Some of the stories in this collection have had a life of their own elsewhere.
In Winter The Sky was first published, in a very different form and under the title of ‘What The Sky Sees’, in Granta 78, 2002. You can hear about the background to this and other stories in the collection in this audio of an interview with Granta on the thorny issue of rewriting published work.
Also:
That Colour is also available, in a very limited signed and numbered edition, as a letterpress print. You can buy it here, or look out for prize draws on various blogs and at leading independent bookshops..
Keeping Watch Over The Sheep recently appeared in Prospect Magazine.
If It Keeps On Raining was first published in the BBC National Short Story Award 2010 anthology, by Comma Press. It was also broadcast on Radio 4 in October 2010. It didn’t win. It came second.
The title of Fleeing Complexity is taken from an interview with Richard Ford conducted by Tim Adams, published in Granta 99, 2007.
Which Reminded Her, Later was first published in Granta 99, 2007.
Close was commissioned by the Cheltenham Literary Festival, and first broadcast on Radio 4 in October 2007. It was first published in The Sea of Azov, a World Jewish Relief anthology published by Five Leaves, 2009. It was partly inspired by a visit to Kyoto in 2004, which in turn was partly funded by the Betty Trask Prize which Jon was awarded by the Society of Authors in 2003. If you’re wondering what a story set in Kyoto is doing in a book which is claimed to be exclusively located in ‘the fenlands of Lincolnshire’ then take note that the main character is from Gainsborough and keep your objections to yourself.
We Wave And Call was first published by the Guardian Weekend magazine in 2011. This story also had its roots in the Society of Authors/Betty Trask prize money of 2003, which funded a trip to Dubrovnik. If you’re wondering what a story set in Dubrovnik is doing in a book which is claimed to be exclusively located in ‘the fenlands of Lincolnshire’ then take note that the main characters are from the Wainfleet area and keep your objections to yourself.
Supplementary Notes To The Testimony was inspired by stories I was told whilst on a trip to the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, and uses the very broadly transposed outlines of those stories as its unseen background. Many thanks to Carbino, Anil Osman and Mahamud Ismail for speaking so openly with me; and thanks to Medecins Sans Frontieres and The Sunday Times for organising and supporting the trip. I also drew on an interview with Mark Argent, a demining engineer working with Danish Churches Aid in the Nuba Mountains (any errors in the section about landmines being my own, of course), and from a 2001 Observer article by Burhan Wazir.
Wires was first published in the BBC National Short Story Award 2011 anthology, by Comma Press. It was also broadcast on Radio 4 in September 2011. It didn’t win. It came second. Incidentally, the title of the story comes from the Philip Larkin poem of the same name, in which the poet describes cattle on American ranches coming of age when they first blunder up against the electric fences which mark the boundaries of their territory; the implication being that thereafter they keep well away from the boundaries. ‘The youngest cattle become old steers from that day / electric limits to their widest senses.’ This is relevant. This is why the story includes a number of direct references to Philip Larkin, in an attempt to point the reader in the right direction. There is further discussion of this question on Jon’s reading and writing blog, here.
Years Of This, Now was recently published in the New Statesman magazine.
I Remember There Was A Hill was first published in the Manchester Review.
I’ll Buy You A Shovel was first published in Zoetrope: All Story.
