An Affair of the Heart

Each story in An Affair of the Heart questions the apparently romantic title through its exploration of the enigmatic state of mind known as love. Desire and identity; displacement - emotional and geographical; the relationship between ambition, circumstances and emotion; the often difficult co-existence of passion and intellect; these are the subjects of the fifteen fascinating narratives. Men and women reckon the worth of relationships past and present, from steamy New Orleans to urbane Paris, from metropolitan Chelsea to the industrial valleys and rural hinterlands of Wales. Frank and delicate, revelatory and secret, Clare Morgan's stories offer insights into human nature which are in turn punchily realistic and suggestively questioning.

Clare Morgan is a fiction writer and literary critic who lives in Gwynedd. Her novel A Book for All and None was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and her short story collection, An Affair of the Heart,by Seren. Her stories have been widely anthologized, and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her book What Poetry Brings to Businesswas published by University of Michigan Press and her recent writing on the subject has featured in the Wall Street Journal, FastCompany, and Humanizing Business (Springer, 2021). She is founder and director of Oxford University's creative writing programme, and a Fellow at Kellogg College.