Houses Borders Ghosts from The Fiction Desk

The latest short story anthology from The Fiction Desk, ‘Houses Borders Ghosts’ is out now, and features a new short story from me, ‘The Heart of Everything Young’.

This is the 14th volume of short fiction from The Fiction Desk and is a beautifully presented paperback, available directly from The Fiction Desk, but also to order from Waterstones and on Kindle from Amazon.

This anthology was delayed, like so many things, by the pandemic, but working with the editor, Rob Redman, on revisions and getting it ready for publication was a welcome distraction from everything that has been happening. Rob is a fantastic, fastidious editor, and I’m really grateful for the work that he put into it.

My story, The Heart of Everything Young, is set during the real-life fuel crisis that brought the UK to a standstill in September 2000, and focuses on two young losers as they fail to get their humble ambitions off the ground. I had the idea for this story more than twenty years ago, when I went out to buy cigarettes and found an enormous, angry queue for the petrol pumps. It took me a while to finally get around to writing it, but I’m pleased with how it eventually turned out.