Shorts — Michel Faber

Ever since the nineteenth-century when Romanticists threw down the literary gauntlet of the modern short story, its popularity has never waned with writers and readers alike.In this volume, Polygon, The Macallan, and Scotland on Sunday are pleased to offer the very best of contemporary Scottish story writing selected from more than 2,000 entries to the 2001 Macallan / Scotland on Sunday Short Story Competition, including the winner, the five other shortlisted stories, and the best of the remaining entries. Selections include: "The Incomprehensible Mortality of Karen Mack," by Sophie Cooke; "A Storm Gathering," by Jonathan Falla; "Mango," by Fiona J. Thackeray; and "Clear Thunder," by Alan Bissett.