Lives of Others

"WHO IS THAT WOMAN?"

Many people have asked me, since the launch of Special Treatment & Other Stories, "Who is that woman on the cover?"
I will now put them out of their misery. The woman's name is Kirstin. I did a 3D Design (architecture) degree with her way back in 1993. We were both mature students and have remained friends. In looking for a cover related to a hairdressers (the prizewinning title story), I came upon a photo of my daughter in curlers for a school fancy-dress day. I asked her if I could use it. Scarlett, now aged 18, said she'd sue me if I did. She's a very determined kid and I knew she meant it. Who else did I know who had the same kind of serious look, with the right kind of hair and lots of character in her face. Kirstin! I Facebooked her and asked her to take some photos of herself in curlers. They came back okay but not perfect. I asked her to do more, but she was in hospital having a serious operation. I pestered her the day she was released.
"But I look so ill," she said.
"Kirstin, I'm not looking for beauty," I replied, "I'm looking for character. If you don't mind doing it I think it will be better while you're just out of hospital."
She obliged. The photo on the cover is the result.
What a heroin that woman is.
Thank you Kirstin!

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Special Treatment & Other Stories

Mark Swain describes this book of 12 short stories as excursions into the lives of others. In each story we find ourselves transported – thoroughly absorbed. We are there. Some places we think we recognise, while others are unfamiliar, even mysterious. There are dark corners, but most of all there is humour – poignant and frequently ironic. The locations are illuminated for us. Vivid images; the atmospheres; the smells and sounds. But it is the characters we are drawn to: A divorcee hairdresser who dotes on her son. A resentful victim of a construction-site accident. An elderly man victimised by political activists. A boy’s summer job. Lovers. Adventurers. Workers. Travellers. Prisoners. They open their lives to us. We are let into their secrets.

There is an authenticity to Mark Swain’s characters that can leave the reader feeling almost like a voyeur. We are privileged. We know them; care about their plight; laugh and cry with them. We can certainly never forget them.

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Lauch Date – 10th March 2013

Special Treatment & Other Stories – Excursions Into The Lives of Others

Tinderbox Publishing are pleased to announce, that a new book of short stories by Mark Swain, will be launched on Sunday 10th March 2013. The title story won the Kinglake Modern Short Story Prize in 2010 and was previously published in the anthology 'The Kinglake Book of Modern Short Stories 2010.' The other stories are all new.

The book is a collection of 12 stories Mark has written over the last four years. Some of them were seeds of ideas, or notes in the back of a Filofax, over the many years that he was developing his risk management business and travelling to clients around the world. The subtitle, Excursions Into The Lives of Others, betrays the voyeuristic roots of those stories.
Mark says:
"I can hardly spend a moment in a market, a back street cafe, a business meeting, or browse in a charity shop, without noticing something that gives me an idea for a story. The numerous notes to myself, jotted on work documents, books and now in the notes section of my i-phone, are a testament to this. The disjointed scrawl is fertile ground for new ideas and I often re-read it – frequently interpreting the ideas in different ways. I'm curious about people; their lives; their pleasures and their pain. I try not to intrude, but I don't miss much. More often than not, what I write is totally subverted and embellished compared to what I've seen or heard, and sometimes I forget the truth of it once it's been written. It all becomes truth to me. I suppose I've always been a bit of a fantasist – a liar even. I think all storytellers are."

Special Treatment & Other Stories will be available on Amazon from Sunday 10th March 2013. Please subscribe to this blog for other news, by entering your e-mail near the top of the blog.

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