What does it mean to 'kiss and part'? This collection of previously unpublished short stories from a stellar list of contemporary women novelists is a literary celebration of the spirit of place.

Each contributor shares one thing in common - they have all stayed at a small cottage in the village of Clifford Chambers near Stratford-upon-Avon, courtesy of a trust set up to provide women writers with ‘a room of one’s own’, as Virginia Woolf put it.

Clifford Chambers was the home of the Jacobean poet Michael Drayton, who incorporated the phrase ‘Kiss and part’ into a sonnet. Each of the ten short stories in this collection takes this as its theme and the result is wonderfully eclectic mix of storytelling of the highest quality.

All royalties go the Hosking Houses Trust to further encourage women’s writing.

Contents List

Preface

‘Kiss and Part’ by Michael Drayton

Introduction by Margaret Drabble

Buck Moon Marina Warner

‘A Merrie Meeting’ Salley Vickers

The Incumbent Elizabeth Speller

‘Colossal Wreck’ Maria McCann

The Visitation Maggie Gee

And the River Flows On Joan Bakewell

The Creature Jill Dawson

The Turn Catherine Fox

The Fabric of Things Jo Baker

‘Place of Dreams’ Lucy Durneen

The Writers

Afterword by Sarah Hosking

Acknowledgements of Photographs