Novel short story writer Carys Davies triumphs

Llangollen-born Davies, who now lives in Lancaster with her husband and four children, studied modern languages at St Anne’s College, Oxford, and worked for several years as a freelance journalist in England, New York and Chicago. Her debut collection, Some New Ambush, came out with Salt Publishing to considerable acclaim in 2007, and offered immediate evidence of a significant talent at work. Her second collection also published by Salt, confirms beyond doubt her position among the finest British exponents of a particularly challenging form.
“I’ve been writing stories for 20 years,” she said, “and what I’ve learned is that the short story is neither an abbreviated novel nor an expanded poem – it’s its own thing. A short story may be short, but it is not small or slight. It is a brief drama of the soul; a tense, urgent thing that disturbs the mind and shocks the heart.”