We’d like to welcome Sarah Hegarty, who’s joined our team of readers for the 2025 Bath Short Story Award. Sarah recently published her debut collection of short stories https://troubador.co.uk/bookshop/poetry-short-stories-and-plays/magpie with Troubador and has agreed to answer a few questions.

1. I thoroughly enjoyed all the stories in this collection (and that isn’t always a given!). The stories feel fresh, modern, surreal and unsettling. I’m also struck by the powerful sense of place you create and wondered how important that is to the stories as you write them. Would you say you start with place (or is it character/voice/situation)?

Thank you so much, Alison! I’m excited to be part of the BSSA team. I’m delighted you enjoyed the stories in Magpie.
That’s a good question… yes, place is vital. A story always starts for me with a visual clue – such as the magpie’s pitiless eye, observing Madeleine, in the title story. Then the characters appear (Madeleine, washing up her lonely supper) and I watch what happens. Hopefully I surprise myself! In All at Sea, I got the feeling of oppressive heat, and sand under my feet… and then Abby was sitting there, looking out at the Indian Ocean. It was only when I realised that she was unhappy, and sheltering under a makeshift canopy made of scavenged plastic, that I wondered what had happened to her – and the story took off.

2. Without giving too much away, characters in your stories are often at a point of unravelling or the past is pushing through into the present, a reckoning on the way. Memory is very important but I’m really struck by how well you handle the shifts in time across the relatively short word count. Do you write them chronologically or do you find you re-order scenes as you edit them?

That comment probably pleases me more than any other because I can get myself in a terrible muddle with timelines! I try to write chronologically, and once I know my character well enough I trust their memories to come in at the right time. Then I have to get out of their head and consider if it’s clear enough for the reader. With Lily, for example, I realised early on that Bill’s remembered life, and the terrifying incident he witnessed as a boy, is as vivid for him – almost more so – than his life in the present with his wife. Although flashbacks were crucial to the story, and the reader’s gradual understanding of his character, I needed to keep the action moving. Achieving a balance between showing the horror of Bill’s past and his struggle to live in the present took many drafts. In Your Own Tropical Hideaway, Steve’s desperation to get away from the nightmarish holiday resort provided the chronology and pace, and the flashbacks were more concerned with giving the reader enough to understand where he is – and why.

3. Could you tell us a bit about collecting the stories? At what point did you realise you had a collection?

The collection sneaked up on me, really. I’ve been writing fiction for years, and had stories published in anthologies and magazines, as well as many more that hadn’t found a home. I was in between projects and found myself reading short story collections, and realised my pieces might work together. It was fun to collate them, get a feel for a theme – secrets, yearnings, the longing to connect – and decide on the order. My editor, Natalie Young at Writers & Artists, made helpful suggestions and then I approached Troubador for the publishing side. I’m thrilled with the end result. It’s been wonderful to engage with readers and get positive reviews!

4. You’re a novelist as well. I wonder if you could tell us how you know when the germ of an idea will work better as a story and when you know it needs the space of a novel. And a second part of the question, have you ever edited a novel draft down to a short story?

I’ve never edited down in that way, but I have edited up! Two of my novels (one set in the Belgian Congo in 1908, the other set in Britain in 2060) began as short stories. When I’d finished them I couldn’t let the characters go. It’s that feeling that the story is too small for them; there’s more to discover. I’m toying with the idea of digging further into Magpie: will Madeleine learn to live with her guilt about her past, or will it destroy her? Or Green Fingers: will William ever finish his swimming pool, and sell that cursed house? Whereas some stories, such as Proof and Off the Shelf, feel self-contained as they are.

5. Any thoughts about what you’re looking for as a reader?

To be transported! To taste dust in my throat, feel the cold sweat of panic. To see the Rizla papers in the gutter; smell hot fat. And perhaps because I’ve never grown up and am still a teenager, I’m extremely resistant to being told anything. Just show me who, where, what, when, why and let me lose myself…

6. Favourite short story writers?

Too many to list, but very briefly: for I-didn’t-see-that-coming – Claire Keegan; for humour and pathos – Kevin Barry; for setting and weirdness – Paul Bowles; for inspiration and thinking outside the box – Tania Hershman.

7. And finally, any advice for writers planning on entering the competition?

I read a great piece recently that said something like, ‘You miss all the shots you don’t take.’ Take that shot.

Of course, check the competition rules and stick to them. Pay attention to the craft: start the story as late in the action as you can, get out early, keep it moving. Kill your darlings and your adverbs. Read writers you admire and see how they do it. But when you’re writing – trust your instinct. Be brave. Find the heat in your draft and use it. That’s the emotional truth. That’s the kernel of a winning story.