Following on from the longlist announcement of the 2016/17 GBP Short Story Prize, we asked each of the thirteen writers three questions about themselves, their story, and their inspirations. Here's Richard Smyth, whose longlisted short story Something Was Being Broken will soon be available to read as a digital single. You'll also find a short biography of Richard after his answers. 

 

 

I grew up in Wakefield, West Yorkshire; now I live in Saltaire, just outside Bradford. I’ve been a freelance writer since 2008 – mainly magazine features, reviews, that sort of thing (recent publications include The Guardian, The New Statesman, The TLS and The Literary Review; I mostly write about natural history). I also compile crosswords (for New Scientist, History Today, New Humanist, and a few others) and set questions for BBC Mastermind (that came about through being a finalist on the show in 2009). And I’ve published four non-fiction books (stocking-filler history, mainly: Bum Fodder – An Absorbing History Of Toilet Paper (Souvenir, 2012) was the first).

 

I’ve been writing fiction since I was a teenager. My first novel, Wild Ink, was published by Dead Ink in 2014. My short stories have appeared in Structo, The Stinging Fly, The Lonely Crowd, The Fiction Desk, Riptide, Firewords Quarterly, Foxhole, Haverthorn, The Nightwatchman and a few more; they’ve also featured in anthologies from Arachne Press, Spilling Ink and Ink Lines. 

 

I’m currently seeking to fund my latest novel, Quays, through the crowdfunding publisher Unbound (https://unbound.com/books/quays).

   

 

The first part of the story is autobiographical – the sports club is my sports club, back in Wakefield (I’ve been a hockey goalie, on and off, since I was eight or so); Stan Ricketts is Bob, the steward – I went to his funeral a couple of years ago; the birds, the nest and the eggs are all just as Bob showed them to me. The second part is inspired by an anecdote in a book by the old naturalist WH Hudson: he recalls receiving a letter from a schoolboy in the north-west, who describes finding a wren’s nest overtaken by ants. And the third part is pure fiction.        

 

I think I had a pretty solid idea of where this story was going when I started it, which is pretty unusual for me. It’s a simple story, really – no bells and whistles (and I do usually like the odd bell or whistle). Maybe the autobiographical element pushed me in that direction. Anyway, I was quite pleased with how it turned out. 

 

 

Borges, Gogol and Peter Carey (though ask me on another day and I’ll probably list three others – no, I’ll probably list Borges and two others). As a reader, I’m not that interested in stories that are short for the sake of shortness – miniaturists’ stories. I like short stories that think big: reaching a little wider, going a little bit further. Borges is out on his own, really. But Gogol knocks me out – his tone, the personality of his writing. And Carey’s ‘Life And Death In The South Side Pavilion’ is one of my favourite stories of any length.