Spotlight On: Storgy

A very exciting package showed up at the bookshop last week, and I've been waiting for a spare hour to tell you about it.

Storgy have been on the scene for a while publishing short stories that veer into the weird and unsettling. "A panda appeared in our street, skewered to the railing outside my house." begins the current headline story on their website. If that doesn't grab you, what the heck else do you want? Happily, as well as the magazine side of their organisation, they also publish physical books! 

Their most recent release is Talking To Ghosts At Parties; a short story collection by Rick White, with a fantastic cover and intriguing story titles such as You'll Never Be A Cat and Bees, Motherfucker!. While I enjoyed the longer stories, I was impressed at how much emotional impact White can pack into a couple of pages. "Bright, shiny girls with their ticker-tape smiles. Once they leave these gates they will oxidise and tarnish." There are some beautiful sentences in this book. 

Pain Sluts is full of dark humour and morbid situations: "A teenager performs stripteases in her bedroom window as funeral processions pass by. A grieving mother reunits with her miscarried foetus." The premise of each of the stories in this collection reads like a writing exercise delivered by ouija board, and I wish I'd thought of them myself. Sian Hughes is onto a good thing here, and she has some killer opening lines.

Storgy put a lot of care into the look of their books, and Pain Sluts is another example of great design.  It's worth mentioning that these books came with their own bookmarks and postcards, which makes recieving a package from Storgy all the more exciting. I'm only human; I love a free gift.

The back catalogue looks just as interesting. Parade is a comedic take on faith, which sees Reggie and Elmer abscond to Florida and take up with a retired televangelist. Their adventures are told through short paragraphs which feel like scenes from a mad roadtrip. Hopeful Monsters is a collection of everyday struggles and hope, slice of life shorts set predominantly in Minnesota. I was flicking through when one grabbed me; a short but powerful tour through a slave museum.

This Ragged Wastrel Thing is a neon-tinted noir about a released convict who soon becomes embroiled in the darkness of the city's underbelly. "A spiderweb of alleys for the drunk and destitute, weaved together from stones and shadow.", the novel begins. "Winding backstreets forking off like rotten veins plunging into every shady corner." Wow. Scene set.         

What's evident from Storgy's publications is their striving for exciting new ideas and literary voices that push against the idea of "safe" fiction. The stories I've read aren't neatly packaged, with conclusions and closure. The characters are flawed and messy. They are snapshots; moments in time to drop into and get lost in. I think you're going to like them.

And those bookmarks. Keep making those bookmarks, guys.