The Writers of Wales Database

GEBBIE, VANESSA

Website: http://www.vanessagebbie.com/

Vanessa Gebbie is the daughter of a student nurse and a travelling salesman and was given up for adoption at birth to a couple from Merthyr Tydfil, living in England. Wherever they settled, that became an outpost of Merthyr, where her grandmothers lived, with whom she spent the happiest times of her childhood. She was educated in north Wales at Dr Williams’ School in Dolgellau, and at Exeter University.

Her debut novel, ‘The Coward’s Tale’, written for her late father, is set in a fictional village based loosely on Twynyrodyn, Merthyr Tydfil, and is published by Bloomsbury UK and USA. Parts of ‘The Coward’s Tale’ have won awards at The Bridport Prize, and The Daily Telegraph Novel in a Year Competition. Her short fiction is collected in ‘Words from a Glass Bubble’ and 'Storm Warning’ (both from Salt Modern Fiction). In 2009 Salt invited her to collate a guide to the art of the short story, and the result, ‘Short Circuit’, is on the reading list of many writing courses in the UK and further afield.

Her teaching and facilitating has led to the publishing of anthologies of work by both the homeless and refugees. She was Writer in Residence at Stockholm University in 2010, currently lives with her family in East Sussex and is a Member of The Welsh Academy.
"…Vanessa has heart, the soul of a writer…"
Alex Keegan

Reviews:
With respect to Words from a Glass Bubble (Salt Publishing, 2008)
 

"…Original, compassionate and illuminated by humour, these stories by a prodigiously gifted new writer dare to mine the faultline between rage and love…"
Maggie Gee


With respect to Storm Warning (Salt Publishing, 2010)

"…In these terse and complex fictions, Vanessa Gebbie gives us an entire worldview in only a few pages. Her carefully etched story-moments and sharp-edged prose style are only the least of her considerable storytelling gifts…"
Rusty Barnes, Night Train

"…Gebbie's strength lies in her poetic and poignant combination of reality and dream..."
Tanie Hershman, The White Road & Other Stories

With respect to The Coward's Tale (Bloomsbury)

"...Compulsively readable. She writes with such warmth and kindness, and her poetic writing is meticulous in its apt and close observation.'
Mari Strachan

"...Tender and gripping - a brilliantly written epic."
Maggie Gee

"The unlikely but entirely legitimate child of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Dylan Thomas, The Coward's Tale invests everyday life with a quality at once whimsical and heroic."
Charles Lambert

"A rich seam of fables conjuring a community bound together by tragedy and secrets. Everyone knows something about someone but only one man knows everything about everyone. The Coward's own tale is the bravest of them all."
Damian Barr

Selected Publications:
Words from a Glass Bubble (Salt Publishing, 2008)
Storm Warning (Salt Publishing, 2010)
The Coward's Tale (Bloomsbury, 2011)

Contributed to:
Safe World Gone: New Writing from Welsh Women Writers (contributor) (Honno, 2007)
New Short Stories 1 (contributor) (Pretend Genius Press 2007)
Bridport Prize Anthology (contributor) (Redcliffe Press, 2007)
Fish Prize Anthology (contributor) (Fish Publishing, 2007)
See You Next Tuesday II (contributor) (Better Non Sequitur 2008)
Tales of the Decongested II (contributor) (Apis Books, 2008)
A Paper Heart Is Beating, A Paper Boat Sets Sail (contributor) (Fish Publishing, 2007)
Salt Publishing Guide to Writing the Short Story (editor and contributor) (Salt Publishing, 2009)
A Global Anthology (contributor) (New Internationalist 2009) 
Fish Prize Anthology (contributor) (Fish Publishing, 2009)
Short Circuit (editor) (Salt Publishing, 2009)