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.
The event is fuelled by submissions of no longer than 3,000 words, sent in to our website. Around the middle of each month, we choose five or more stories, depending on quality and length, and ask the authors to read their stories at the event held on the last Friday of the month. After the event the stories are posted on the story archive of the website.
Our first events were held at the intimate and informal Poetry Café in Covent Garden. However, much to our surprise and pleasure, stories poured in and audience numbers excelled our expectations. We had to turn people away. This encouraged us to seek a larger venue with room for all and since 2005 we have held the event at the purpose-built Gallery Space in Foyles Bookshop on Charing Cross Road.
Despite moving to a larger venue, interest in the event was still growing. We continued to discover fresh talent as strange, surprising stories materialised in our Inbox, and it seemed many Londoners, at the end of a working week, could think of nothing better to do with their Friday night than sit and listen to urgent, suspenseful and beautifully written stories—just so long as they got to the pub by nine o’clock.
We realised that not only was the short story well and truly alive but, contrary to the general assumption, it also had a market. We felt we had to take the event one step further in order to reach a wider audience. Publishing seemed the obvious solution.
However, despite the embarrassment of talent to choose from, we faced the much repeated and short-sighted argument, touted by agents and publishers alike, that there was no market in Britain for the short story. Placing our faith in the success of Tales of the DeCongested, we decided to set up our own independent publishing company specifically for shorter fiction.
In January of 2006 we received Arts Council funding and Apis Books was born.
In our first year, we published Tales of the DeCongested, Volume One, an anthology of the best short stories read over the first two years of the event with contributions from Ali Smith and Nicholas Royle.
In keeping with the live literature event, we recorded the stories in the anthology and posted them on the Apis Books website. The anthology was a great success selling throughout Britain and supported by appearances on London Live Radio and readings in London and Brighton.
This July, we published Two Tall Tales and One Short Novel, a collection showcasing the work of three of the UK’s brightest new writing talents: Heidi James, Kay Sexton and Lucy Fry. Will Self said of the collection, ‘These are dynamic, shape-shifting works of fiction that push at the boundaries not only of what can be represented – but even what can be imagined. I urge you to read them.’
Not only does our second publication mark the true arrival of Apis Books as an established publisher, it also indicates our move into the new and exciting world of print on demand publishing. We chose to use print on demand technology – the innovative printing technique that can literally do a print run of one copy – because it minimises printing and storage costs, allowing us to print copies of the book as they are requested by bookshops and readers and to avoid expensive warehouse costs; plus it keeps unusual and important literature in print. This new technology is dramatically changing the face of modern publishing because for little outlay, independent publishers can afford once again to take risks and publish work most mainstream publishers would consider ‘unmarketable’.
Four years on from that stalled train and Tales of the DeCongested is still going strong with its offshoot, Apis Books, working on several future publications.
The short story of Tales of the DeCongested and Apis Books is a success, not only because it has inspired and been inspired by many other live literature events, publications and publishers – Liars’ League, Litro, Social Disease, 3:AM Magazine, to name a few – but because it holds the key ingredient to supporting new writing: belief in both creative talent and its audience.
Tales of the DeCongested is on tonight Friday 27 July, 7pm, 2nd Floor Gallery Space, Foyles Bookshop, Charing Cross Road. Entrance £3 (concs. £2.50) This month’s readers are: Guy Ware, Heidi James, me, Menaka Rama and Sarah Davies. If you miss this, catch it on the last Friday of each month.
