short story Archives - Andrew Blackman

Reading

Borges Marathon, Part 12: Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote

In “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”, Borges plays with ideas of authorship and originality by inventing a French Symbolist poet who embarks on the impossible task of composing Don Quixote.

Reading

Borges Marathon, Part 10: Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

What would a world with no objective reality look like? How about a language with no nouns? Jorge Luis Borges explores these ideas in a fascinating thought experiment.

Reading

Borges Marathon, Part 6: The Uncivil Teacher of Court Etiquette, Kôtsukéno Suké

The theme of honour runs through many of the fictions of Jorge Luis Borges. But why bother retelling such a well-known story if all you’re going to do is reinforce the standard narrative?

Reading

Borges Marathon, Part 4: Monk Eastman, Purveyor of Iniquities

Why does this short story by Jorge Luis Borges create such power? Maybe it's the human frailty underlying the tale of a tough New York gangster.

New Short Story Published

I had a short story published recently in Storgy magazine. It’s available to read free online, so do check it out if you’re interested. It’s about two women caught on opposite sides of a militarised border wall: one in Europe,…

Reading

Borges Marathon, Part 3: The Widow Ching—Pirate

Before I read Borges, I used to think there was a sharp dividing line between fiction and nonfiction. In my own writing, there’s a huge gap between the serious, diligently factual articles I write for The Wall Street Journal and…

Published work

New short story published

Belated news that I had a short story published earlier this year by a small Australian publisher, In Short Publishing. The story is called Boy, Dog, Accordion, and it's published as a pocket-size book.

The writing process

A Story From a “What If?” Moment

One evening in Crete, a couple of years ago, I saw something that made a lasting impression on me. A small boy, maybe eight or nine years old, sitting in front of a large green rubbish bin, with an accordion in…

Published work

Me and Marcel

I was happy to hear that one of my short stories has been translated into Turkish and published in a literary magazine. I was even more tickled to see the list of names on the cover – amid the Turkish…