Forms of Flight — Wendy Robertson

A young burglar shatters a glass roof and drops in on a vicars wife: a man who loves tin soldiers has a near miss with a knife killer; a young woman - more sinned against than sinning â€" is hell bent on self destruction; an old woman on the streets sees visions of giants; a woman breaks free from a long and confining marriage; boy learns his craft deep in the bowels of the earth. In these and other short stories in this collection Wendy Robertson combines her preoccupation with issues of identity, survival and the ironies of ordinary life with her ability to tell a good story. ‘I think that more than violence, more than darkness, these stories reflect the knowingness and the sense of irony - even comedy - that is the human saving grace of people under stress and in either physical or psychological confinement.' Wendy Robertson. 'I admire the short story form. It sits neatly between the novel and the poem. It combines the broad narrative significance of the novel with the precision, economy and illumination of the poem. The novel the poem and the short story demand of the writer the precise and focused use of language and insight into the processing of unique human experience. The novella â€" fashionable nowadays - shares a mixture of all these qualities. I have always written and published short stories. As the years went on, while publishing long fiction, I continued to write short stories, mopping up the ideas that teamed in my head. Some of the stories here were commissions and some were published in national Sunday supplements. After a while I started to collect my short stories together more systematically. Some were collected in Knives and Other Stories (Iron Press).Many of these stories are included in this collection of twenty six short stories.. Often we don't realise quite what we are influenced by or what may be threaded there in layers below the surface narrative. Recently when reviewing my long and short fiction I realised how painting, painters, teachers and inspirers are threaded through my work. And confinement, whether it is within a relationship or behind high wall. So many of the stories, too - I realise now - are about individuals fleeing lives that have become untenable. My first job (when barely out of my own teens) was teaching art to disaffected teenagers . When I moved on I continued to admire contemporary painters and to paint a little myself. What also struck me as I re-read these stories was the degree to which I see painting, like writing, as a truly liberating process. Wendy R