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Author: Ingrid Jendrzejewski

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Published on 1 Comment on Shipshape and Bristol Flashing by Kevlin Henney

[We asked Kevlin Henney to talk about the Bristol NFFD workshop and readings which served as the main events for this year's day. He said 'yes' and here it is...]

Isn't it odd, I thought, that there are no flash-related events in Bristol on National Flash-Fiction Day? This was 2012, the first National Flash-Fiction Day was happening and Bristol — a happening place in terms of flash fiction, judging by theKissing Frankenstein & Other Stories collection and the number of local authors flashing their short shorts — seemed to be marking the day with a curious lack of happening on the day. How come?

And what was I doing on NFFD 2012 instead? Driving from Bristol to Oxford to slam flash at the first flash slam, presided over by renowned flash author Tania Hershman, who also lives in Bristol. We were there because Oxford was one of the places where things were happening... but by being there, we weren't in Bristol.

The penny dropped. If I wanted something to happen in Bristol for NFFD 2013, then I might have to (1) suggest it and (2) help organise it. A group of us — me, Tania,Sarah Hilary, Pauline Masurel and Deborah Rickard — got together to make it so.

This year's NFFD was the day after the summer solstice, following the shortest night with a day of the shortest fiction, which conveniently placed it on a Saturday. Convenient until you realise that if you're planning an event on a Saturday in summer, you're also competing with weddings and the like for event space. We reckoned on a couple of events, an afternoon writing workshop and an evening reading event, and through trial and error and luck and generosity found venues for both. Bristol Central Library generously gave us the use of a meeting room for the afternoon and The Lansdown pub in Clifton has an upstairs space with great ambience and decent acoustics.

To really make sure we got NFFD to happen in Bristol, we managed to persuade Mr NFFD, Calum Kerr, to join us for the day. Tania and Calum took the afternoon workshop, leading twenty people — the room's stated capacity! — through discussion and critique, reading and writing, and tea and coffee. The evening brought rainshine, thirteen readers and a room of people ready for a goodnight story or two.

One of the best things about flash spoken-word events is the range and number of stories and readers you can pack in. After five minutes of most short stories you're often still in the foothills of the story; with flash, you've been taken to the peaks of one, two or three whole stories, and you're on to the next reader. Not sure if a story is to your liking? Like buses, wait a couple of minutes and another will be along. But there were no duff stories or readers. In addition to the motley organisers and Calum, we had readings from Anna Britten, Ken Elkes, Paul McVeigh, Nick Parker,Jonathan Pinnock, Clare Reddaway and Tim Stevenson. Calum also read a couple of stories by other authors from Scraps, the hot-off-the-press NFFD anthology.

Was it good? Was it fun? Do you wish you'd been there? See for yourself. Hope to see you in Bristol next year!

Published on Leave a comment on Post-Match Roundup

Well, hello everyone,

It's been just over a week since The Day, so I thought I would catch you up with what happened then and what has happened since. 
Of course, we launched our new anthology, Scraps, and that has done incredibly well. We have exactly 5 copies left from our original printings. 
However, we also have it on Kindle and now, as a print-on-demand book from Amazon, so it will be available in print for ever! (It says 'out of stock' but if you order one, they print it and send it, so don't be put off.) This last option might be more attractive for those outside the UK as it will result in reduced postage costs, especially in the US, and even more so if you get free shipping from Amazon Prime.
If you are interested in any of those versions of the book, then the links are:

(With the Amazon links, change the .co.uk to .com or whatever, for your local site.)
We also, of course, had FlashFlood running throughout the day. It was about 140 stories long, making a rate of one every 10 minutes or so. You can still read all the stories, and those from previous issues, at FlashFlood
And then, there were the events. I was at Bristol, where a wonderful time was had by all, but much else was happening. Below is a range of blog links to fill you in on other happenings - reviews, stories posted, all kinds of things!
'The Monster Under My Bed' - Ro Smith
NFFD Shrewsbury - Pauline Fisk
Stories from Shrewsbury
'Final Words' - Damon Lord
NFFD - Katy Wheatley
NFFD Bristol - Grace Palmer
Flash-Mob
NEW Flash Fiction Competition from December House
Flash Fiction on Youtube - Marc Nash
Edinburgh Evening News 
NFFD - D Thomas Minton
'Dry Throat' - Lucy Montague Moffatt
NFFD - Dave Hartley
On a more personal note, NFFD saw the launch of my first full length collection, Lost Property. To celebrate its publication I have set off on a blog tour where I will be posting stories, being interviewed and writing articles about NFFD, my writing, and my thoughts on Flash-Fiction in general. If you think that might be interesting, you can follow the tour on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LostPropertyCalumKerr.
And so, all that is left is to to wrap the ribbon around this year's day and call it finished. Thank you to all who helped with the various activities, to all the writers and organisers of events and competitions, and to all the readers who make what we do so worthwhile.
Specific thanks from me must go to:
The Micro-Fiction Competition judges:
Cathy Bryant, Tom Gillespie, Kevlin Henney, Emma Lannie, Kirsty Logan and Angela Readman.
My co-editor on Scraps, Holly Howitt. And Amy Mackelden who did all the real work. Without her, the book just wouldn't have happened!
To Tim Stevenson for website and book cover design help.
To Kevlin Henney (again!) for organising such a great event in Bristol. 
And, of course, to the good Lady Flash, Kath Kerr, for help and support beyond all reason, with NFFD and everything else.
And, that's it, I'll go now before I start weeping and thanking God.
Have a good year, keep your eyes peeled for all things flash, some of which are likely to come from us, spread the word about the books and everything we do, and put the date of 21st June 2014 into your diaries now!
All best

Published on Leave a comment on Announcing December House’s Flash Fiction Fest 2013 competition
As a publisher we're delighted to be associated with National Flash Fiction Day. For so many of our authors, the short form is where they honed their craft and polished their storytelling skills and for that reason, amongst many others, we are big supporters of Flash Fiction.
Last September, when December House was just a fledgling start-up, we were approached by three fantastic writers who had an idea they were calling "Four Weeks of Flash Fiction". We loved their work and agreed to bring the project under the December House banner and to promote and publish it. As a result Flash Fiction Fest was born.
From day one we'd always planned to make it an annual event, and so this November we'll be doing it all again. This year the theme is "The 7 Deadly Sins" and every day we'll be  publishing a number of pieces of Flash Fiction, both at FlashFictionFest.com and on Wattpad. The entire collection will also be available as an e-book.
We've already got 8 of our authors lined up to take part, but we also want to open it up to the wider writing community. So today we're launching a competition to find the best three pieces of Flash Fiction on the theme "The 7 Deadly Sins".
The Prize
The December House team will read every entry, and the writer judged to have the best three stories will see them included in Flash Fiction Fest 2013, and the e-book of the event (for which they'll also be paid royalties). 
The winner will also have the chance to work with our editor on a novel, with the intention being to prepare it for publication by December House.
How to Enter
To enter you'll need to upload your three pieces (which must be under 1,000 words each) to WattPad and tag them "FlashFictionFest". 
There are full instructions on www.FlashFictionFest.com, and you can see some examples from last year's event on the December House Wattpad page.
Want to know more?
Visit www.FlashFictionFest.com or follow us on Twitter and ask us a question.

Published on Leave a comment on Happy National Flash-Fiction Day!

Good Morning, and Happy National Flash-Fiction Day,

Yes, the day is finally here and there is plenty going on.
If you follow us on Twitter or Facebook, then you have almost certainly seen the torrent of words which is FlashFlood http://flashfloodjournal.blogspot.co.uk/. They are pouring out at a rate of almost one every 10 minutes right through till midnight. Lots of great stories. Enjoy, comment, and share!
In other virtual realms, we have a selection of ebooks, including last year's anthology, Jawbreakers, which will be free this weekend. http://nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/kindle.html (Although, at the time of writing, the price promotion hasn't kicked in. That's Amazon, not us, so keep your eyes on the books, they WILL be free soon!)
And, of course, this year's anthology, Scraps, is now available on Kindle too (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scraps-ebook/dp/B00DEFT5ZY/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1371886611&sr=8-4&keywords=calum+kerr). 
If you download any of these books, it would be wonderful if you could leave a review. They do make a difference.
Scraps, the paperback book, after a slight delay at the printers. has now officially arrived. It will be available at the Bristol events (more below) and any pre-orders will be shipped on Monday. You can order your copy, and more, at http://nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/shop.html.
And, what else? Well, as mentioned above, there are a couple of events happening in Bristol today - a workshop I shall be co-leading with Tania Hershman, and a reading this evening with loads of great writers. I shall be at both, so do come along it would be great to see you. 
And a host of other events are getting underway, including events in Abergavenny and Manchester which have been added in the last couple of days. 
Apart from that, it just remains for me to thank you all for your continued support, to wish you a very happy National Flash-Fiction Day and to hope you will enjoy it and spend at least some time writing those tiny gems which have brought us together again. And please, send us anything you write, whether a blog post, a story, a review of an event, or whatever. We will post them over the coming days and weeks, or share the link (if it is a link). We want to know how you have celebrated the day and then share it with others.
Happy NFFD!
All best
Calum Kerr, Director

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Published on 1 Comment on ‘Like A Jewel’ by Pauline Fisk
The rocket man said no, even before he set off.  There are some things you won’t stoop to, and bagging moon dust for sale back on earth was one of them, especially sale by some company operating out of Jersey, calling itself Planet Earth Holdings. 
The company texted, phoned and emailed not just Space Control UK, but the rocket man personally, but he refused to reply.  Even after he’d been launched, they were still trying to get through to him as if they actually thought there were mobile phone masts in space. But all they got back was a engaged beeping sound that went on and on and on and on….   
The PR people for Planet Holdings started a grass roots campaign.  They raised public awareness of the value of moon dust by cosying up to the right journalists and a couple of useful blogsites. The idea caught on so fast that it never had time for a tipping point. It went up like wildfire. 
Suddenly everybody was blogging about bringing dust back from the moon.  Pride in the achievements of Space Control UK turned to discontent. All this messing around with rockets had been paid for out of the public purse. Pound for pound, that moon dust belonged to the Great British man and woman in the street.  Their rocket man, funded by their taxes, had a public duty to bring it back to them.
People started phoning Space Control UK.  God alone knows how they found the number. The story made it onto the radio, and then TV.  Chatlines filled up with indignant callers demanding moon dust as their human right. Some wanted it sold to raise money for the International Children’s Hospital on the Isle of Wight.  There were arguments about what would happen if the EU lay claim to it. Some people reckoned it should be adminstered by Lottery.  Some subtle voices whispered that the safest hands in this situation were the good folk at Planet Earth Holdings – a company nobody had heard of before, but whose shares[ on the subject of sky rocketing] were now aiming for the stars.  
Questions were asked in Parliament.  The country had crippled itself, announced the Labour front bench. In its attempts to prove that it was still an important nation, it had been brought by the present government to its knees - and were they now going to deny its citizens access to what, in effect, was their own moon dust?  A nationalized industry needed setting up, analyzing moon dust and making it available on a basis of need. No way, announced the Tory front bench.  Moon dust should be privatized. Already discussions with Planet Earth Holdings were under way.
At this, a mob took to the streets. The matter was discussed in Cabinet.  When the police joined forces with the mob, a COBRA meeting had to be held. Rumours abounded about moon dust’s properties. The Government’s Chief Scientist was called in. Air Force chiefs advised. The people from the Space Programme were called in.  The Church had something to say. So did Greenpeace and the Friends of the Earth. Was it ethical to remove dust by the rocket load from the moon?
Everybody had something to say, but no agreement could be found, as tis often the way.  The Cabinet was split.  The Prime Minister was prevaricating. The Deputy Prime Minister was no fool.  He appraised the situation like a hawk, and seized his chance.
Up on the moon, the blackness of infinity was so intense that the rocket man could not just hear it, but actually see it sing.  Dust lay like fallen stars beneath his feet.  The earth shone like a jewel. It was the most beautiful thing that he had ever seen.

Published on Leave a comment on Flash Fiction Shrewsbury – Pauline Fisk

[First published on http://mytonightfromshrewsbury.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/flash-fiction-shrewsbury.html 20/06/2013]

Last night in the Shrewsbury Coffeehouse, National Flash Fiction Day was celebrated with an Open Mic and pieces of short, short fiction – very short and often very sharp too.  This is a great writing – and reading – form for a busy world.  If you haven’t the time to read a book, you’ve still got time for a couple of pieces of flash.  That’s the idea at any rate.  You can read a piece of flash in the time it takes you to wait for your bus to come along.  A couple of pieces, if it’s late.  And if you haven’t got time to write that novel you always reckoned you’d got in you, then you’ve got the time to write a story in five hundred words.

'Flash fiction is fiction with its teeth bared and its claws extended...'  'It's a machine of compression, the hugest of things in the tiniest of spaces, flash freakin' fiction...'   'It can be prose poetry, a whole story, a slice of sharp light illuminating a life...'

Three quotes amongst many on what is flash fiction.  The name's believed to have been coined back in 1992 as the title to an anthology of very short stories, and it's a name that's stuck. Short, short stories have been written for a long time.  Kafka did it, so did Chekov, and Hemingway's 'For sale: baby shoes, never worn' has been quoted to death.

However, in recent years, with the growth of the internet, more people reading on e-readers and mobile phones, and the sheer pace of life, the very short story has taken on a whole new life. People don't have much time for reading - or for writing - and the short short story has really come into its own.

Today flash fiction as a phenomenon is being written, and read, all over the world. People have different ideas about how long flash should be. 1,000 words? 50? 10? Ten's pushing it, I reckon. The good people who met at the Shrewsbury Coffeehouse last night have settled for 500.

Last year, Shrewsbury had the honour of launching the first National Flash Fiction Day on May 15th, Flash Fiction Eve.   This year the town was several days in advance.  Last year just a handful of people turned up with stories, and much of the evening was taken up with writing - people collaborating together, in many cases as strangers, but through the medium of writing becoming friends.  ‘I haven’t written a story since I was in primary school,’ somebody said.  And she and many others were back this year, raring to write more. The Shrewsbury Coffeehouse was packed.

This year there was still writing on the tables covered with rolls of lining paper for just that purpose, but where only six people turned up with stories to read, this time the running order had seventeen.  At one point it looked hard to see how they’d all be fitted into one short evening, but by the end of the night when the Muse departed, everybody had read.

In just one evening, we heard about Gabriel Rosetti’s obsession with exotic animals [which he buried in his garden]; window-cleaners encountering ghosts from the past; a new annunciation for a new Virgin Queen; a couple of murder mysteries, one told from the point of view of the corpse; the experience of trench life in the First World War, the experience of being mum to a dysfunctional family, running away to join the Foreign Legion and much, much more. The stories were as diverse as the people who were there.

The names on the running order are Caroline Bucknall, Carol Caffrey, Carol Forrester, Adrian Perks, Matt James, Liz Lefroy, Barry Tench, Lisa Oliver, Katherine Dixon-Miller, Catherine Redfern, Annie Wilson, Ivan Jones, Mal Jones, Steven Lovejoy, Rosemary [you didn't leave a surname, but I loved your story], Faiza Islam [and her sister, who needs thanks for reading with a heavy head cold] and Pauline Fisk. All of these people made the evening special, and need special thanks.

Also during the evening, the Flash Fiction Shrewsbury website was launched. The town already has its own Flash Fiction Shrewsbury Facebook page, but now there’s a place for the people of Shrewsbury to post their stories.  In just the couple of days the website had been up, it had been read by over fifty people in the UK, twenty-six in the US, and one each in Russia, the Netherlands and Singapore.  ‘Here’s a chance for the people of Shrewsbury to put their writing on the map,’ said the MC of the night, who happened to be me.

At the end of the evening, 'Snow' by Julia Alvarez was read from the book 'Flash Fiction - 72 Very Short Stories', edited by James and Denise Thomas and Tom Hazuka.  Here was a true master of flash at work.  An inspiration to us all. 'Each snowflake was different,' the story ends up, 'like a person, irreplaceable and beautiful.' And that spoke for the whole evening.  All those people, all those different takes on life. Shrewsbury has so much talent to offer.

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Published on 4 Comments on ‘The Language of Angels’ by Jonathan Pinnock
“Bonjour M’sieur,” said the guy with the wings, “J’éspère que vôtre mort n’était pas trop douloureuse?”
“You what?” said Jim. The air smelled vaguely of croissants.
“Pardon? Je ne vous comprends pas, m’sieur. Je suis St Pierre. Vous êtes …?”
Jim racked his brains for a moment, trying to work out what was going on. Was the guy saying that he didn’t understand him? Well that made two of them. Then he remembered something important from his school days.
“Pouvez-vous repéter la question?”
The guy with the wings looked at him for a moment, then burst out laughing.
“Répéter, m’sieur. Répéter!”
Then Jim realised. Repéter meant to re-fart, didn’t it? He vaguely recalled his old French teacher forever banging on about that. He had a feeling that he wasn’t making a very good impression.
“Pouvez-vous répéter …?” he began. It probably wasn’t going to help, but at least it would give him more time to think.
“Comment vous appelez-vous?” said the angel.
“Ah! Je m’appelle Jim,” said Jim, with a note of triumph.
             “Ah. Jim! C’est un nom anglais, n’est-ce pas?”
“Er … oui?” said Jim, struggling to keep up.
“Ah. Dans le ciel, on parle Français. Vous ne parlez pas bien Français, je pense?”
Huh? Something about speaking French here? Was that why they’d insisted on teaching it at school? He would have paid more attention if he’d known.
“SORRY,” he said, in a very slow, loud voice. “I … DON’T … REALLY … UNDERSTAND … YOU. CAN … I … HAVE … A … BIT … MORE … TIME … TO … THINK?”
The angel gave him a blank look. Then he shrugged and pulled a lever next to him. The floor under Jim opened up, and he fell down a long shaft, which twisted around several times before coming to a halt in a large warm room. A face peered down at him.
“You all right, mate?”
“I think so,” said Jim. “Do you speak English here?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank God for that,” said Jim.

“Nearly right,” said the guy with the horns.

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Published on 1 Comment on Telling Untold Stories – Jonathan Pinnock
Stories exist to be told. A story that goes untold is a story bereft of the reason for its existence. An untold story is a sad story. Even an untold happy story is a sad story. And an untold sad story is a very sad story indeed.
The sad truth however is that, up until relatively recently, there were a whole swathe of stories that were either not told at all or pulled out of shape and told in a way that made them a different story altogether.
The thing is, stories have a natural length. Some stories do fit into a nice Radio 4-friendly two thousand words, but there are many more that don’t fit into any nice comfortable slot. Gossamer-thin stories that don’t stretch longer than fifty words without snapping. Experimental stories that would fry the reader’s brain if the experiment continued beyond a couple of hundred or so. Stories that rely on sheer compression of narrative to make their impact.
The good news, however, is that in the last few years, more and more homes for these stories have appeared, along with a name: flash fiction. Sure, there have always been very short stories bubbling around, but never to the same extent as there are now. And the really wonderful thing – from both the reader’s and writer’s point of view – is that because it’s a relatively new concept, these are all new stories. Fresh stories. Untold stories.
And that, I guess, is what I love about flash fiction: its capacity for originality. You’ll read stuff in flashes that you’ve never encountered before in a conventional short story. You’ll read stuff presented in ways that you’ve never come across before. And sometimes you’ll read truly weird stuff that just couldn’t have worked in a conventional story.

I love writing flash fiction for exactly the same reason: it offers the opportunity to try stuff that hasn’t been tried before, to experiment with unusual styles and unexpected subject matter. Most importantly, it gives those untold stories a chance finally to get themselves an audience.

Published on Leave a comment on ‘Fingerthief’ by David Hartley
The bastard may know what those fingers were responsible for, he may feel like chief prosecutor of my soul, he may even feel slighted by the ineffectual judicial system that acquitted me, he clearly knows how to spirit himself in and out of locked doors, how to make surgical amputations without tools, how to make real life feel like nightmare until it is too late, and I’d bet my life he’s watching me now somehow – but I’ll be damned if I’ll give him the satisfaction of seeing me dial 999 with my nose.

['Fingerthief' is just one of the stories in David's collection, Threshold.]

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Published on 5 Comments on Say No to Flash Fiction – David Hartley
I don’t like the term flash fiction. Which seems a bit of an odd thing for me to say since I class myself as a flash fiction writer, I’ve had a book of flash fictions published, I’m part of a writing collective called Flashtag, and this is the official blog for National Flash Fiction Day 2013. But go with me on this; I don’t like the term – I do like the things themselves. Very much indeed.

Flash fictions are the art of brevity, and brevity is such an attractive thing in a gluttonous world of broadband teleportation, purple-sprouting dragon fruits, and eye-pad iPads. They fit well; on screens, in lives, into the fragmented rituals of our daily timeframes. And I believe they are a healthy medium too. They teach us control. And patience. And that leaving things out is almost always better than putting things in. Ahem.

They show us that stories don’t have to be long and consuming to be long in the mind and wholly consuming. Characters don’t need names. Or descriptions. Or back stories, or baggage, or a claim to the iron throne through something your half-sister’s cousin’s marriage partner’s spy said to a baby dragon seven thousand years ago. All you might need to say is ‘the ventriloquist’ and already the reader has a picture in their heads – and so do you, the writer, and now all you need to do is play that picture like a postmodern symphony of flavour until everything is mixed up and frightening and unsettling and then – BANG – hit them with the creepy dummy that they’ve almost forgotten existed, and stalk out of the room triumphant.

My problem with the term flash fiction is the word ‘flash’. It implies the brevity – ok that’s fine – but it also implies a certain unimportance, and that’s not fair. As more and more people discover flash fiction – readers and writers – its critical importance as a medium is becoming increasingly apparent. Many of the major short story writing awards now have a flash fiction category, and published collections are leaving in the super-short tales, rather than taking them out. Flash fictions fit neatly in the allotted timespan of an open-mic spoken word night, and as we train ourselves to speak brief on social media, our creative writings are evolving in the same way. Flash fiction is crucial – not a flash in the pan.   

Ultimately, flash fiction is just another way of saying ‘short story’ which, in turn, is another way of saying ‘story’, because the length of a thing does not necessarily determine if a tale has been told or not. I came to this realisation when I read the short story ‘Super-Toys Last all Summer Long’ by Brian Aldiss – which became the bloated and flawed film A.I: Artificial Intelligence in 2001. Aldiss’ tale is not short enough to be considered as flash fiction, but it is still surprisingly brief and packs a powerful punch – which the film takes a long and relatively weak time to deliver. Aldiss chose his words carefully and released just the right amount of information to kick that chill into my spine, and, in turn, my fingers onto the keyboard.

Aldiss showed me that even that most complex of genres – science fiction (another troublesome term) – could be delivered in a tiny amount of words for the same, or even greater, affect. But that affect does not come quickly. And here lies another problem with ‘flash’ – it implies the writing is quick. Well, compared to a novel, yes your flash fiction is going to be finished first. But that doesn’t mean you should trust your first words any more than you would the first draft of your novel. Flash fictions need gentle massage and brutal violence too; a shed word here, a change of tone there, a restructure of that sentence, a shift in point of view or, sometimes, a complete re-write. Make those words work hard, because they are no less important that the 100,000 words tussling to be free in that epic romance fantasy spy drama you’ve got going on deep in the back of your mind.


But really; it doesn't matter what we call them. As long as they get people to ink their quills and hammer all night on clunky keyboards in the creation of something beautiful, then their mission is accomplished. And if ‘flash fiction’ as a term has one thing going for it, its this; it still makes people frown, turn their heads and say ‘what’s that then?’ And when they discover what it is - and how accessible, exciting and experimental it is - there really is no turning back.