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A short story to success: Tales of the DeCongested and Apis Books

Publishers will tell you that there's no market for the short story - but short story entrepreneur Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone tells us how her live reading event, Tales of the DeCongested has been successful enough to warrant setting up a publishing company specialising in this neglected form.

27 Jul 2007 12:00

Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone

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Writing and Publishing

In October 2003, Paul Blaney and I were on a SouthWest train, stalled between Vauxhall and Waterloo, returning from a profitable evening at the Wimbledon greyhounds.

Unable to continue our journey, we found ourselves lamenting the status of the short story in Britain. Not only could short story writers seldom publish their work, there weren’t many opportunities to share short stories in other formats. Where could a short story writer learn to flex their muscles in front of an interested audience? Clearly what was needed was a live short story-reading event. So Tales of the DeCongested was born to promote new writing and champion the short story.

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Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone

About the Author

Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone was born in Kenya and has traveled widely in Europe, America, India, Malaysia and Japan and now lives in London. Since winning The Promis Prize for Young Writers in The London Writers Award 2002, Rebekah has written numerous short stories and is currently working on a novel set in London and East Africa. She has also taught writing at City University. Together with Paul Blaney, she runs Tales of the Decongested, and has set up Apis Books - both of which feature the much neglected short story.