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.