Published stories and articles by Nat Newman
Granta Magazine
Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner
The Death of Margaret Roe
Every person has their own secrets, but Margaret Roe had Havilah Brown’s.
“Havilah Brown lived on the outskirts of town, blessed with an abundance of land and a paucity of dependents. He came in only now and then, only to get his regular supplies from Evan Owens’ grocery store, and on each occasion he would cross my threshold, maybe once, maybe twice, cross my door with his thick-soled boots and darken my floor with his shadow that stretched across the whole room. A big man always was Havilah Brown.”
Winner of the 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Pacific region).
Published by Granta May 2017.
Read The Death of Margaret Roe online.
Structo
Pushcart Prize Nominee
Zoological Catalogue
Hitting the town, she's just another animal on the hunt... Or being hunted.
“She slides between lubricated dancers, feels her shirt dampen with other people’s sweat. She closes her eyes and feels her way through the heat for somewhere cooler. The beats beat her brain. I’m in bed with everyone, she thinks. The bodies writhe and she is in a pit of snakes. But they have no teeth, these snakes: they’re worms. She is a worm, too. Blind in the dirt she wraps herself around other worms.”
Under the Radar
Nine Arches Press
Catherine's Wife
Being Catherine's wife means losing her own identity.
Catherine never addresses me by name. ‘Honey,’ she calls me. Or ‘sweet thing’. ‘Dear’ sometimes, when she’s tired. ‘Bitch’ when she’s more tired.
Catherine, I call her. As though she is my stepmother.
Published in Under the Radar Issue 19 (Summer 2017) by Nine Arches Press.
Shoreline of Infinity
Flash fiction
Nothing to Fear
It's such a relief that everything is so organised... until the plod comes knocking.
Well, I won’t lie, hahaha, I’m a bit stumped. Like I say, nothing comes to mind. Could you check your CCTV and tell me where I was? What’s that? You want to hear it from me? Oh well. Let’s see.
Published in Shoreline of Infinity Issue 5 (Autumn 2016).
Severine
Short fiction
Fish, Oh Fish!
What do two children sitting on a boat think about? Life, of course.
The boy took off his wide-brimmed straw hat and fanned his sweaty face. There were plenty of tourists walking along the esplanade, tourists with American dollars stuffed into their pockets, stopping to buy bananas from toothless smiling women sitting on low stools. New tourists were washed ashore every day, and after two nights were dragged in an enormous wave right back to the mainland again.
Published in Severine Issue 4 (Heroes) (Autumn 2016).
Read Fish, Oh Fish! online.
