Information is now up about Missorts, my new fiction and public art project for Bristol, commissioned by Situations for Bristol City Council. Missorts will be developed through short story workshops inspired by Bristol’s radical literary heritage and reflecting the past and present of the Portwall and Redcliffe areas of the city. Here’s the blurb:

Missorts takes account of the transient nature of the area and the diversity of writings, objects and architectures that are found there. The project will contribute its own set of new ideas to the site: a series of short stories which will be published as part of a street-level mobile app and interventions edited by Tony White for Redcliffe Way. The project will launch in November 2012. 

I love writing short stories, and I’ve edited and published a fair few by other people over the years too, whether in the anthologies I’ve edited, for the Idler, or with Piece of Paper Press, and some great writers among them: Steve Aylett, Stewart Home, Nicholas Blincoe, Stella Duffy, Victor Headley, Tim Etchells, Billy Childish, Michael Moorcock and many, many more. I’ve also devised some short story workshops that have been offered to all kinds of writers in recent years, ranging from the workshops I developed when I was writer in residence at the Science Museum in London, to those for architecture postgraduates at the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture and at Portsmouth University. Of course I’ll be bringing all of that experience with me to inform the process in Bristol, but Missorts is also an opportunity to explore the possibilities of publishing new fiction in a new way, as part of a public art project, and using new technology to do new things. I’ll blog more on this aspect of the project as it progresses.

Right now, the most important thing to say is that at the heart of the Missorts project are a series of free short story workshops that I’m running, beginning on 19 and 22 June at Bristol Record Office, which will lead to publication of selected stories and are open to anyone over 18. We’re spreading the word through writers’ groups and bookshops, by e-flyer and leaflet, looking for writers who might be interested in taking part and working with me to write one or more new short stories that could be published as part of Missorts. Places are limited of course — there is a registration/application form on the Situations website.