"The story takes place on the high fells of the eastern Lake District. Below, in the north, are the towns of Penrith, where every three months Ruth gets taken by taxi to do her shopping, and Carlisle, where her brother and sister now live. Once a year, using the old high Roman road, Michael Creed drives his lambs down off the fells for slaughter. The Scotsman, Ruth’s fateful visitor, arrives at her house in darkness and fog via Rampsgill Head and Blea Tarn, a perilous route. ‘Creed’ is proof, if any were needed, that out of the local and particular, with sufficient love and faith, a story can be made that will exceed, without ever deserting, its location, and touch any reader anywhere. Rooted in local realities, Carys Davies’s characters live lives that are, in Keats’s phrase, ‘like the scriptures, figurative.’ And her writing is an act not of transfiguration, but of revelation." - David Constantine

About the Author: Carys Davies is the author of two collections of short stories, Some New Ambush and The Redemption of Galen Pike, which won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. She is also the winner of the Royal Society of Literature’s V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize, the Society of Authors’ Olive Cook Short Story Award, a Northern Writers’ Award, and is currently a 2016–2017 Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library.

About the Guest Editor: David Constantine is an award-winning short story writer, poet, and translator. His most recent novel, The Life-Writer (Biblioasis, 2016), was a New York Times Notable Book. The title story of his North American debut collection of short fiction, In Another Country: Selected Stories (Biblioasis, 2015) was adapted into the Academy Award-nominated feature film 45 Years. He is the author of one previous novel, Davies, as well as four collections of short stories in the UK, and ten collections of poetry. He lives in Oxford, England, where until 2012 he edited Modern Poetry in Translation with his wife Helen.

About the Publisher: Electric Literature is an independent publisher amplifying the power of storytelling through digital innovation. Electric Literature’s weekly fiction magazine, Recommended Reading, invites established authors, indie presses, and literary magazines to recommended great fiction. Once a month we feature our own recommendation of original, previously unpublished fiction. Recommended Reading is supported by the Amazon Literary Partnership, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. For other links from Electric Literature, follow us, or sign up for our eNewsletter.



Genre: Mystery

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