Twelve Stories (anthology)

Twelve Stories was a 2009 short story anthology written by Paul Magrs, and published by Salt Publishing.

Seven out of the twelve short stories in the anthology are not DWU-related, so they are outside of the scope of this wiki. In the Sixties is an Iris Wildthyme story, and Kept Safe and Sound was previously published in Short Trips: Companions.

The anthology also has an earlier, shorter version of Never the Bride, which later got adapted into a novel as the first book in the Brenda and Effie series. However, neither version of Never the Bride is covered by this wiki.

The Great Big Book Exchange was the prose release of a BBC Radio 4 story, which was an adaptation of Exchange, a novel published one month prior (to the radio broadcast). Enter Wildthyme and Wildthyme Beyond! would be written as sequels to these stories (primarily Exchange) in 2011 and 2012 respectively, but both Exchange and The Great Big Book Exchange are also not covered by this wiki.

Collecting Ada Jones is about the titular Ada Jones' death, who was an author and the long lost childhood friend of Simon's grandmother Winnie; Ada appeared in Exchange and The Great Big Book Exchange, but again, this story is also not covered by this wiki.

Publisher's summary
Paul Magrs was born in 1969 in the North East of England. He was educated at Woodham Comprehensive, Newton Aycliffe and at Lancaster University where he studied English and Ceative Writing. His first novel, Marked for Life was published in 1996 and his most recent, Hell's Belles (Headline, 2009) is the next in the Brenda and Effie Gothic Mystery series. His first novel for younger readers was Strange Boy (Simon and Schuster, 2002) and his first collection of short stories was Playing Out (Vintage, 1997). His stories have appeared in New Writing, the Sunday Express Magazine, the TLS, and broadcast on Radio 4.

He lectured in English and Creative Writing at UEA for seven years, moving to Manchester Metropolitan University to start teaching the Novel Writing MA in 2004. In 2008 he was a judge for the Portico Prize.

Twelve years after Paul Magrs' first collection, these twelve stories take their cues from glimpses of real life, but spin tales that are fabular, funny, moving and sometimes unsettling. All of these pieces are about rescuing characters, places, moments and ideas from the brink of being forgotten.