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Published on Leave a comment on I’m constantly surprised and delighted by stories that don’t fit my criteria: An Interview with Diane Simmons

Welcome to the third in a series of interviews with this year's National Flash Fiction Day anthology editors and micro fiction competition judges! This week, Santino Prinzi speaks with Diane Simmons about judging this year's micro fiction competition, and the release of her debut flash fiction collection...

Santino: Your debut flash fiction collection Finding a Way will be published this week by Ad Hoc Fiction Press. Congratulations! Would you mind telling us a little bit about the collection and how it came into being?

Diane: Thank you, Tino. Finding a Way is being published on the 9th February. It is a collection of 51 connected flashes on the theme of grief. Told from various points of view, it follows a family over a three and a half year period as they navigate loss. Following the death of my daughter, Laura in 2015, I wrote almost exclusively about grief for a while and it occurred to me that this might be an interesting subject for a collection. It also occurred to me that the stories may help people in some way – both those grieving and those dealing with someone they know who is experiencing grief. Originally intended as a pamphlet, Ad Hoc Fiction approached me in January 2018 offering publication if I turned it into a full collection.

Santino: Though you’re no stranger to flash fiction and judging competitions, this is your first year judging National Flash Fiction Day’s micro fiction competition. What excites you about judging for this competition and what will you be looking for as a judge?

Diane: Winning third prize in NFFD’s micro competition in 2015 is one of my writing highlights, so to now help judge the competition is really exciting.  I’m a bit of a fan of flashes with a story to them – a beginning, middle and end. I often prefer realistic stories, but having said that, I’m constantly surprised and delighted by stories that don’t fit my criteria, often enjoying things with a touch of surrealism. I would just advise people to write what they want to write and not try and guess what a judge might favour.

Santino: If flash fiction were a type of food, what would it be and why?

Diane: My first thought was that it should be something I could eat quickly, but that would also be filling and satisfying, but then I thought maybe a curry. If you eat a curry in a restaurant that really knows its stuff, then you can taste every individual spice, but each spice adds up to a wonderful overall taste. I think this is a little like a flash – with so few words every word has to zing and contribute something.

Santino: You’ve read your flash fiction at various live events and on the radio. Has reading your work at events helped you grow as a writer in any way? What advice would you give to writers who may be nervous about reading or may have never read at an event before?

Diane: I used to be terrified at the thought of reading out loud to an audience. But now I enjoy it and it has really helped my confidence as a writer. Seeing and hearing an audience react to a story (whether they are laughing or crying) is a very rewarding thing. I think it’s really important to practise reading and I start weeks before and record loads of versions on my phone. When I first started reading to an audience, I would grab any friend who came through my door and make them listen to me practise. That really helped me get over my nerves – if you can read in front of someone you know, then doing it in front of a bunch of strangers is not such a problem. I never read from a book, but print out my story in large print and mark dialogue in colour (with a different colour for each speaker). I also read very slowly so the audience has time to take it in and I also try to look up and engage with the audience, though this is difficult to do and can sometimes lead to me losing my place.

Santino: You’re holding an online launch for your debut flash collection on Monday 11th February. Can you tell us more about it? What can we expect and how can we check it out?

Diane: My online launch will be a Facebook event from 8-9pm on the 11th February and will be an open group so that everyone can join in. I think it will be really wonderful to get together lots of my friends from all over the world. There will be films of me reading a few stories and also one of Jude Higgins interviewing me. Hopefully, there will be lots of chat about the book too. There will also be virtual wine, crisps and possibly chocolate brownies. Everyone can join in here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1112066998950546/

 

Diane SimmonsDiane Simmons is a writer, editor, a co-director of National Flash Fiction Day, and part of the organising team for Flash Fiction Festivals UK. She has been an editor for FlashFlood, a flash fiction judge and for three years was a reader for the Bath Short Story Competition. Her fiction has featured in a variety of anthologies and publications including Mslexia; New Flash Fiction Review; To Carry Her Home, BFFA Vol One;The Lobsters Run Free, BFFA Vol 2; Flash Fiction Festival, Vols One and Two; Flash I Love You (Paper Swans); FlashBack Fiction; Micro Madness; and six National flash Fiction Day UK anthologies. In 2009 she won second place in ITV's This Morning National Short Story Competition and since then has been placed in many flash fiction and short story contests, including the HISSAC flash prize; the NFFD micro competition; Writers' Forum Short Story Competition; Worcester Literature Festival Flash Competition; 99 Fiction; NAWG; and The Frome International Short Story Competition. Her stories have also been shortlisted for numerous competitions, including the Bath Flash Fiction Award; Exeter Flash; and Flash 500. Her debut collection of flash, ‘Finding a Way’ is being published by Ad Hoc Fiction in February 2019. She tweets @scooterwriter. You can learn more about Diane at https://www.dianesimmons.co.uk/.

 

SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW OPEN for this year's National Flash Fiction Day Anthology and Micro Fiction Competition. Submissions close on 15th March 2019. For more information, please visit our Anthology and Competition pages.  

We are also trying to secure funding to offer free entries to disadvantaged and marginalised writers. If you would like to help us do this by donating entries, please contact us at nationalflashfictionday@gmail.com.

Published on Leave a comment on Flash is powerful when it’s specific: An Interview with Angela Readman

Welcome to the second in a series of interviews with this year's National Flash Fiction Day anthology editors and micro fiction competition judges! This week,  Santino Prinzi is in conversation with micro fiction competition judge and Costa Short Story Award winning author, Angela Readman. They talk about Angela's recently published debut novel, and Angela offers tips for writing brilliant flash fiction...

Santino: Welcome, Angela! Your debut novel, Something Like Breathing, has just been published by And Other Stories. Congratulations! Could you tell us a little bit more about your novel? 

Angela: Hello, and thank you! It’s about friends who live on an island, Sylvie and Lorrie, growing up in the 50’s. It starts with the words, ‘I’d tell you about Sylvie, but you wouldn’t believe me.’ I didn’t think I was going to write a novel when I wrote those lines, to be honest. I’d hoped it would be a short story. I’d had some lovely support for my story collection Don’t Try This at Home and really wanted to do another, but the characters wouldn’t let me. I found they all had so many stories within their lives, from a mother obsessed with Tupperware, to a grandfather who runs a distillery and refuses to wear matching clothes. I had to keep writing to find out who these people were. They kept on surprising me.

Santino: I can't wait to read it! Now, some people argue that writing short stories and flash fiction is a “good warm up” for writing a novel, which potentially ignores the different skills and qualities required to write these different forms. What are your thoughts on this? What freedoms or restrictions did you feel when writing Something Like Breathing that you don’t experience writing flash fiction?

Angela: I don’t like the idea that flash or short stories are practice exercises for writing something longer.  It sounds like the short form is somehow less valid. I don’t buy into that. Flash is its own art form and it’s amazing.  Novels are completely different. They both have their own challenges and aren’t trying to do the same thing. When I write flash, I’m after a glimpse of something, perhaps something I don’t understand instantly. It’s like catching something out of the window of a speeding car. 

Something Like Breathing by Angela Readman

With a novel, it’s more like being invited in to the house of a stranger. There’s space to look around and really get to know them. It was fascinating. I loved being able to see the characters grow over years in their lives. I found the challenge was there’s no Off switch when you spend that amount of time with characters. It feels like you carry them around with you wherever you go. I’d be in the supermarket and suddenly wonder if Sylvie likes tomatoes. I didn’t anticipate that. It was pretty intense. 

Santino: Many of your stories offer a sense of surrealism cemented in the normal every day, for example, your story ‘Attack of the Robot Grannies’ in last year’s anthology feels both otherworldly and of this world. Is blurring the lines of possibility something you enjoy doing in your writing? 

Angela: I love blurring the lines of possibility. I wouldn’t really describe my work as magical realist, it’s probably more realist magical, or everyday surrealism or something. The work’s grounded in the everyday, but anything could happen there. I hope it can anyway! I’ve written realist work, but I’m drawn to the strange. I’m not sure why. I think it’s something to do with a sense of limitation. I often write characters who seem limited by their location, status or circumstances, ordinary people with ordinary lives. I hate the idea that our opportunities should be limited though, whether it’s by where we live or social status, or whatever, so things that seem impossible always creep in.  The women in Attack of the Robot Grannies had such boring office lunches they just needed those grannies.

Santino: It sometimes feels like writers are under pressure to always be putting words on the page. Are there any other activities, cultural or otherwise, that you feel can be just as helpful to a writer? 

Angela: There’s a sense we should always be writing, but there’s only so long anyone can stare at a screen. It’s useful to do something completely different sometimes, like going to a museum or art gallery, standing still and really looking at something. I also started making things with felt last year. I wanted to try a craft I’d never tried and stick with it for a year. 

There’s something about accepting you don’t know anything and are just trying something out that can be freeing when you come back to writing. Rather than abandon work, or feel it should be perfect instantly, some of that feeling of just giving it a whirl is brought to the page. 

Santino: You won our very first National Flash Fiction Day Micro Fiction Competition and you have judged thousands of micros for us. What are your top tips for authors who wish for their micros to shine?

Angela: It has been a real pleasure to read so much flash. There’s no one way to write it. The joy is flash can be anything, traditional in structure or more experimental. It’s so surprising! The most common mistake I see is trying to fit too much in and generalising to fit it all in. Flash is powerful when it’s specific. It doesn’t need to explain itself. Trust your readers, with something so short it’s amazing how far they’ll come with you. Choose each word wisely and let that do the work. Write your flash, leave it, then go back and edit. Then edit again. Just to be sure, do that again until there isn’t a word you could change. 

 

 Angela Readman is the winner of the first National Flash Fiction Day competition. Her short stories have since been winners of The Costa Short Story Award, The Mslexia Story Prize and The Anton Chekhov Award for Short Fiction. Her story collection Don't Try This at Home was short listed in The Edge Hill and won The Rubery Book Award. In January 2019 her debut novel Something like Breathing was published by And Other Stories. She also writes poetry and is published by Nine Arches.

 

SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW OPEN for this year's National Flash Fiction Day Anthology and Micro Fiction Competition. Submissions close on 15th March 2019. For more information, please visit our Anthology and Competition pages.  

We are also trying to secure funding to offer free entries to disadvantaged and marginalised writers. If you would like to help us do this by donating entries, please contact us at nationalflashfictionday@gmail.com.

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Published on 1 Comment on At the end of the day, I never know how many words I’ve written: An Interview with Joanna Campbell

Welcome to the first in a series of interviews with this year's National Flash Fiction Day anthology editors and micro fiction competition judges! This week, Diane Simmons talks with one of this year's anthology editors, Joanna Campbell, about her writing routine, her favourite book, and how she's hoping writers will respond to this year's anthology theme...

Diane: I know that as well as being a prolific writer, you are also an enthusiastic reader. Do you find that what you are reading affects your writing style? If so, does it mean that you perhaps read less than you used to do?

Joanna: Reading inspires me to work harder at refining my own style. I focus on how an author has achieved that perfect sentence, that realistic piece of dialogue, that breath-taking segment of description. If I do manage to discover where the magic lies, I will try to add that technique to my own work. I am a completely self-taught writer and everything I have learnt has emanated from reading.

Diane: As well as being a successful flash writer, you have published a short story collection, When Planets Slipped Their Tracks, and a novel, Tying Down the Lion. Do you have a favourite form?

Joanna: I don’t have a particular favourite because I love writing solely for its own sake. It’s the characters who appeal to me, whether they warrant a full-length novel, a novella, short story or a flash. Once I know who I’m writing about, the character lets me know which form they need. For example, I have abandoned many attempts at novels because the characters eventually made it plain they were more suited to a short story. On the other hand, Tying Down The Lion is a novel resulting from a short story which didn’t offer the reader a satisfactory ending, as if the characters were demanding more. However, although I can’t choose a favourite form, my novella-in-flash—A Safer Way To Fall—was the one which brought the most fulfilment. This is because of the thrilling moment when I realised that many of my flash fiction pieces revealed a strong, linking thread. It was an amazing discovery and my heart still beats faster to recall it now.

Diane: Can you tell us a little about your writing routine?

Joanna: I get up very early in the morning, between 4.30 and 5, and I might begin to write straightaway, but often I’m busy thinking or reading. There is also a lot of staring into space and a cup of coffee left to turn cold, but it feels productive. A little later on, I take my daughter to the station, then do a few jobs around the house and check emails. After that I write throughout the day until late afternoon. My husband usually works at home and we break for lunch together, but only for about fifteen minutes because we’re mentally still at our desks. At the end of the day, I never know how many words I’ve written. I just hope to finish with a sense of having made some progress, less in terms of quantity as quality.

Diane: Is there a book or story from your childhood that makes your heart leap a little when you think about it?

Joanna: Definitely, yes. The Prevailing Wind by Joan Lingard is the book which made me long to be a writer. I took it out of the library in 1973 and never returned it. I sometimes wonder how much the fine would be. It was a dreadful thing to do, but I simply couldn’t part with it. I still have it and always will. The smell of its yellowed pages, packed with old wafts of my father’s cigarette smoke, takes me back to that first daydream of writing my own book one day. It’s a novel about family dynamics, how people can so easily misunderstand one another, and the way hidden emotions can damage those you love and send your life—and theirs—off the tracks. It is set in Edinburgh, the beautiful city becoming a character in its own right. I have re-read it countless times and eventually treated myself to a second copy signed by the author. (I didn’t steal that one.)

Diane: This year’s theme for the anthology is ‘Doors’. Is there anything in particular that you’re looking for in a submission?

Joanna: I am excited to see the different and original ways in which the theme of ‘Doors’ is interpreted. Doors can signify all kinds of possibilities. None of us live without them. It’s vital to have a key to your own private haven, to block out the world and be yourself in a way that never happens in public. However, sometimes it’s equally vital to open your door and let other people into your life. Or to step outside, close the door behind you and re-enter the world. A closed door can represent both a trap and a refuge. Obstruction or admission. And think of how the crunch of footsteps on a path followed by a knock on your door can stir an entire gamut of emotions from relief to curiosity to fear. Who do you allow in and who do you keep out? I’m looking forward to finding out how our writers weave layers of emotional significance into this theme.

Joanna Campbell

 

Joanna Campbell is a full-time writer from the Cotswolds. Her short stories have been published in numerous literary journals, including Mslexia, The New Writer, Writers’ Forum, where she won the monthly competition four times, and The Yellow Room, as well as in anthologies from, among others, Salt Publishing, Cinnamon Press, The Exeter Story Prize, Rubery Book Award, Stroud Short Stories, Spilling Ink, Earlyworks Press, Unbound Press, Retreat West, The Bridport Prize and two volumes of The Bristol Short Story Award.

 

SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW OPEN for this year's National Flash Fiction Day Anthology and Micro Fiction Competition. Submissions close on 15th March 2019. For more information, please visit our Anthology and Competition pages.  

We are also trying to secure funding to offer free entries to disadvantaged and marginalised writers. If you would like to help us do this by donating entries, please contact us at nationalflashfictionday@gmail.com.

 

Published on Leave a comment on Introducing the new NFFD Artist in Residence

We're delighted and excited to welcome Jeanette Sheppard to the team as National Flash Fiction Day's official Artist in Residence.

Not only did Jeanette provide some images for one of last month's Flash Flood Advent Calendar writing prompts, but she has also produced the stunning skyline that now graces our website.

Where is this city and what is its flashy significance? More about this image will be revealed in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, here's a little more about the artist....

Jeanette SheppardJeanette Sheppard is a short fiction writer and sketch artist.

Her most recent flash fictions can be seen in The Nottingham Review, Ellipsis Zine and Flash Fiction Festival Anthology: Two. Other stories have been published in a number of literary magazines, including Bare Fiction, Litro and The Lonely Crowd. One of her stories flies through the air courtesy of a vending machine at Edmonton Airport in Canada. She has been published in two National Flash Fiction Day anthologies and shortlisted in TSS Publishing’s Flash400 competition. She has also been a winner of the Mslexia Flashcard.

Jeanette’s art revolves around sketching on streets, in buildings, cafes, fields, train stations, anywhere that she happens to be, in ink and watercolour. Every month she runs Sketch Coventry, a self-led open meet up. Recently, she has provided the artwork for Diane Simmons’s collection of flash fiction about grief, Finding A Way, due to be launched in February 2019.

You can enjoy more of Jeanette's artwork and writing by visiting her website at jeanettesheppard.com or following her on Twitter at @InkLinked (writing) and @JinnySketches (art).

Published on Leave a comment on 2018 Flash Flood Advent Calendar

Christmas Fireworks

What better way to end the year than with some flash fiction fun?

Come and join us at Flash Flood for an Advent Calendar full of free writing prompts designed to give you a great head start when submissions open in 2019 for the National Flash Fiction Day Anthology and Microfiction Content , not to mention Flash Flood itself.

The first prompt has been posted here.

If you'd like to share your work or just have a chat about writing, feel free to join our private Facebook group.

Happy Writing!

 

Published on Leave a comment on Introducing our New Volunteer Social Media Co-ordinator

We'd like to welcome to the National Flash Fiction Day team our newest member, Claire Thomson, who will be our Volunteer Social Media Co-ordinator!

Claire is currently an Editorial Assistant at Vintage Books. Before this, she worked in a press office and for a feminist literary magazine. From Scotland, she studied English Literature at the University of Glasgow and now lives in North London.

Published on Leave a comment on Wanted: Volunteer Social Media Co-ordinator
Volunteer Social Media Co-ordinator


National Flash Fiction Day (NFFD) is seeking a Volunteer Social Media Co-ordinator. The main purpose of the role is to manage NFFD’s social media channels (Facebook and Twitter) by sharing news, promoting submissions opportunities, events and our anthologies, and showcasing flash fiction that we’ve published for our followers to enjoy!


The role entails:
  • Managing and scheduling content across NFFD’s Facebook and Twitter pages, and checking in throughout the week.
  • Sharing news and updates about NFFD submission opportunities, sharing NFFD events, and promoting NFFD anthologies.
  • Sharing stories “from the archives” of NFFD, especially from our FlashFlood journal.
  • Seeking opportunities to help our audience grow, as well as help our audience engage with more flash fiction and NFFD
  • Promoting great stories or opportunities from other flash fiction publications that our followers may enjoy.

The role is perfect for someone who loves championing flash fiction.

For further information or to express an interest, please email nationalflashfictionday@gmail.com with Volunteer Social Media Co-ordinator as your subject.

Closing date 31st October 2018



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Published on 1 Comment on The Future of National Flash Fiction Day

On Saturday 16th June this year, National Flash Fiction Day celebrated its seventh year! NFFD was founded in 2012 by Calum Kerr, and since then we have published hundreds of flash fictions by hundreds of different authors across anthologies, FlashFlood, and other flashy projects! We’ve had numerous readings, launches, workshops, and other events around the country to celebrate flash fiction. This was all thanks to Calum, who decided that this year would be his last NFFD.
There are many ways to say thank you. When Calum stepped down, the future of NFFD was uncertain, but we believed that the best way to say thank you was to keep NFFD going. Flash fiction has truly blossomed across the U.K. and the world, and it wouldn’t feel right if NFFD disappeared.
It is truly exciting to be able to announce that two astounding flash fiction authors will be working alongside me to not only continue NFFD but to raise it to new heights.

Please allow me to formally introduce and welcome Ingrid Jendrzejewski and Diane Simmons as fellow Co-Directors of National Flash Fiction Day!

Ingrid Jendrzejewski studied creative writing and English literature at the University of Evansville, then physics at the University of Cambridge. Her work has been published in places like Passages North, The Los Angeles Review, Jellyfish Review, Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine and The Conium Review, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Vestal Review’s VERA Award, and multiple times for Best Small Fictions. Her short-form work has won fifteen writing competitions including the Bath Flash Fiction Award and AROHO’s Orlando Prize. She serves as editor-in-chief of FlashBack Fiction and a flash editor at JMWW.  Links to Ingrid’s work can be found at www.ingridj.com and she tweets @LunchOnTuesday. 
Diane Simmons studied creative writing with the Open University. Her fiction has featured in a variety of anthologies and publications including Mslexia, New Flash Fiction Review, FlashBack Fiction, Flash I Love You (Paper Swans), To Carry Her Home (BFFA), The Lobsters Run Free (BFFA), Micro Madness, and six National Flash Fiction Day anthologies. She has been placed in numerous competitions such as NFFD micro, Writers’ Forum, Woman and Home, Ink Tears, Worcs Lit Fest, ITV’s This Morning/She, 99 Fiction and The Frome Festival and has been short or longlisted in competitions such as The Fish, Exeter Flash and the Bath Flash Fiction Award. Her recently completed novella-in-flash was long listed in the 2018 Bath Novella-in-Flash competition. Diane is part of the organising team for the UK Flash Fiction Festival, has been an editor for FlashFlood and for the last three years has been a reader for the Bath Short Story Award. Her debut flash collection Finding a Way will be published by Ad Hoc Fiction in early 2019.
Ingrid and Diane have already brought lots of new ideas, enthusiasm, and energy to NFFD, and this brings us on to National Flash Fiction Day 2019.
National Flash Fiction Day 2019

SAVE THE DATE! National Flash Fiction Day next year will be on Saturday 15th June 2019! We’re already planning and exploring lots of options for next year’s National Flash Fiction Day, and if you’d like to plan an event or volunteer in any way don’t hesitate to get in touch!
That said, this year’s fantastic anthology is still available to purchase in paperback and on Kindle.
This seventh annual instalment of the National Flash-Fiction Day (UK) anthology is overflowing with food-themed flashes. Satiate your hunger for fiction with these delicious stories by new and established flash fiction writers. The authors have cooked up a smorgasbord of entertaining, moving and tantalising flashes for your reading delight. From fudge to oysters, apples to mangoes, gingerbread to (of course!) cake, there’s something in this anthology for everyone to sink their teeth into.
Authors include: Tara Laskowski, Christopher Allen, Nancy Stohlman, Frankie McMillan, Meg Pokrass, Nuala O’Connor, Robert Scotellaro, Alison Powell, Kevlin Henney, Jude Higgins, Tim Stevenson, Angela Readman, Megan Giddings, Joanna Campbell, Diane Simmons, Ingrid Jendrzejewski, Calum Kerr, and Santino Prinzi.
The editors are Santino Prinzi and Alison Powell.
That's all for now, so we're going to leave you with a flash fiction from this year's FlashFlood! Here's a beautifully rhythmic flash called 'Breathe' by Kellie Carle: http://flashfloodjournal.blogspot.com/2018/06/breathe-by-kellie-carle.html 
Thanks for reading!

Santino Prinzi

Co-Director of National Flash Fiction Day

Published on Leave a comment on Happy National Flash-Fiction Day 2018
Yes, it's here again. And this is a short bulletin just to bring you up to date on all that is happening today.

We have, of course, the FlashFlood which starts at midnight and runs all the way through the day. A story will be published every 10 minutes on the blog, with a few extras across the middle of the day, bringing you a total of 148 wonderful, new flashes for you to enjoy.

Over the 7 years of NFFD this journal has had nearly 420,000 views, and we would love to be able to get even closer to the magical half million mark, so please do share the stories across your media and bring the joy to the world.
 
We also have a number of events going on around the country, including the launch of the novella-in-flash Three Sisters of Stone by Stephanie Hutton in Hanley, Stoke. This is preceded by a workshop and more information is here. 

There will also be a workshop and reading in Gloucester,

Our friends over at TSS Publishing (theshortstory.co.uk) are today launching a project to catalogue and celebrate the best in British and Irish Flash-Fiction over the next year. More information about this is on their Facebook Page.

And if you are in the Bristol area, there is so much to enjoy: a Flash-walk, two workshops, a panel on competitions,and the launch of the new anthology. All the details for that are on the Bristol Flash Facebook page. 

Speaking of the anthology, Ripening, it is now available to buy in both paper and Kindle formats. And although we're biased, we really think you need a copy or two in your life. 
And, as ever, there will be people publishing flashes, sharing their work, and generally enjoying the day all around the country and across the internet. One of them could be you, so why not celebrate the day by joining in by writing, sharing, or reading. 
National Flash-Fiction Day has become a staple in the calendar and the wonderful things that happen on the day are a testament to the enthusiasm of all the great writers and readers who make up the community. We're grateful for you all.

Enjoy the day, and keep flashing!

Calum Kerr
Co-Director
National Flash-Fiction Day
[Oh, and one last thing. This year we have had to start using a new service to feed the FlashFlood to our Facebook and Twitter pages. It's untested and we have no idea if it will work. So, if it should fail, please do visit https://flashfloodjournal.blogspot.com/ - every 10 minutes if you're particularly dedicated - and share the links to the stories on your social media so we can ensure everyone gets their work seen by the world. Thank you! ]
Copyright © 2018 National Flash-Fiction Day, All rights reserved. 

Published on Leave a comment on National Flash-Fiction Day 2018 is nearly here.
In case you don't know, this year National Flash-Fiction Day will be on 16th June. And, as ever, we have a range of things going on. 
The main launch for the day will once again be in Bristol, where there will be a Flash Walk, two workshops (one by Alison Powell and one by me, Calum Kerr) as well as the traditional reading event in the evening - to launch the new anthology Ripenings (right - available soon) -  and the even more traditional visit to the pub afterwards. And there will also be a very interesting panel discussion on what competition judges are looking out for. So that's one not to miss. More details of all these are on the website.

 
Other events include a Flash-Fiction Workshop and Reading in Gloucester, a panel on entering writing competitions and submitting to lit magazines.in Stoke, and the launch of Stephanie Hutton's first novella-in-flash Three Sisters of Stone.

Details are also on the website.

And, as ever. If you have an event we haven't listed, do let us know at nationalflashfictionday@gmail.com.
As usual for NFFD, our journal FlashFlood will be opening it's gates for submissions. The blog journal provides a deluge of flash for the Day, and has now received over 409,000 views.

Submissions open at midnight tonight, and then stay open for just 7 days. All the stories will appear on the 16th, available via the blog, or our Facebook and Twitter feeds.

Stay tuned to http://flashfloodjournal.blogspot.com/ to find out more.
And finally, on a more personal note, I have to announce that this will be my last National Flash-Fiction Day.

I originally set the day up way back in 2012 and could never have imagined how it - and flash-fiction in the UK - would have blossomed. There are now many amazing flash things happening and I am so proud of the part that NFFD has played in it all.

I have been helped across the years by many, many wonderful people - Tim Stevenson, Amy Mackelden, Kevlin Henney, the editors of FlashFlood, and too many others to mention. In the last few years, particularly, Santino Prinzi, has taken over much of the heavy lifting associated with NFFD and deserves all the medals.

For me, though, it's time for me to move on and see what's next. The future of NFFD is currently undecided but we'll let you know as soon as we know what it is. 
So, that's it for now. Be sure to check out the website, the blogs, the social media, and have a great day on the 16th.

Here's to another wonderful National Flash-Fiction Day.

Yours
Calum Kerr
Co-Director of National Flash-Fiction Day