Literary Agent

FIGURE OF EIGHT (#ulink_7ba5b186-c7b4-5c0a-80e3-e9779058088a)

Min Dinning

Min Dinning spent more than twenty years teaching English worldwide, travelling in Europe, South America, China, Papua New Guinea and Australia. She began writing fiction at the age of seven but lapsed for more than thirty years, only to begin again two years ago, inspired by a creative writing class. Until then she had written letters, diaries and academic papers and published some non-fiction. These days she teaches Business EFL and is trying to come to terms with domestic bliss in rural Cambridgeshire. She still has secret yearnings to run away to exotic lands.

FIGURE OF EIGHT (#ulink_7ba5b186-c7b4-5c0a-80e3-e9779058088a)

He tasted of sour pickle and rice porridge and stale tobacco. I had wanted this kiss for months and now I had it. Desire was injected uncomfortably into my bloodstream. His skin was hard and chapped as he pressed it into my face. I was shocked. It was not as I had expected. I was still unsure of why I wanted him. It may have been sex, but it wasn’t straightforward; he wasn’t attractive in a conventional way, like Martin. It may have been need and gratitude.

He kissed as if he didn’t know what a kiss was. Or maybe he wasn’t kissing at all. It was me who was doing it. His mouth was stiff and immobile but betrayed a repressed emotion that I couldn’t define. It briefly occurred to me that it might be anger. I had caught him unawares, walked up to him from behind. But was it unawares? We both knew.

He was wearing his best jacket, tailored too large in stiff blue cotton in what used to be an imitation of Mao, and smelling of mothballs as most Chinese clothes do when they are seldom worn. Why did I focus on that? It detracted from the moment. Smells and tastes tried to deflect me away from the strange reality of it.

For a moment we remained in an awkward clinch, he with his eyes closed, me searching for reaction, wanting response. He took no initiative and then withdrew as I placed my tongue on his teeth.

‘No, no,’ he moaned.

‘But we must, we’ve been waiting so long. We can’t waste more time just thinking about it and doing nothing.’

‘Somebody will find out. We’ll be criticized.’

‘We’ll be discreet. Nobody will know. Anyway we haven’t done anything wrong.’

‘You don’t understand. We’re not in your country. In China this is impossible. I could go to gaol.’

‘Don’t be daft. Of course you couldn’t,’ I said, not sure. People certainly seemed to get into trouble for things that go unnoticed or are laughed off in the West.

Anyway – what were we doing? Was this adultery? Infidelity? It certainly wasn’t fornication, nor was it likely to be.

Before the momentum was lost I drew his wiry body towards me again. I sensed tension, reluctance.

‘If someone sees, it will be wrong.’

‘But if no one sees it will be right?’