Patrick Garratt

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  • Acceptance

    I had a story long-listed for the 2015 Short Fiction Award last month. The short list has, unfortunately, erased proof of my heroism as I didn’t make it to the final six, but I’m so happy to have been chosen from the initial round of more than 650 entries. Baby steps. Frankly, getting any kind of result from this year’s output…

  • Rejection

    My fiction gets rejected a lot. Almost all of the time, in fact. I’ve been submitting short stories to literary magazines this year as a sideshow to editing two novels, and none of them have been accepted. I’ve no idea how many I’ve sent. Ten, maybe? I’m still waiting on some, but, statistically speaking, they’ll…

  • Feeling the sun – writing outside the cell of influence

    It’s normal for writers to succumb to the style of the books they read. Logically, most (all?) readers and writers will have “road to Damascus” moments as they work the way through the early part of their reading careers, whereby certain books will become life-changing events. The novels I read in my early twenties were especially influential to…

  • My next short story, CALL THEM, to appear in Kickstarted anthology

    Good news (for me, at least). The Baby Shoes flash fiction anthology has achieved its crowd-funding goal, meaning my next short story, titled CALL THEM, is confirmed for release. Four days remain on the Kickstarter, so you can still secure a discount copy at $5. It’ll cost $10 if you wait for launch. CALL THEM is painful for me to…

  • How I learned I don’t suck

    This guest post was written by author and journalist Dave Owen. His debut novel, PANTHER, releases later this year. If you’re a fiction writer, aspiring or otherwise, and you’d like to contribute to Misery Guts with an entry about writing, the writing process, agents, publishers or whatever else, drop me a line. The hardest thing…