Author: Ingrid Jendrzejewski

National Flash Fiction Day is celebrating its 10th Anniversary on Saturday, 26 June 2021, and to mark the occasion we’ve created a brand new Novella-in-Flash Award which is accepting submissions until 31 October 2021!

We are incredibly excited to have Sophie van Llewyn, author of Bottled Goods (long listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction) as our inaugural judge.  In this interview, Sophie talks about the novella-in-flash form, her experience writing Bottled Goods, and what she's looking for in a Novella-in-Flash Award submission....

Q: Can you share your definition of what makes a novella-in-flash and what the form brings to both writers and readers?

SvL: The novella-in-flash is such a fascinating form and it opens a universe of possibilities for both writer and reader. It’s a longer form of fiction that’s made up of multiple flash fictions revealing an overarching story arc.

So on the one hand, there’s the incredible punch in the gut packed by flash fiction. On the other hand, it’s easier for the reader to move from flash to flash, since the setting and characters often recur. I often find that when I read a collection, I need to take a break after a few flashes if each one moves between characters, themes, setting and tone. But a novella-in-flash can be read within a single session — there’s this compulsion to follow the book’s forward movement.

Q: We’d love to know why and how you decided to write Bottled Goods as a Novella-in-Flash.

SvL: Bottled Goods started with a character, a setting. A young woman being questioned by the border authorities of communist Romania. Something very precious, hidden in her purse. I tried to write the story as a flash fiction, but 1,000 words weren’t enough. As the days passed, the story grew in all possible directions. More characters emerged, started clashing. I could see the storyline shaping up.

So I tried to write a novel, then, but it didn’t work out. I was losing momentum, getting stuck after a few pages.

Discovering the form of the novella-in-flash was a revelation. I wrote a few flashes that encompassed a few incidents of my new storyline and then I wrote more flashes to fill in the blanks. I dedicated more flashes to the setting, to the magical elements. Once I’d struck the right form, the book really wrote itself.

Q: Do you have advice for our entrants of what to be careful about when writing NiFs?

SvL: Don’t overcrowd your novella-in-flash with characters. Too many episodic appearances can confuse the reader. So make sure that each character pulls their weight and if you do decide to write a flash from the POV of an episodic character, make sure you do it for all the right reasons.

A novella-in-flash can pack a lot of punch and a lot of plot in a word count much smaller than a novel, but it’s important that it doesn’t feel rushed. Too many loose threads, too many episodic characters can make it feel that way.

Q: Could you share some key features you’re looking for in entries with some examples from published NiFs, including your own

SvL: No matter what the theme, setting, tone, even the genre of the novella-in-flash, character growth and development are important aspects. A character who grows, who learns, who changes will power a story that’s satisfying for the reader. Three Sisters of Stone by Stephanie Carty and When It’s Not Called Making Love by Karen Jones are great go-to examples if you’d like to see how it’s done.

Use the white space. Readers of flash fiction are used to filling in the blanks, so don’t be afraid to take leaps in time, or to go back and forth in time (like in Charmaine Wilkerson’s How to Make a Window Snake).

Also, why not take risks? The novella-in-flash is such a fluid form, so why not define your own boundaries of story arc and what character development means?

FlashFlood, National Flash Fiction Day's curated journal, is open for submissions from 00:01 BST on 2 May to 23:59 BST on 8 May. 

Over the next week, we'll be reading hundreds of flashes and choosing a selection to publish in the next FlashFlood which will take place on National Flash-Fiction Day's 10th Anniversary on 26 June 2021.

We accept both unpublished and previously published work of up to 300 words (not including title). Full submission guidelines can be found here.

You can submit for free, via Duosuma, here:

https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/flashflood-journal-lej4G

You'll need to create an account through Duotrope/Duosuma to submit work, but you do not need to purchase a subscription to send your work to us; it is 100% free to submit.  If you need help, Duosuma's technical support can be found here.

Unpublished writers, scroll down the page; we have a special submission call just for you if you'd like to be considered for one of our reserved debut fiction slots!  Look for the Flash Fiction (Unpublished Writers) call listed halfway down this page and send us your work!

For 24 hours straight starting at 00:01 BST on 26 June, FlashFlood will be publishing one flash every 5 to 10 minutes or so.  Submissions will open for one week, from 00:01 BST on 2 May to 23:59 BST on 8 May 2021 for stories of up to 300 words.  You can read the submission guidelines over at FlashFlood.

This year, we welcome our team of seven editors reading for the 2021 Flood:

• Amy Barnes
• Tim Craig
• Anita Goveas
• Sara Hills
• Cassandra Parkin
• Santino Prinzi
• Judi Walsh

Each editor will be reading for one full day or two half days, with National Flash Fiction Day's Ingrid Jendrzejewski and Diane Simmons helping behind the scenes.

You can read more about the team here.

The results of the 2021 National Flash Fiction Day Microfiction Competition are in!

This year we awarded first, second and third prizes, together with seven highly commended flashes. All ten stories will receive prize money and will be published in the 2021 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology, which will be out in time for National Flash Fiction Day on 26 June 2021.  The winning and highly commended stories can be read here.

Thank you to our four judges. Their job this year was extremely difficult, requiring extra rounds of voting to reach our final ten.  This year's competition was judged by:

• Rachael Dunlop
• K M Elkes
• Sharon Telfer
• Alison Woodhouse

Huge congratulations to our winning and highly commended authors:

FIRST PRIZE

• 'Tea Time' by Susan James

SECOND PRIZE

• 'Last Supper' by Faye Brinsmead

THIRD PRIZE

• 'Amalgamation' by Johanna Robinson

HIGHLY COMMENDED (in alphabetical order)

• 'Adverb' by Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar
• 'The Burning Boy' by Sam Payne
• 'A Cyclist' by Anne Howkins
• 'The Doll Hospital' by Rosie Garland
• 'Long Twilight' By Tracey Weller
• 'Sirens' By Caoimhín de Paor
• 'Summer Breeze' by Paul Dicken

Congratulations again to all our prize-winning and highly commended authors, and to all those who were shortlisted. And, a big thank you to everyone who entered this year’s competition and trusted us with their stories.

This year, we were thrilled to receive an amazing 726 micro fiction entries to the National Flash Fiction Day Micro Fiction Competition. This is 300 more than we received last year!

Our judges, Rachael Dunlop, K M Elkes, Sharon Telfer and Alison Woodhouse had the difficult job of whittling down the 726 stories to a shortlist of 26. This was no easy task and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank the judges for their hard work and for the speed and conscientiousness with which they carried out the judging.

It isn’t easy to tell a story in a 100 words, yet we were blown away by the variety of themes, subjects and styles we saw in the submissions. Thank you to everyone who sent in their work; we appreciated the chance to read your flash.

We are excited to announce that as a celebration of our 10^th anniversary, we will be awarding cash prizes to seven Highly Commended Micro Fictions in addition to those placed first, second and third.

Judging is still going on, so if you are lucky enough to be on the shortlist, feel free to celebrate on social media, but please don't mention the name of your story so that judging can remain anonymous.

Now, without further delay, our 26 shortlisted stories are:

Welcome to the last in our series of interviews with this year's National Flash Fiction Day Anthology editors and Microfiction Competition judges. This week, Diane Simmons chats with Alison Woodhouse, one of this year's judges for the 2021 NFFD Microfiction Competition, about novels, novellas-in-flash, favourite writers, and her advice to those entering this year's microfiction competition....

Diane: You won the NFFD micro fiction competition in 2019 and were Highly Commended in the 2020 competition. As a judge this year, is there any advice you can give to entrants to this year’s micro fiction competition?

Alison: Writing micros is (and should be) challenging! You’ve got to get a narrative arc and emotional shift into so few words. I usually start with an image or a phrase and work from there to get the first draft and then I do a lot of rewriting. As you go through your drafts you might write ones that are significantly longer or change the point of view, or where you begin and end. My advice is to track changes or print out versions. Sometimes, and I know I’ve done it, with all the editing and counting words you extinguish the spark, so make sure you can go back and find it. Another thing, and lots of people say this, read it aloud. You’ll hear any words that are out of place. If you can get a couple of people to read it before you submit, that’s also a good idea. If they both point out a problem, they’re probably right.

Diane: Your novella-in flash, The House on the Corner, was recently published by Ad Hoc Fiction after being Highly Commended in the Bath Flash Fiction Award’s competition. Can you tell us a little about the novella and the process of writing it?

Alison: The House on the Corner is about family, love, longing for connection, nostalgia, regret, all the cheerful things! The Kings (Helen and Martin and their children, Joe and Natalie) move into a new house, full of hope for the future. I set it in the 1980’s and early ‘90’s and used specific historical events as a backdrop, such as the Berlin Wall coming down and the Lockerbie disaster. I wrote it very quickly for the competition. I had some time afterwards to edit although I didn’t change much, just added a few more stories where I felt there were gaps and rewrote the ending. It was such an intuitive book to write. I originally thought of the house as a character and a succession of families moving in and I still wonder about doing a continuation. Before I wrote this, I’d been working on a novel (I had about 60,000 words) that had similar ideas, but just felt very stodgy. It was an absolute joy to write in this far lighter, more flexible and exciting form.

Diane: I know you are an avid reader. Do you retreat into reading for long spells or are you someone who always has a book on the go and steadily reads a little every day?

Alison: I’ve hardly read any novels recently. I’m not sure why. Maybe because I look at my phone too much! When I do read, I get totally absorbed and everything else falls by the wayside so no, I’m not a steady little bit everyday kind of reader. I’m really not very patient. I do like a short novel! One of the advantages of the phone or Ipad is I read a lot of short stories and flash ‘on the go’. The disadvantage is I tend to read them quickly then move on, whereas when the story is in a collection I linger over it, or go back and reread. Every now and again I’ll do a reading journal, which I find very useful. I’ll jot down thoughts about what I’m reading, what I’m learning from it as a writer, what I think works or doesn’t. I’m quite critical!

Diane: Can you remember where you first heard about flash? Do you remember any early flashes you read that left an impression on you?

Alison: My very first exposure would have been before I knew it was called flash! Tania Hershman’s The White Road was the first collection I bought and I thought it absolutely wonderful and then loved My Mother was an Upright Piano and Vanessa Gebbie’s Storm Warning. I knew I liked the idea of writing short, shorter, shortest, but didn’t think it something I could ‘do’. Then I moved to Bath in 2016 and met you, Diane, and you were writing a Nif and I had no idea what that was but from then on I didn’t look back!

Diane: What books or authors have most influenced your own writing?

Alison: That’s so hard to answer because different books have meant so much to me at different times and there are many that affected me deeply both as a reader and writer when I was, say in my early twenties, that I probably couldn’t read again now. However, sometimes you come across that thing in a story or a novel you can just sense, when it’s telling a truth and you feel it deeply in way that goes beyond analysing, that isn’t to do with structure or language or technique but uses all of those things - that’s the writing that makes me want to strive to be a writer who can do that, using just these clumsy words, because it’s a miracle isn’t it! I felt that reading Conrad’s Lord Jim a million years ago, even though it’s a terribly written book in some ways. I couldn’t get the idea of it out of my head, this devastating moment of self-realisation, that you’re not the person you’ve always believed you were, and what that does to you? How do you live? More recently I found it in Danielle Mclaughlin’s Sunday Times Short Story prizewinner, A Partial List of the Saved. I had to read it over and over and I’ll never forget it. I felt it with Cynan Jones’s The Dig and Marilyn Robinson’s Home. Writers construct a mirage, a lie if you like, to convey a truth and every now and again you only see or feel the truth, not the scaffolding around it. It’s a quality in the work, and it’s entirely personal, but when I read it, I know it and it makes me want to be a better writer.

Alison Woodhouse is a writer and teacher. Her flash fiction and short stories have been widely published and anthologised, including In the Kitchen (Dahlia Press), With One Eyes on the Cows (Bath flash fiction), Leicester Writes 2018 & 2020 (Dahlia Press), The Real Jazz Baby (Reflex), A Girl’s Guide go Fishing (Reflex), National Flash Fiction Day Anthologies and Life on the Margins (Scottish Arts Trust Story Awards). She has won a number of story competitions including Flash 500, Hastings, HISSAC (flash & short story), NFFD micro, Biffy50, Farnham, Adhoc and Limnisa and been placed in many others. In 2019 she was awarded an MA with Distinction in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University. Her debut novella-in-flash The House on the Corner is published by AdHoc Fiction. Contact her at:
alisonwoodhouse.com
Twitter: @AJWoodhouse
Facebook: Alison Woodhouse

SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW OPEN for this year's National Flash Fiction Day Anthology and Micro Fiction Competition. Submissions close on 15th February 2021. For more information, please visit our Anthology and Competition guidelines.  

• Judge - Sophie van Llewyn
• First prize is £300 and publication by the National Flash Fiction Day Press as a single author novella-in-flash
• Second prize is £100
• Third prize is £50
• Word count: 6,000 to 12,000
• Individual flashes: 1,000 words max
• Entry fee: £14
• Free submission is available if you feel the fee is a barrier to entry. No questions asked
• Simultaneous subs: Yes
• Theme: None
• Mutiple entries: Yes, but entrants may only win one prize

Our judge and readers look forward to reading your work!

Welcome to the fifth in our series of interviews with this year's National Flash Fiction Day Anthology editors and Microfiction Competition judges! This week, Diane Simmons chats with Nod Ghosh, this year's Guest Editor of the 2021 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology, about her most recent collection, the writing of novellas in flash, and the flash fiction scenes in New Zealand and the UK, as well as what she's looking for in the NFFD anthology submission queue....

Diane: I very much enjoyed your novella-in-flash (NiF) The Crazed Wind (Truth Serum Press) and am looking forward to reading Filthy Sucre (Truth Serum Press). Do you have any tips for writers who are considering writing a novella-in-flash?

Nod: Thank you, Diane. I enjoyed writing the stories for The Crazed Wind.

Consider these statements: 'Flash fiction pieces within a novella-in-flash should stand alone without relying on the reader having to read the other of the stories in a series. They could be read in any order and still make sense.'

Are these statements true? Yes and no. In theory, the stories don't rely on anything else in the series. However, without severe paring down, and 'leaving space for the reader's creative response' (as all flash should), there would be unnecessary repetition cluttering a NiF.

As for order, I was taking part in Nancy Stohlman's online course To Get the Words Right in 2018, when I started writing The Crazed Wind. Nancy taught me the importance of placement in a NiF or flash collection. You have to consider the reader's whole experience. Adjacent pieces may be linked through common characters, content or ideas. More importantly, the writer should omit anything that doesn't fit, and create 'fillers' that bridge stories that might otherwise appear disparate.

Stohlman covers this and other topics in Going Short, An Invitation to Flash Fiction.

I can't improve on the advice offered by Michael Loveday in his interview for the Bath Nif Award here: https://bathflashfictionaward.com/2019/07/top-tips-for-writing-a-novella-in-flash-by-michael-loveday-2020-novella-judge/

Loveday states NiF are less successful if the common thread between the stories isn't clear.
The timeline shouldn't be too convoluted to follow.
In another interview, he has emphasised the importance of a cohesive unifying ending.

Diane: Together with Santino Prinzi, you are editing this year’s NFFD anthology on the theme of MAGIC. Is there anything in particular you are looking for from a submission? Or anything that you don’t want to see?

Nod: I aim to select purely on the quality of the writing. Having said that, as the NFFD stories are destined for an anthology, originality would be welcome, so the best stories provide a balanced and entertaining read. However, I wouldn't eliminate a well-constructed piece if its theme were overused. In a way, that might reflect the zeitgeist of 2021.

Here is my message to anyone submitting:

Interpret 'MAGIC' in any way you want.

The only thing I don't want to see is unpolished writing. Learn your craft. Revise your pieces until your brain and fingers hurt. Respond to critique from other writers.

Diane: You currently live in New Zealand, having previously lived in the UK. Both countries have vibrant flash communities and independent National Flash Fiction Days. Can you tell us a little about NFFD in New Zealand and how it came about?

Nod: New Zealand has a rich history of renowned short story writers such as Katherine Mansfield. The shorter form was in evidence too in the last century, for example, Graeme Lay's anthology 100 NZ Short Short Stories (1997).

Michelle Elvy was a pioneer of flash fiction in Aotearoa New Zealand. She started the NZ National Flash Fiction Day competition, and the online journal Flash Frontier, an Adventure in Short Fiction in 2012. Over the years, a large number of writers from all over the country have helped organise events to celebrate placed authors in NZ NFFD. There are regional awards, and the more recently introduced youth and micro (100 word) sections. This year, for obvious reasons the award ceremony was online.

Diane: Have the coronavirus restrictions in New Zealand affected your writing routine at all?

Nod: Back to those 'obvious reasons'! Many events moved to an online format (e.g.: via 'Zoom') after the pandemic restrictions began in Aotearoa at the end of March. A happy side effect of this is that we can now 'attend' overseas functions such as book launches we may not have otherwise been able to. As in other areas, such as work, these adaptations are likely to stay.

On a more personal level, and I think I share this with others, the effects of SARS-CoV-2 have been devastating. We probably all know people who have lost family members to COVID-19. The sequelae of the epidemic will likely be catastrophic both in terms of disease, but also economics on a worldwide scale. That can make it seem futile to write a story.

Currently (late 2020), we are lucky in New Zealand. There is only occasional community transmission of the disease. However it has been hard to focus on frivolous activities such as creative writing, when there is such hardship on a global scale. I felt guilty for being disappointed the launch for Filthy Sucre (Truth Serum Press) was cancelled. Also, it was frustrating seeing opportunities for mainstream publication dry up globally, as publishing houses struggled with the situation.

Ending on a positive note, a semblance of normality here means we can return to our usual practices. I have to thank Nancy Stohlman again for the Flash Nano group online, which has allowed me to make my latest (as yet untitled) Nif. Also, there were some reports that sales of books increased in New Zealand during our lockdown. So while there are difficulties faced by publishing houses, they are still picking work up.

Diane: Do you enjoy performing your flashes? Do you have many opportunities to perform locally?

Nod: I love performing flash fiction, especially the ones where you can get into different characters' heads and do their voices. Last year, there were readings from Best Small Fictions at our central library. The Canterbury Poets Collective features a series of readings each spring, and have often invited flash fiction writers. The recent WORD Christchurch literary festival offered opportunities to read, for example at the launch of The Quick Brown Dog, the journal of my alma mater The Hagley Writers' Institute.

Thank you for the opportunity to answer these interesting questions.

Originally from the U.K., Nod Ghosh lives in Christchurch, New Zealand. The Crazed Wind (novella-in-flash 2018), and Filthy Sucre (three novellas 2020) were published by Truth Serum Press. Details can be found at http://www.nodghosh.com/about/

SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW OPEN for this year's National Flash Fiction Day Anthology and Micro Fiction Competition. Submissions close on 15th February 2021. For more information, please visit our Anthology and Competition guidelines.  

Welcome to the fourth in our series of interviews with this year's National Flash Fiction Day Anthology editors and Microfiction Competition judges. This week, Diane Simmons chats with Sharon Telfer, one of this year's judges for the 2021 NFFD Microfiction Competition, about historical fiction, favourite authors, and her starting point as a flash fiction writer, as well as her advice to writers entering the microfiction competition....

Diane: You are an editor for FlashBack Fiction and obviously enjoy reading and writing historical fiction. Is there any period of history that attracts you to write about more than others?

Sharon: ‘When’ is as much a setting as ‘where’ for me. Time adds another layer for thinking about how we live now. We walk through those layers every day. My small town, for instance, is named in the Domesday Book, there’s a WW2 airfield (now a gliding club), a medieval church built with wool money, a 500-year-old school, a 1930s cinema (now an arts centre), a half-demolished hall (now a Buddhist centre), a Victorian water lily collection, a disused canal head, and an ancient pond that originally supplied trout to a long-gone monastery. My regular walk takes in a footpath used by the Pilgrimage of Grace. Recent building round the edge of town has unearthed Bronze Age warriors and an Iron Age chariot (complete with horses). I’m fascinated by these changes and connections. So, I don’t really think of myself as writing historical fiction: the time setting depends on each story. I hope FlashBack shows anyone – editors, writers, judges, readers – who might still be tempted to set historical flash aside in a separate box just how versatile, relevant and powerful it can be. We’ve published some amazing flash.

Diane: As a micro fiction judge this year, do you have any advice for entrants? I know for instance that you consider language to be very important in a flash.

Sharon: Use everything. Use the title. Use the space between the title and the opening. Use the music of the language and the pace of the telling. Use the length of your words, sentences and paragraphs. Use segments or subheads or the headlong rush of a single paragraph. Use your reader’s expectations to complete patterns and to surprise them. Use those ghosts of other words hovering round the ones you put down. Use every comma and full stop. Use tenses and moods. Use that crystal ring at the story’s end. You have so much more than 100 words in your toolbox.

Diane: Can you remember when you first started reading flash? Is there any particular flash that you remember admiring from that time?

Sharon: I started writing flash by chance, before I started reading it. In 2015 I spotted Faber Academy’s competition on Twitter and thought I’d have a go. Every Friday, QuickFic set a prompt, then published their favourite three stories (max 250 words) that afternoon. Next I discovered AdHoc Fiction, another weekly prompt, with a little longer writing time but only 150 words. These were wonderful reading and writing playgrounds. Inspired, I entered the first Bath Flash Fiction award. I got absolutely nowhere. But the two top stories, by William Davidson and Eileen Merriman, blew me away. After that, I was hooked.

Diane: Who is the writer you most admire?

Sharon: The impossible question! One writer I’d urge anyone who loves reading or writing short fiction to read Carys Davies, especially her two collections, Some New Ambush and The Redemption of Galen Pike. These are mostly short stories, although there are some flash pieces and some brilliantly imagined historical(ish) settings. The rich, detailed worlds she creates are utterly recognisable and believable, while also sharp and unsettling. The endings make you rethink everything you’ve read before. I don’t know how she does it – though she has said that the title story of Galen Pike took her 10 years to get right!

Sharon Telfer cut her micro teeth on the weekly @AdHocFiction competitions. Her flash fiction has won prizes, including the Bath Flash Fiction Award (2020 and 2016) and the Reflex Flash Fiction Prize (2018). Her stories have also been chosen for the ‘BIFFY50’ (2019 and 2020) and Best Microfiction 2019. She’s a founding editor at FlashBack Fiction, the online litmag showcasing historical flash.

She grew up on Teesside and now lives in the Yorkshire Wolds. In 2018, she was the New Writing North/Word Factory Short Story Apprentice. She placed second in the 2020 Bath Short Story Award. Another story has been selected for the Test Signal anthology of the best contemporary Northern writing, to be published by Dead Ink Books and Bloomsbury in 2021. She tweets @sharontelfer.

SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW OPEN for this year's National Flash Fiction Day Anthology and Micro Fiction Competition. Submissions close on 15th February 2021. For more information, please visit our Anthology and Competition guidelines.  

Welcome to the third in our series of interviews with this year's National Flash Fiction Day Anthology editors and Microfiction Competition judges! This week, Diane Simmons chats with K.M. Elkes, one of this year's judges for the 2021 NFFD Microfiction Competition, about writing, walking, teaching, and the process of editing a collection....

Diane: National Flash Fiction Day started in 2012. Can you remember when you first heard about it? Is there a story from any of the anthologies that stays in your mind?

KM: My first encounter was in 2013. I’d not been writing long, but luckily had some early success, including winning the Fish Flash Prize and being shortlisted for the Bridport (Flash) Prize. I think this raised my profile enough to be invited by Kevlin Henney to read at a NFFD event in Bristol. The line-up included authors like Paul McVeigh, Jonathan Pinnock, Clare Reddaway, Sarah Hilary, as well as hosts Calum Kerr and Tania Hershman. It was one of my first literary/reading gigs, but it was a very welcoming atmosphere as I recall.

One of the stories that I remember from previous anthologies was Helen Rye’s title story from the 2017 anthology Sleep is a Beautiful Colour – it’s warm, tender and funny. What more do you need?

Diane: Your full flash collection All That is Between Us was published by Ad Hoc Fiction in 2019. Could you tell us a little about the process of putting the collection together?

KM: The book was an unplanned baby. Like much flash fiction, it came about as the result of a prompt - a question from Jude Higgins, of publishers Ad Hoc Fiction, who asked if I had considered publishing a flash fiction collection. The answer was, categorically, no. I thought my flash stories had very little in common, so why would anyone want to read them all together?

But after Jude’s question, I made a tentative list of stories and spotted a thread running through them, a focus on the fragility of human relationships, particularly how much we are shaped by a need to connect and belong, and how that need brings both pleasure and pain. To make the collection complete, I created about some new stories and devised a triptych structure, with the first section covering relationships between parents and children, the larger centre section concentrating on couples and the final section examining relationships between friends and strangers.

After that it was the usual effort of revisions and editing and falling in and out of love with the thing. I spent a lot of time fussing over the cover design. It was the equivalent of making sure you wear clean pants when you go out, just in case something bad happens. I wanted to ensure that even if the book fell flat and got no critical acclaim or sales, then at least it would look pretty.

Diane: I notice that as well as writing, you have been running online writing courses. Is teaching something you enjoy. Do you have plans to run more courses in the future?

KM: I started running the online courses in January 2020, as a way to encourage writers to look at their craft in less conventional ways, to take risks and really lean into their unique voice. I also enjoy the opportunity to learn more about the writing process myself and be challenged by other writers. Plus, it means I get the chance to geek out by reading and analysing great short fiction in the company of other enthusiasts. I’m not sure how much any of that could be labelled as teaching but it doesn’t really matter as long as the participants feel they have got some benefit.

The courses are part of my income but have also been an opportunity, in a small way, to help people from marginalised groups as I offer discounted places on each course. As a writer from a specifically rural working class background, I know how tricky it can be to access learning and support, so I think it is incumbent on me to do what I can to remedy this.

I’m hoping to create some longer, less intensive online courses in 2021 and, fingers crossed, get back to some face-to-face stuff too.

Diane: Writers often feel they should be tied to their desk writing. Do you find time away from your desk helpful? Is there a particular activity that helps you to come up with ideas or solve problems?

KM: Yes, I have to go do other things as being in front of a screen too long leaves me, literally, with a headache. Research has shown that walking can boost creativity. The Australian author Tegan Bennett Daylight put it best “scratch a writer and you’ll find a walker.” My courses usually feature a walking exercise when I encourage people to go for a walk with their brains creatively engaged to see what kind of weird, compelling prompts they can find.

I also need more intense physical exercise, not necessarily for mulling and thinking but just to feel part of the real world and that my body is not just an increasingly loose bag of bones and fat for my brain to stew in. So I run, cycle, play football, occasionally climb up things I shouldn’t climb up (that’s not a metaphor, I just have a potentially hazardous ‘I wonder if I could get up that’ habit). I’ve usually got quite a lot of energy to burn off, much like a dog that needs walking, though I’d like to emphasise that I am toilet-trained.

Diane: Did you write as a child or teenager? If so, can you tell us a little more about what you wrote at that time?

KM: I wrote some risible poetry as a teenager, full of hormonal angst and loiny longings. And I was always, always reading. But growing up in tiny villages in a rural county, there wasn’t much of a literary scene. It seemed a remote pursuit for posh, well-educated people. However, there was a structure in place to encourage children from lower income families to take up a musical instrument, which I got involved with. It was music that fed the creativity that eventually led to me becoming a writer. It also gave me some early craft lessons - having our ‘known arsonist’ neighbours yelling up at my bedroom while I clumsily farted my way through scales on a bassoon helped me understand concepts like tension and jeopardy.

KM Elkes is the author of the flash fiction collection All That Is Between Us (Ad Hoc Fiction, 2019), which was shortlisted for a 2020 Saboteur Award. His flash stories have won, or been placed, in competitions including the Bath Flash Fiction Award, Reflex Fiction Prize, Fish Publishing Flash Prize and the Bridport Prize. His work featured in the Best Microfiction anthology 2020, and he has been a Best Small Fictions and Pushcart nominee. His stories have appeared in more than 40 literary anthologies and journals. He is also an award-winning short story writer and has been successful in competitions such as the Manchester Fiction Prize, the Royal Society of Literature Award and the BBC National Short Story Award. A short fiction tutor for Comma Press, he also runs flash fiction workshops online and at literary events. As an author from a rural working-class background, his work often reflects marginalised voices and places. Twitter: @kenelkes

SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW OPEN for this year's National Flash Fiction Day Anthology and Micro Fiction Competition. Submissions close on 15th February 2021. For more information, please visit our Anthology and Competition guidelines.