Adam Marek

Short story writer

My new short story collection is out now

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My third short story collection, The Universe Delivers the Enemy You Need, is out now. Here's a little about it: Plant-based skyscrapers, reluctant sex robots, pencil-wielding black-belts fighting a zombie apocalypse...  Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Adam Marek’s third collection: an almanac of the absurd, … [Read more...]

New short story in the Royal Academy magazine

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The Royal Academy magazine recently commissioned me to write a short story for their summer 2019 issue. It's part of a series where they ask writers to pick any piece of art in the world, and write a short story inspired by it - previous writers have included Eimear McBride, Jonathan Lethem, Deborah Levy, Ali Smith, Tessa Hadley, Jane Rogers, … [Read more...]

Pale Blue Dots – my new short story on Radio 4

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I have a new short story on BBC Radio 4 on Friday 14 December 2018 at 3:45pm. It's called Pale Blue Dots, and it's about what happens when our personal virtual assistants (like Siri and Alexa) get too clever for our own good.  Thanks so much to Jeremy Osborne at Sweet Talk Productions for commissioning and producing the story, and to Teresa … [Read more...]

David Mitchell event at WordFactory

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I'm so excited to be interviewing the amazing David Mitchell at a special WordFactory salon on Weds 12 July 2017. David is the author of seven novels, including Cloud Atlas, The Bone Clocks, and Slade House. He has also c0-translated into English the extraordinary autism memoirs of Naoki Higashida: The Reason I Jump and Fall Down Seven Times, … [Read more...]

Short story writing course, with me

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I'm teaching a six-part short story writing course with Comma Press at the Freeword Centre in London. In it I'll cover: • How to come up with ideas, and how to decide whether they'll work as a short story before you begin writing. • How to write a first draft, with and without a plan. • How to write a killer opening line that will hook … [Read more...]

Daily word count target – the right way to do it?

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  I hate writing first drafts. The story either comes out too fast in a messy splatter, lacking substance, or every paragraph sits reluctantly in the bowels of my brain and needs coaxing out with a stick. Sure, there are occasional moments where a page will glide out that'll make me smile and think 'ahhhh! I can do this!' But those … [Read more...]

Inspiration at the Wellcome Collection

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There are two brilliant (and free!) exhibitions at the Wellcome Collection in London right now: Electricity: The Spark of Life and Making Nature: How We See Animals exhibition. I spent the afternoon there on Sunday, hoping for inspiration for future fiction projects, and had my Wonder-Button pressed repeatedly. Here are just three of the … [Read more...]