November 6th 2017
STORY DISCUSSION: Author MARY O’DONNELL discusses the importance of place in the short story: ‘…That’s what’s needed when we consider ‘place’. A knowledge of it as intimate as our own skin, and a sense of how to get behind that skin as we turn the wheels of imagination and bring into being a work which will be all the more memorable for having been defined by place.’
July 12th 2017
SHORT STORY ADAPTATIONS: this month, Dr. CHRIS MACHELL explores the film adaptation of ‘The Dead’, one of James Joyce’s most celebrated short stories: ‘Although he was American, Huston had Irish citizenship and famously loved the country. It is surely apt, then, that the words of his final film should have come from one of Ireland’s most renowned writers, but more than that, that those words are a reflection on the inevitable falling of vitality into mortality…’
December 22nd 2014
In a special Christmas post, we bring you James Joyce’s festive short story ‘The Dead’: ‘Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet. Hardly had she brought one gentleman into the little pantry behind the office on the ground floor and helped him off with his overcoat than the wheezy hall door bell clanged again and she had to scamper along the bare hallway to let in another guest…’
December 15th 2014
JOHN VERLING loses himself in The Essential James Joyce at Christmastime: ‘I’d never thought of Joyce as a page turner, but I read ‘The Dead’ in double quick time, totally taken aback by its depth yet its simplicity…’
November 3rd 2014
NEIL CAMPBELL pauses for thought in the world of David Constantine: ‘The contemplation of those moments helps our humanity, and it helps Mr Carlton, provides solace. Constantine, like Hemingway before him, has a naturalist’s eye for observed detail.’
April 23rd 2014
‘It was one of the most powerful pieces of writing I had ever come across and, despite the beauty of the language, I found myself unable to re-read it for a long time…’ Thresholds editorial assistant DAVID FRANKEL recommends the stories in David Foster Wallace’s collection Oblivion.
January 28th 2013
In his essay, MIKE SMITH discusses the short stories of James Joyce, from the collection Dubliners: ‘Instead of being led, or driven, by authorial enthusiasm this writing told of flawed individuals who failed to rise to traditional heroics…’
December 19th 2011
‘He was a grand old man of letters when James Joyce was still the up-and-coming kid on the block’: MIKE SMITH looks at the career of Irish novelist and short story writer George Moore, and calls for a revival of his work.
Q&A WITH DAVID VANN
Prize-winning author David Vann answers the questions of the Thresholds public in this exclusive Q&A from 2011. Read here »
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