Postcard Stories (The Emma Press Prose Pamphlets)

Each day of 2015 Jan Carson wrote a short story on the back of a postcard and mailed it to a friend. Each of these tiny stories was inspired by an event, an overheard conversation, a piece of art or just a fleeting glance of something worth thinking about further. In this collection of highlights, Carson presents a panoramic view of contemporary Belfast - its streets, coffee shops, museums and airports - through a series of small but perfectly formed snapshots of her home.

Jan Carson is a writer and community arts officer based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her first novel, Malcolm Orange Disappears, was published by Liberties Press in June 2014, followed by a short story collection, Children's Children, in February 2016. Her stories have appeared in journals such as Storm Cellar, Banshee, Harper's Bazaar and The Honest Ulsterman. In 2014 she was a recipient of the Arts Council NI Artist's Career Enhancement Bursary. She was longlisted for the Sean O'Faolain short story prize in 2015 and won the Harper's Bazaar short story competition in 2016. She was shortlisted for a Sabotage Award for best short story collection 2015/16. Jan has had two plays performed by local theatre companies and has recently been commissioned to contribute a story for The Glass Shore, a forthcoming anthology of female prose writers from the North of Ireland to be published by New Island in October 2016. She has read widely in Ireland, the UK and America including appearances at Cork, Dublin, Belfast and Edinburgh Book festival. In 2014/15 she collaborated with local songwriter Hannah McPhillimy to produce an EP of songs based on her first novel. Hannah and Jan performed this material at music and literary festivals throughout Europe.