by way of an introduction

A book, a magazine, this object you are holding is both at once: an anthology of twenty-two new short stories, the twenty-second issue of The Stinging Fly literary magazine. The magazine was established in 1997, we published our first issue in March 1998, and for the purposes of this introduction (and as a reminder for myself as much as for anyone else) it is worth including our mission statement here:

The Stinging Fly was established to publish and promote new Irish and international writing. The editors recognise the need to provide a forum for new and emerging writers, particularly writers of fiction.

The Stinging Fly's main objectives are:

I have to be honest and admit that the thought of writing a mission statement hadn't entered my head, until asked to provide one, in one hundred words or less, with our first application to the Arts Council for annual funding. By then I was working on the third issue of the magazine-high time for me to stop and think about what it is I was setting out to do. Yet, even though they had not been formulated, the objectives were there from the beginning, and the work ever since has been an attempt to achieve them.

This anthology, although it does not come in the magazine's regular format, remains true to its spirit. These Are Our Lives gathers together twenty-two new short stories from twenty-two writers. Nearly all the work came into us via open submissions-from the stuffed, expectant envelopes sent to our PO Box on James's Street earlier this year. The writers are mostly, but not all, from Ireland. You will have heard of some of them before, but a good number of them are just beginning to publish.

I am happy that the anthology includes writers we've already featured in previous issues. It is a source of great pleasure to see new stories come in from writers such as Kevin Barry, Maria Behan, Jennifer Brady, David Butler, D.W. Lewis, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Philip Ó Ceallaigh, Mary O'Donoghue, Aiden O'Reilly and Kevin Power, and to witness their work develop over time.

More satisfying still is the fact that the submission pile this time yielded up stories by writers like Ronan Doyle, Antonia Hart, Róisín McDermott, Kathleen Murray and John Saul, all of whom were completely new to me. If the mission statement reminds me what it is we're supposed to be doing, then stories like theirs serve to remind me why.

With twenty-two stories on board, I am not going to attempt to offer any sort of synopsis or analysis of individual stories. Nor am I going to expound upon common themes or preoccupations.
All stories have the ability to reflect the life as lived in a particular place and time, and the short story form is probably better equipped than the novel to keep pace with our rapidly changing world. Life as we know it in 2006 - the outward signs - is certainly reflected in most of these stories, but they are about much more than that.
The power of the short story lies in its ability to take us beneath the surface of things. They make us believe that we are being granted full and immediate access into the heart of another person's life. The good writer will ensure that whatever may happen within the fictional world of the story, the reader will recognise it as being true.

The late, lamented John McGahern said of his motivations for writing that 'you write because you have to . . . We can say that writing memorialises, stops time, allows us to see more clearly, enables us to find out certain things; but eventually we write because we have to.'
For McGahern what mattered was not the material a writer had at his or her disposal, but how the writer elected to handle this material, what he or she made of it. 'Everything interesting begins with one person, in one place,' he said. He also believed that the two essential figures in literature are the writer and the reader. Everyone else involved, including publishers and editors, are just 'necessary paraphernalia' - necessary so that these two figures can be connected, so that books can find their readers.
With this in mind I think I've said more than enough, and it's time I stepped aside and allowed you a clear run at these stories. Enjoy.


Declan Meade
Publisher/Editor



stinging fly