Review: Collectus. Fiona Billie Stevenson

Collectus. Fiona Billie Stevenson. Short stories & poetry.

It won't take you long to read local writer Fiona Stevenson's first Kindle book, writes Brian Byrne. Two reasons: it's quite short, and you'll want to keep reading. At the end you'll probably be thinking, 'Yep, I'd like to read more from her'.

Fiona, who we highlighted on the Diary last year in connection with the Powers Short Stories Competition, has a way of being inside her characters. So as reader you're intimately connecting with their thoughts and experiences, hopes sometimes but mostly fears. Because when you get down to it, it's arguable that there's a lot more fear than hope in life.

Fiona specialises in the short short format. And she does it very well indeed. She says it's her favourite kind because she can fit it into the spaces in her life between her work as a paramedic and raising her three children. Those are constantly shifting spaces, so the results are in varying lengths and even styles.

But each story does offer insights into its theme. Whatever its length, even the six-word line one, whichever button the author's finger is poised over is accurately hit for the moment of revelation which the best short stories have.

I particularly liked 'New Shoes'. And one involving a cancer diagnosis, 'Sum of the Parts', is a frankly terrifying look into a healthcare future that might not remain as a fiction.

Up to now, Fiona Stevenson has written mainly for herself, and for competitions. This is her first stab at book publishing, made possible by the e-publishing revolution of Amazon's Kindle technology. It won't make her rich. But it should give her enough exposure to encourage her to continue, and develop.

Collectus could be, should be, the first step to a fulfilling writer future.