To Say Nothing of the Dog

In rummaging through the nooks and crannies of animal (and other) life, James Roderick Burns' debut flash fiction collection explores what it means to be human. From grandiloquent raccoons, entrancing a whole community in the stadium, to melancholy terriers dissecting the motivations of their masters - while taking apart something a little more tangible - To Say Nothing of the Dog goes to places longer fiction wouldn't dare: into the gloomy, revealing guts of things, where foibles come to light and polite conventions are reduced to their essence. By turns comic and dark, these 38 compact tales punch well above their weight, and introduce a startling new voice to contemporary fiction. BIOJames Roderick Burns is the author of a flash fiction collection, To Say Nothing of the Dog, and five collections of short-form poetry, most recently Crows at Dusk (Red Moon Press, 2023). He graduated with distinction from the second cohort of Oxford University's MSt in Creative Writing, reviews for London Grip and serves as a volunteer poetry reader for Ploughshares. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife and daughter. He can be found on Twitter @JamesRoderickB and his newsletter offers one free, published story a fortnight at abunchoffives.substack.com.