Telephone Me Now: Selected Stories from the 2018 Literary Taxidermy Short Story Competition

From dog thieves to stock brokers, from fed-up housewives to dangerous boyfriends, from bucolic daydreams to medical nightmares - you've never read a collection of stories like this one!

The Literary Taxidermy Short Story Competition invites writers to stitch together their own stories using the opening and closing lines from classic works of fiction. For the 2018 competition, aspiring writers were given these choices: The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett; Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll; or "A Telephone Call" by Dorothy Parker.

TELEPHONE ME NOW contains the finalists from the Dorothy Parker contest. Every story in this collection starts and ends exactly the same way - with the opening and closing sentence of "A Telephone Call" by Dorothy Parker - and yet the stories themselves are nothing alike. Suspense, mystery, romance, and science fiction. They are as different from one another as the nineteen authors who dreamt them up. Come, meet this year's finalists from the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the UK, who range in age from eighteen to seventy-five. You won't be disappointed!

Learn more about literary taxidermy, as well as future contests, by visiting literarytaxidermy.com.

"A clever idea and an exciting contest." - Alison Portage

"Each of these tales is like taking a literary detour through an alternate-universe." - Elkin Tat

"A great example of 'what-if' fiction. Makes you wonder what kind of story you'd write!" - Lively Fiction

"Please, God, let them run this competition again!" - WA Wordsmiths