Small Wonder: THE short story festival. 23-26 September 2010

Fathers and Sons
With Adam Marek and David Vann

Start: 12pm • Tickets: £9 (£8 students)

Adam Marek and David Vann were short listed for the inaugural Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award. Both their stories revolve around rites of passage and a son’s desire both to impress and disown his father. David Vann shot to fame last year with his powerful short story collection, Legend of a Suicide, a fictionalised memoir reimagining his father’s suicide in the salmon fishing wilds of Alaska, where he spent his early years. He now lives in San Francisco. Adam Marek’s distinctive stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies and he has published one short fiction collection, Instruction Manual for Swallowing.

Into the Unknown With Alexei Sayle, Marcus Du Sautoy, Dan Franklin and Cathy Galvin

Start: 2pm • Tickets: £9 (£8 Students)

Since Gutenberg, we have printed and read stories from the page. Are we on the cusp of the big digital changeover, with an app for everything? Are books becoming obsolete? Alexei Sayle, comedian, novelist and short story writer, has just published a memoir, Stalin Ate My Homework, in a conventional fashion. Mathematician Marcus Du Sautoy (no slouch on Borges’ stories) is Professor for the Public Understanding of Science. His new book, The Num8er My5teries, includes a gaming app. Dan Franklin is Digital Editor, Canongate Books. Chaired by Cathy Galvin, Director of The Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award.

The Long and Short of It
With A.S. Byatt and Alex Linklater

Start: 4pm • Tickets: £9 (£8 Students)

A.S. Byatt, internationally renowned Booker-prize winning novelist (Possession) and short fiction writer, reflects on what makes a good short story. Do they require more artifice than novels? Should they be brief and plain, or decorative and twisty? A.S. Byatt judged the inaugural Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award. She also edited The Oxford Book of English Short Stories. Her own short story collections include Little Black Book of Stories and The Djiin in the Nightingale’s Eye. Her most recent novel, The Children’s Book, is full of discrete stories. She was appointed DBE in 1999. Chaired by Alex Linklater, Associate Editor, Prospect magazine.

Supported by the Folio Society

The Daylight and the Dust
With Kerry Fox and Michèle Roberts

Start: 6pm • Tickets: £9 (£8 Students)

Janet Frame, New Zealand’s most famous writer, was a versatile novelist, poet, essayist and short story writer. Her autobiography, An Angel at My Table, inspired Jane Campion’s acclaimed bigscreen
version. Kerry Fox was born in New Zealand and came to prominence playing Janet Frame in the film. She has since appeared in many films, including Shallow Grave and Intimacy, based on a story by Hanif Kureishi. She recently appeared in Speaking in Tongues in the West End. Michèle Roberts is a novelist, poet and short story writer and provided the introduction for Janet Frame’s selected short stories.

One Million Tiny Plays About Britain
Craig Taylor

Start: 8pm • Tickets: £9 (£8 Students)

Craig Taylor brings his troupe of extraordinary actors, with their chameleon-like gifts for transformation, to perform some brilliantly funny and occasionally poignant snapshots of life in Britain today. Recorded for BBC Radio 4, made into operas and performed all over the country, including Port Eliot Festival, these potent, tragicomic mini dramas have garnered a cult following. Tonight’s performance premieres new plays, written for Small Wonder. ‘The fact that they are short merely emphasise the skill with which they have been put together. They’re a wonderful keyhole through which
you can peer at contemporary Britain’ Richard Eyre.