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Published on Leave a comment on ‘The Almond Crumb Sofa’ – Tim Stevenson
‘It was like being at war, I suppose,’ the Professor said.
 He relaxed deeper into his red leather armchair and sipped his brandy in the candlelight.
 His wife raised an eyebrow and stuck the poker into the remains of the fire before retrieving her cup of tea.
 ‘Not battles. Not soldiers in the trenches. That’s not what I mean.’ He stared at the last flames in the hearth.
 ‘It was a race to be the first,’ he began again. ‘The speed of sound, the moon landing, you know the kind of thing.’
 ‘The atom bomb?’ she asked.
 ‘Precisely,’ he replied.
 She knew not to pry any further. He’d always known how to keep a secret. All she knew was that deep in the Atacama Desert was a machine and it had kept her husband from her.
 ‘It was difficult,’ he said at last.
 ‘The work?’
 ‘Missing you.’
 She reached across the gap between them and gently squeezed his hand.
 ‘Not being able to call, not even being allowed to write a letter, that was the hardest thing to stomach.’
 His wife closed her eyes and let him talk. Four years of pent up thoughts rolled across the carpet.
 ‘I wondered if you’d changed,’ he said. ‘I had your photograph by my bed and wondered if you’d cut your hair or decided on a new favourite dress. It was hard to remember you.’
 She put her hand up to her curls and ran her hand through the auburn and the grey.
 ‘It’s strange how some things are hard to recollect, the little details,’ he said. ‘But that place we used to go to for tea on the square, the rickety tables and the homemade cakes, as clear as day. I used to dream about it.’
 ‘And the sofa by the fire,’ she said.
 In the deep orange glow her husband smiled.
 ‘Yes, all those crumbs under the cushions,’ he said. What were they? Coconut? Banana bread?’
 ‘Almonds,’ she said.
 ‘Oh yes. Crushed almonds, that wonderful smell.’
 Her husband had come home early. Homesickness he’d said, but she suspected.
 ‘I love you Julie,’ he said.
 She turned to face him. ‘Judith,’ she said.


'The Almond Crumb Sofa' is one of the stories from Scraps, the 2013 National Flash-Fiction Day Anthology. 

Learn more about Tim at www.timjstevenson.com

Published on Leave a comment on The Countdown has Begun…

We now have only just over a week to go until this year's National Flash-Fiction Day. Can you feel the excitement in the air? We can almost taste it...

Once more, we are running the FlashFlood journal and submissions are now open over at http://flashfloodjournal.blogspot.co.uk/.

We also have events listed on our website that you can get involved with: http://host2021.temp.domains/~nationo0/events.html.

To whet your appetite for the day, (and, frankly, to ramp up the tension), over the next week we're going to be posting a series of articles about flash-fiction from a variety of different writers. We'll also feature one of their stories, just to give you some relief from that horrible non-fictiony stuff. 

If you would like to contribute an article and story, please get in touch at nationalflashfictionday@gmail.com.

But, with no further ado, let's on with the first one, from this year's Micro-Fiction competition winner, Tim Stevenson.

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Published on 4 Comments on NFFD Anthology 2013

Hello everyone!

Well, it has been very, very difficult to make a decision, but Holly Howitt and myself finally managed to whittle down the nearly 300 submissions for this year's anthology to the final 50.

With no more fanfare, the names and stories are:

Amanda Oosthuizen - ‘Perfectly Black Sky’
Amanda Quinn - ‘Changing Light’
Ana Martinez - ‘The Veronicas’
Ariel Dawn - ‘Life Drawing’
Bart Van Goethem - ‘The Meaning of Life’
Becky Tipper - ‘The Art of the TV Chefs’
Beverly C. Lucey - ‘Peppermint Just the One’
Brendan Way - ‘Why Do Fools Fall in Love’
C Norman - ‘The Lonely Heart’
Cathy Bryant  - ‘The Man with Hands Amid the Rich Tea’
Cathy Lennon - ‘A Forest of Hands’
Chris Connolly  - ‘Q&A’
Claire Collison - ‘Second Look: Goat With Lawnmower’
Claire Ibarra - ‘Scraps’
Clare Kirwan - ‘Finding Trainspotting’
Dan Powell - ‘Her 12 Faces’
Danielle McLaughlin - ‘The Woman in the Bowl’
David Gullen - ‘The Spade’
Diane Simmons - ‘Images’
Eabha Rose - ‘The Elephant Is Contagious’
Emma J. Lannie - ‘Annie’
Emma Shaw - ‘Shadows’
Freya Morris - ‘Feed a Fever’
H Anthony Hildebrand - ‘The Paper Oak’
Ian Shine - ‘www.medicaldictionaryforthewoundedheart.com/gonorrhoea’
J Adamthwaite - ‘Coffee’
James Coates - ‘Aspirations to Anonymity’
Jim O'Loughlin - ‘Celery’
Joanna Campbell - ‘Bright New Morning’
John Keating - ‘Vigil (After Bruno Schulz)’
John Paul O’Neill - ‘Autumn ‘
Judy Darley  - ‘Quench’
Kylie Grant - ‘Elsie Manor’
L.A. Craig - ‘Shoe Fly Baby’
Mark Kockelbergh - ‘Orpheus In The Underground’
Natalie Bowers - ‘Broom’
Paul Kavanagh  - ‘Religion’
R A Martens - ‘Omelettes’
Rachael Kealy - ‘Exile’
Sam Russell - ‘A Canvas Darkly’
Shelley Day Sclater - ‘In a Moment’
Siobhán McNamara - ‘Slipping’
Sonya Oldwin - ‘Orange ‘
Stella Turner - ‘Penitence   ’
Stephen McGeagh - ‘#’
Thaddeus Howze - ‘The Warden’
Thomas McColl - ‘Takeaway Poetry Joint’
Tim Stevenson - ‘The Almond Crumb Sofa’

Tracey Upchurch - ‘Rose Petal Eyes’

And each one is a little gem!

These will be appearing alongside stories commissioned from Jenn Ashworth, Tania Hershman, Jonathan Pinnock, Kevlin Henney, Vanessa Gebbie, Sarah Hilary, David Hartley, Alison Wells, Nuala Ní Chonchúir and Amy Mackelden, as well myself and Holly. 

We are currently working on a title for the book, and starting the typesetting process so that we can have the book ready for National Flash-Fiction Day on 22nd June. It will be available in print and Kindle formats. So, stay tuned for more information as we have it.

Thanks to all those who submitted, and sorry that we couldn't include more of you. 

All best
Calum Kerr - Editor and Director of National Flash-Fiction Day


Published on Leave a comment on NFFD – Edinburgh Event announced, submissions open

National Flash Fiction Day 2013 – Sub­­missions
Blind Poetics, Illicit Ink, Inky Fingers and Writers’ Bloc have come together to celebrate the UK’s second National Flash Fiction Day. The Scottish event will take place on Saturday 22nd June 2013 in Edinburgh. You could be part of the lineup.
­
What is flash fiction?
Flash fiction is simply a very short story; prose fiction. The best examples have all of the elements of a traditional short story, but with a tight focus and a precision of expression that gets their point across in a compact but powerful way. Here’re some examples:
·       Three Soldiers by Bruce Holland Rogers
·       Mr. Ted by Ashley Arnold
·       The Kissing Booth by Katie Williams.
There is no set formula for a great piece of flash fiction. The most important thing is a strong idea, delivered in a vivid piece of writing.,
How can I take part?
This event will follow the same format as last year’s Underword event, featuring a range of stories read from the stage by their authors. Most will be under 500 words but we will have a very few slots for stories under 1000 words. Maybe you have something already; hopefully you have time to write something new. We’re looking for stories with conflict, emotion, impact … stories the audience will remember long after the event. But don’t be intimidated. Send your best stuff and be part of the day.
You can send up to three stories. Submissions open on Wednesday 1st May and the deadline is midnight on Saturday 8th June, although we’ll start confirming a few places before that, so the earlier the better. Please send your stories as attachments to nffd.submissions@gmail.com. RTF files are our favourite, but we’ll also accept Microsoft Word files, PDFs and good old plain text.
Our time slot in the venue is sadly limited so we can only accept a certain number of stories. We can’t take everything we would like. But we definitely want to read yours.

Published on Leave a comment on Bulletin 29/04/2013

Hello everyone,

Well, things are moving on apace, as ever, and we are now less than 2 months from this year's day. So, if you are planning on holding an event, reading, workshop, or other on or around the Day, then it's time to get organising and send the details over to us so we can spread the word. 
At the moment we're gathering information, ready to do a large update to the website, so if you have something please do send it across. This also applies if you are a writer and would like to update your info, or want to be added, or maybe you represent an organisation/magazine/project and would like a listing. Whatever it is, we want to know so we can share it with everyone else.
With regard to the website, it got a little bit of a facelift earlier this year as a temporary measure. We'd like to do some more work with it so if you are a web-design-person, or know one, and would be willing to donate some time to improving our look, please do get in touch. Thank you!
In other news, we recently ran the FlashFlood journal and published a huge stream of wonderful stories. If you missed it, they are all still online at http://flashfloodjournal.blogspot.co.uk/.
And, if you were following that, it's possible you missed our other announcements that came out on the same day: 
First, we announced the winners of our micro-fiction competition. You can read the list of finalists, and their stories, here: http://nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/competitions.html.
We also sent out our call for submissions for this year's anthology, closing date of 17th May, full details on the website at: http://nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/anthology.html. Please spread the details of this,so we can get as many submissions as possible. 
And, of course, that request goes for all of the things we do. It's your participation that will make National Flash-Fiction Day a success, so please spread the website address, Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/nationalflashfictionday) and Twitter feed (https://twitter.com/nationalflashfd) with anyone who might be interested. 
And now, the really interesting things. There are already flash-things afoot, some for the Day, some just because, and you can get involved in any or all of them:
The Lightship One Page competition, judged by yours truly, closes tomorrow, so you still have time to enter if you want to.
And they have a flash-fiction competition, being judged by the wonderful Etgar Keret, closing in June.
The Bristol Prize for short stories also closes tomorrow, at http://www.bristolprize.co.uk/, so enter now!
And Kath Kerr's yearlong flash-fiction project, MrsFlash365 also finishes tomorrow, with the 365th story. If you haven't seen it, now's your time to check it out.
To help you get ready for NFFD, I am once again running my online flash-fiction course, starting on May 7th, full details at http://www.calumkerr.co.uk/pp007.shtml
1000words, the image based publication, is once again open for submissions until 24th May: http://1000words.org.uk/the-1000words-national-flash-fiction-day-competition/
Bridport are running their competition again, which closes on 31st May http://www.bridportprize.org.uk/content/flash-fiction-entry.
And if you are in New Zealand, don't forget to submit to the NZ-NFFD competition, closing date 31st May. http://nationalflash.wordpress.com/competition/
Raging Aadvark are once again running their Twisted Tales anthology, with a closing date of 7th July. https://ragingaardvarkpublications.submittable.com/submit
Spry, is a new literary journal which also publishes flash, so why not have a read of their first issue and consider sending them something http://www.sprylit.com/
Flashpoints, the site-specific flash-fiction project launched for last year's day, is still ongoing. Please do check it out at http://nffdflashpoints.blogspot.co.uk/ and why not head out into the world and write them a story?
And finally, we have our first fully confirmed event for the Day itself, which will be held at the Shrewsbury Coffeehouse on Wednesday 19th June at 7.00pm. More info at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/373661482658904/?fref=ts

That's it for now, but I think that's plenty to keep you busy! Remember to plan your event and send the information over to us, and we'll see you soon!
All best
Calum

Published on Leave a comment on Bulletin 19/04/2013

Hello all,

Well, as you have hopefully noticed, today is a busy day here at NFFD Towers as we launch ourselves for this year's Day - just 2 months away!
We have a FlashFlood journal running, publishing over a hundred flash-fictions across the day (http://flashfloodjournal.blogspot.co.uk/). 
And we have also announced the winners of the micro-fiction competition over on our website (http://nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/competitions.html) and blog (http://nationalflashfictionday.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/micro-fiction-competition-2013-results.html). 
We had also hoped to brag about all the other things in pipeline, but we are currently having to reapply for funding, and attempt to source other funds to do the things we want to do. (If you have any ideas, please do send them through!) 
But we're not going to let that stop us though, and NFFD2013 moves on apace. Over the next week we are going to be updating the website with new author bios and details of events and competitions. So, if you haven't already, please send through the details of what you are planning,and we'll add them to the site.
Alternatively, if you haven't yet thought about what you plan to do, then now is the time to start. Last year we had competitions, workshops, readings, slams, flash-mobs and loads more, so get your thinking/organising caps on and let us know all about them.
We are also going to launch the 'International' part of the Day, so if you are outside the UK and wish to organise an event wherever you are, please let us know all about it.
We are also pleased to open our call for submissions for this year's anthology. Last year we asked for one word stories, this year we're changing it a little and asking for pieces which have been inspired in some way by other works of art - stories, books, films, music, art, photographs etc. The word limit is 500 and the deadline is May 17th. Submissions are welcome from all over the world. Full details can be found here: http://nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/anthology.html.
And that's it for now, except to thank you for all your hard work, and to encourage you to keep spreading the word about NFFD. Without your support and engagement, the day wouldn't happen. 
Until next time,
All the best

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Published on 9 Comments on Micro-Fiction Competition 2013 – Results Announcement

We received nearly 450 entries for our competition this year, and the standard was amazingly high. Choosing just 10 winners was incredibly difficult, but the judges managed it in the end.

So, without any further fanfare, the winners - and their stories - are...

First Prize: 'A Handful' by Tim Stevenson

Second Prize: 'Spinning' by Oliver Barton

Third Prize: 'X' by Amy Mackelden

Highly Commended:
'Lost For Words' by Andrea Mullaney
'My Grandad was Roy Rogers' by Anouska Huggins
'Dot to Dot man' by Alison Wells
'Slather' by Clare Kirwan
'The Gradual Discovery of Loss' by Eva Holland
'All Light' by Alan Beard
'India' by Joanna Campbell

Congratulations to all of them!

Published on Leave a comment on Funding Thanks!

Hello everyone,

Well, our crowd-sourced fundraising experiment ended yesterday and, while we didn't hit out target, we're still really pleased and grateful to everyone who helped out by either donating directly or simply spreading the word and helping others with spare cash to find us.

Our specific thanks need to go to our sponsors who were, in no particular order:

Kylie Grant, Anouska Huggins, Pete Domican, Angela Williams, Nuala Ni Chonchuir, Jonathan Pinnock, Patrick Prinsloo, A E Peters, Sarah Logan, Joanne Selley, Alison Wells, Eva Lyne, Karen Storey, Carys Bray, Tracey Upchurch, Ninette Hartley, Andy Lavender, William Kelly, Martin Palmer, Duncan Smith, Danielle McLaughlin, Helena Mallett, Jill Phillips, Laura Huntley, Tim Stevenson, Anna-Louise Hecks, Polly Robinson, Elaine Borthwick, Judith Kerr, Duncan Kerr, Joanne Key, Cath Barton, Waseem Hussain, Rachael Dunlop, Cathy Bryant, Susi Holliday, Sarah Snell-Pym, Pauline Masurel, Kevlin Henney, Adam Horovitz, Sal Page, Shirley Golden, Carlie Lee, Diane Simmons, Stella Turner, Jen Hamilton-Emery, Vanessa Gebbie and Sarah Salway.

A huge thanks to these Patrons of the Arts!

Depending on how much was given, some will get their names emblazoned on the website and in this year's anthology. Some will get that and also receive a copy of the anthology when it happens. Some will get all of that plus a bespoke story pamphlet written by yours truly. The remainder get our heartfelt thanks and (in my best Robert Robinson voice) THIS round of applause!
The money we hoped to raise would have paid for this year's anthology and also a new shiny website for the day. If you Arts Council look on us with favour then the latter may still happen, but we feel that the anthology is more important and so the £725 we did raise will be earmarked for that purpose. We will be opening submissions for the anthology quite soon, so do keep your eyes open. 
That's it for now, except for me to once again add my thanks to you all. National Flash-Fiction Day is a labour of love for me, but some of things we do actually require money, and you have helped enormously. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Until next time, all best wishes.
Calum Kerr
Director of National Flash-Fiction Day 2013.

Published on Leave a comment on Micro-Fiction Competition 2013 – The Longlist

Hello all,

Pleased to announce that we now have our longlist for the Micro-Fiction competition. The judges are whittling it down to the winners and so I don't want to reveal who wrote which story, but here is a list of the authors who made it to the top. Congratulations to them all!

Oliver Barton
Alan Beard
Joanna Campbell
Stephen Carragher
Donald Chegwin
Amber Dodd
Lindsay Fisher
Glenys Grey
Kit Haggard
Eva Holland
Susan Howe
Anouska Huggins
Clare Kirwan
Debbie Kinsey
Chelsea Covington Maass
Amy Mackelden
Pauline Masurel
Andrea Mullaney
Jo Norris
Tim Stevenson,
Pete Walsh
Barbara Weeks
Alison Wells
Selina Siak Chin Yoke

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Published on 1 Comment on NFFD2013 Bulletin 12/03/13

Hello everyone,
Just a quick update from NFFD Towers about a couple of opportunities and some of the things which are happening over here.

First of all, as you probably saw, we clarified the guidelines on the micro-fiction competition, confirming that you can submit more than one piece (though we’ll only let you win once!). To give you time to send those stories in, we extended the deadline, which is now midnight (UK time) on Monday 18th March, so you still have nearly a week to get your stories to us. We have also updated the page with details of the fabulous prizes. Full details can be found here: http://nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/competitions.html
In other news, we have submitted our application to the Arts Council in the hope that they will once again support the day. However, just in case, and to ensure that we can keep the website up and running and will be able to produce another anthology for this year, we are dipping our toes into the world of crowd-funding. Our page is up at http://www.sponsume.com/project/national-flash-fiction-day-2013 and if you could support us we would be immensely grateful! You also get something for your money, so check out the possible rewards (including the chance to have a bespoke story pamphlet crafted by yours truly!)
Even if you don’t want to send us a story and aren’t in a position to support our funding, it would be great if you could share the two links above, plus some details, on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, your blog, or wherever else you think it might reach other interested people. Thank you!
Also, as promised, there are some opportunities we need to tell you about.

First, we have an international call for submissions from Flash Frontier for their April issue. The theme is high tide and the deadline is March 31. Send your 250-word stories to flashfrontier@gmail.com, along with a brief bio. More submissions info here. 

Second is also international, and comes to use from Raging Aardvark Publications for their Twisted Tales Flash Fiction anthology. The closing date is Midnight (Australian EST) 7th of July 2013. More details are here: https://ragingaardvarkpublications.submittable.com/submit and 2012's Twisted Tales is on Amazon if you want to have a look. http://www.amazon.com/Twisted-Tales-Flash-Fiction-twist/dp/0987138383/
And, that’s it for the moment. There are plenty of plans afoot, but none that can be revealed just yet. Remember to keep spreading the word about NFFD2013, telling people to sign up for this mailing list and to join our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/nationalflashfictionday) and plotting and planning those events and competitions for the day.

As usual, any queries and questions can be sent here (though, be warned, there is a backlog, so it might take a little while to hear back), and we love to hear from you.

Take care,

Calum Kerr

Director, National Flash-Fiction Day