Edited by Joe Derrick (formerly Jo Good of ‘QWF’ fame – good to see you back in action, Jo!), The Yellow Room comes in A5 format and comprises a generous 11 short stories, guidelines for the autumn short story competition (£4 entry fee for a story less than 2,500 words or £10 for three entries), a readers’ letter page, a review page, and the opportunity to give the stories in this issue a rating which will earn the winning author a little extra something in the pay check.

Rating theses stories will not be an easy task. This issue is characterised by rich writing and skilful crafting of stories with an emphasis on the lives and concerns of women; many take the form of encounters which reveal a hidden desperation or unhappiness or need. But… well, there’s always a ‘but’, isn’t there?

Alice Jolly’s “The Stop”, for example, is about a woman on a country drive with her husband. Her marriage is a tepid business and this is beautifully and poignantly made clear in her thoughts – ‘There’s no reason for our marriage to end – but equally no reason for it to continue.’ – and by the obvious separateness of the reactions of the couple when they have to stop the car to assist in an emergency situation which they encounter. The drive though the countryside, the sad drama in the cottage, the wife’s painful realisation that they ‘are temporarily glad of the frail things they share’ are all wonderfully realised. The trouble is, everything is wonderfully realised from the water on the windshield, to wellingtons to sunset to the spine of a dog to dried tears… Each vignette is well crafted in itself but the accumulated multiplicity of images eventually has a deadening effect on the core story and smacks of a touch too much craft.

Nuala Ni Chonchuir’s “The Ouse Calls Me” purports to be the thoughts of Virginia Woolf on the day she commits suicide by jumping into the Ouse. Ni Chonchuir attempts to cover the many demons which haunt Woolf’s mind – the birds which talk in Greek, the air raids she feared, the writer’s block, and the sleeplessness, but in the end, these are glossed over (perhaps all that is possible in such a short piece?) and lack impact, while the descriptions of the Ouse exerting a mystical compulsion dominate. Its ‘honey-brown, tinkle-tearing, convincing words’ whispered too much craft to me.

“Chela” by Karen Howeld begins with a black scarf and ends with a red one and between the two scarves lies the story of Chela who lost her mother young and still misses her. Chela is always alone, always observing other people from outside the circle of warmth which everyone else seems to inhabit. She drinks coffee alone in a cafe and it is from there that she first sees and becomes obsessed with Juliet, a manicurist who works across the road. An affair develops and it is here that Howeld’s study of a woman bereft and in torment becomes masterly. ‘From across the road, Juliet was perfect’ but up close she has a blemish or two and friends and grown up children and that is a problem. Juliet represents the opportunity for a life with friends, with socialising, with the ordinary interchanges which make for a full life, but long before Juliet and Chela see it, it is clear that that kind of normality can never be enough for Chela. Interleaved with the story of the affair are Chela’s memories of her mother and her desperate all consuming need for mother love, a need which will dictate the course and the end of the affair. I hope that the red scarf is a symbol of hope for Chela. Anything else would be unbearable.

Jo Cannon’s “Body Pump” is a lively and amusing piece full of a woman’s observations while attending an exercise class. The men exercise, groaning ‘as if tormented by constipation or bad sex’; the women are ‘pared down like twitchy pipe cleaners.’ Eve is frankly horrified by it all and comes to an entirely common sense conclusion by the end. This story has many high points: the three films being shown simultaneously to those in pursuit of health and beauty are surreal (one shows Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion); and the Stoppardian conversation Eve has with the fitness instructor might have come straight out of ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’. The question hanging over the whole piece is ‘why?’ What are people trying to achieve? Why does it matter? Cannon has the nerve to fly in the face of the modern obsession with fitness, and as one whose idea of exercise is hailing a taxi, I laughed and loved it.

“Health And Safety” by Sally Zigmond features the cheerful manageress of a Station Buffet (transformed by potted palms and a mural of camels into the Green Oasis Café) who has much scorn for the rules of Health and Safety since ‘Life is neither healthy nor safe for any living thing.’ She lives by the motto ‘people need to know that someone cares for them’ and to prove it she keeps a cat rescued from a horrid death and was sacked from a pub for lecturing customers on their bad habits. Once, however, she failed a customer at the Green Oasis: in his hour of need she was unkind and impatient. This is why she takes such an interest in the young girl who sits too long and smokes too much in the café, leaving her no option but to live up to her motto of bestowing care. And if the convincingness of the portrayal of a working class woman is a little shaky occasionally (would she really say ‘Cry havoc’ etc?) she’s still a likeable and engaging personality to read about.

In Alison Salisbury’s “The Man In The Fish-Net Stockings” Marnie, a middle aged lady still suffering the fallout after a divorce, has a moment of madness with a much younger man in fish-net stockings, bowler hat, suspenders, and silk knickers after she encounters him at a wild ‘Tarts and Vicars’ party. She doesn’t enjoy the sex much. ‘During the sex, as if death was imminent, pictures of her life parade through her mind…’ and she waxes philosophical about the pointlessness of things. Imminent death – not good a good night then. I found this the least convincing of the stories in this issue. The young man’s getup felt like a too determined effort by the author to be different and fun. And like Marnie herself, I wondered why the young man would want to spend the night with her anyway.

“At The Launderette’ by Sarah Barr is on the well worn theme of first impressions being overturned on closer acquaintance. Carole is utterly intimidated by a young man who comes into the launderette while she is there. He is surly looking and has chains and tattoos. Through circumstances which I cannot disclose for fear of spoiling the story, the pair get talking, and something about the young man’s life is revealed to Carole which entirely changes her opinion of him. It sounds a slight story but there is a deftness in the sketching in of the two characters which is very appealing and it all feels terribly and true.

Fiona Law is another author determined to be different. In “Seven of Swords”, Cassandra, who works in a shop run by a witch, falls for the seven of swords character in her tarot pack. Given a summoning spell by the witch, she summons him to her bed and has a wild, wild time. Being the mischievous type, Seven steals and hides her rose quartz necklace but she summons it back and is set on summoning him back too from time to time. This is one of those stories which just misses the mark. It lacks mood: the magic is too much in the background; the mischief is unexploited; Seven is an undeveloped presence. It just isn’t edgy enough. It’s a pity because Law writes vividly and could easily have established a much stronger mood for the story.

“Thalassa” by Sharon Ashton is about another encounter which is out of the ordinary. Elizabeth Reynolds is a woman who is smug about her ability to seduce men. She gets her comeuppance when she meets a young priest and falls for him. He is suffering from a certain disengagement from his priestly duties and predictably they have an affair. Thalassa, the sea, is the motif which runs through the story. The couple have an ‘almost’ encounter by the sea; and according to Euripides, the sea washes away all the sins of men which perhaps explains why the priest seems untroubled by his lapses from grace every year during his annual holiday which, almost comically, is the only time the couple can meet. Elizabeth compares herself to Prometheus – her heart is eaten out every year, re-grows, and then is eaten again. Dialogue in this story is sharp and pithy and the setting is vivid. I had the feeling with it that there was just too much crammed into it at the expense of intensity. The first meetings are powerful, but Elizabeth’s later sufferings over the years are too sketchily drawn to justify the idea of Promethean doom.

“Colouring In” by Suzi Lockhart Smith is the tale of a little girl who at first seems merely to be trying to win her distracted mother’s attention. She’s a bright little girl who notices everything and is fascinated by colour – her impressions of the world around her are sumptuously described, lavish with riotous shades and hues. Gradually however, fragments of a story emerge, sinister and shocking, but concealed behind the child’s activities. She colours her snowman in red for example, adding to an increasingly tense mood. Blue features strongly too, blue as in bruises. This is a very strong and original piece indeed.

“At The End Of The Day” by Ruth Cullet-Fenson closes the issue with a gentle piece about a very old lady who decides to live what’s left of her life to the full. Muriel is bored utterly by the careful routine of her life. She is pondering a trip to Australia or Spain and begins to draw up a ‘to do’ list. Before she knows where she is, her list becomes more and more bold – red shoes, designer specs – all sorts of things that she has never had before. The dullness and caution of her past life is shown through this list, as is hope for the future, even at her age.

This was an enjoyable issue with a wide variety of styles and stories all of which are sure to please someone. While there may be disagreement about which stories are best, there can be no disagreement that as always, Derrick has showcased some excellent writing by women.