Short fiction from Mike Robbins

The short story is a demanding form – but a rewarding one

Until 2023 I wrote mainly books and novellas. I didn’t attempt short stories because I didn’t think I’d be good at it. I’d read the short stories of Somerset Maugham, V.S. Pritchett and Elizabeth Bowen and admired them greatly. Bowen in particular has a gift for equipping her reader with the information they need and no more; there is not an ounce of fat in any of her short stories. They convey so much that they could easily have been spun into novels, had Bowen felt the need to do so – but you see at once how superfluous that would have been; a few sparse keys are enough. Bowen is a master of allusion.

Inspirations: Elizabeth Bowen in 1942 (Howard Coster/National Portrait Gallery); Somerset Maugham, painted by his friend Gerald Festus Kelly in 1932; V.S. Pritchett, also by Howard Coster in 1942 (National Portrait Gallery)

I didn’t feel I had those skills. “Don’t even try, you idiot,” I thought, and did other things. Then in 2022 I retired from the UN and left New York, where I had lived for many years. I returned to Norwich, a city known for its bookish connections; we’re a UNESCO City of Literature (find out more here and here). I can’t say I’ve done much for the city’s cultural life, apart from the pubs. But I did join a writer’s group, and had to prepare a short piece for every meeting. The others often did verse. I’m a lousy poet. Short fiction was the answer. To my surprise, I found I could do it. I’d like to thank the others (Angela, Jenny, Jim, Piers and Vasudha, themselves good writers) for their encouragement.

I’ve put the stories online, on my blog and now also on my new Substack (here). Below are links to the stories and I’ll add more as they appear. And at some point I will collect them all in a paperback/ebook, I hope in the first half of 2026. Most are set in Britain, but a few are set in the United States – a country that was my home for a long time.

I do hope you enjoy these. If you do, please share them with your friends and on social media. There’s no reward for doing so, except that you’ll make a grumpy old writer happy. And that’s worth doing, isn’t it?

After the Flood An end? Or a beginning?
Remembered Time The past is a dangerous place
A Train Journey One's sister comes to visit
Time After Time When you have to warn the children
Fashion Wokeness and subversion. With style
A Time of Darkness History doesn't repeat itself. But it rhymes
Another Time A tear in the fabric
Evolution The world is turning
When Time Stands Still A hurricane lashes Pershing Square
Parallel Worlds Heat pumps and lentils. And a nice glass of Marsala
A Man for All Seasons Net zero. The Stranger's Bar. And a three-line whip
A History Lesson Why do we study it?
The Creatives Meeting a tech bro
Cold Everything is cold here
Homecoming A sort of love story
Solitude A Cold War memory
Rhodri Hactonby's Maps A question of social geography
Hiraeth A yearning…
Strange Places A spirit in the sky 
A Sideways Journey Things might have been different
Displaced Encounter on E94th Street
Belonging Do you? Where?
Leaving Home A house has memories

 

Mike Robbins is the author of a number of fiction and non-fiction books. They can be ordered from bookshops, or as paperbacks or e-books from Amazon and other on-line retailers.
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