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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

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Published on 3 Comments on The Shapes in the Yarrow – Tim Stevenson
Most of the time writing flash-fiction is exactly unlike writing anything else. The immediacy of the form bypasses the rational and the words come, not from careful planning or deliberation, but from somewhere more connected to a moment, a single frame in the movie that plays outside our windows.
This instant of creation comes from prompts, a trigger from any medium that pops one thought into a writer’s head.
“I knowhow this story ends.”
Endings in flash, at least for me, are the key. I resist the surprise, the sleight of hand reveal, instead trying to continue the narrative to a conclusion that fits wholly within the world of the story but takes the reader towards a new, less obvious corner.
I have recently finished a collection of flash-fiction based on the I Ching which, as a series of prompts, were entirely magnificent. The non-specific nature of the words were like mishearing something on the bus, or catching a snippet of conversation as the radio dial moves.
For example, from the I Ching fortune for “Grace”:
“Grace has success. In small matters it is favorable to undertake something. Constant perseverance brings good fortune. Humiliation, but in the end good fortune. Simple grace. No blame.”
This small element has so many possibilities for a good story that if you stop and think about it for too long you will be overwhelmed by them. Think fast, what is the first idea that drops into your head?
Mine was girl-guides selling cookies.
It didn’t end as nicely as you’d think.
The I Ching, I was happy to discover, was full of these strange little moments. They were somehow, soft, malleable, a kind of mental plasticine that begged to be squeezed and re-shaped.

Statements are limiting, as a writer all I really want is a nice, vague non-rhetorical ‘what if…” to get the creative juices flowing.
And mood music.
And coffee.
When thinking about a flash, or in fact any kind of fiction, my method is always to know how the story ends. The simple reasoning for this is that water always flows downhill. I can start where I like, take as many detours as I want, but I always know where I’m heading.
Sometimes the really interesting stuff happens when you realise there is another valley on the other side of the mountain, the happy accident of the unexpected second ending.
This happens all the time, and those stories are always my favourites.


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.

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.

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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

Published on Leave a comment on Bulletin – 6th February 2013

Dear All,

Hello and welcome to the first bulletin of 2013. 
We are now getting underway for another great National Flash-Fiction Day to be held, this year, on 22nd June.
The website at http://nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/ has now had a lick of paint and we have put up details of the first event of the year, a return of our micro-fiction competition. The closing date is 8th March, so get writing and please spread the word as far and wide as you can.
We also want you to start thinking about events for the day, as we want to make it even bigger and better than last year. Contact us with the details of your events and we'll list them on the website. If you have any questions or suggestions, email us here.
We already have some writers, organisations and events which we will be adding to the website soon, but if you would like to add anything, please send that over as well.
In other news, FlashBang, the crime competition, is also now live, and you can get all the details of their competition over at http://flashbangcontest.wordpress.com/.
If you have other, flash-related events you would like us to share, send those over too.
And, that's about it for now. We're just getting started, but it's time to start looking forward to June (and not just for the chance of some warm sunshine!) and thinking about how to celebrate this tiny form that brings so much joy.
So, please spread the word about our competition, our website, our facebook page and NFFD in general, and I look forward to hearing from you.
All best
Calum Kerr

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Published on 2 Comments on Bulletin – 3rd October 2012

Well, hello there, and how are you? 

Keeping well I hope, now that the evenings are drawing in and winter is looming over the horizon.

Here in NFFD Towers we are using the cold outside as an excuse to seclude ourselves in darkened drawing rooms and start plotting for next year's Flash-Fiction Day, and I thought I would bring you up to date on current developments.
First, just to let you know, the plan at the moment is to make it Saturday 22nd June next year, the shortest night in the northern hemisphere (yes, I know I got it wrong last time), and the shortest day in the southern. This will help us to tie the globe together to make it an international event. (And a 36 hour long one, at that!)
Speaking of which, I am in talks with the organiser of New Zealand's day to hook up with them, but we want more than just our two countries involved, so, if you are somewhere else in the world (Ireland, USA, or Australia, South Africa, France, or Peru, Portugal, Japan, Jersey or wherever) and want to join in with the 2013 day, we'd love to hear from you. 
We've also been talking to the Arts Council of England about next year, and they're keen to help us out again, which is great news. It will allow us to make the day even bigger and better for 2013, improve the website and repeat some of our triumphs, like the anthology and the story cards. In order to help us with our bid to the Arts Council, it would be great if we can include some indication of our support. We don't need any definite plans at the moment, but a statement of intent to join in would be great. So, if you ran an event this year - a reading, a competition, a slam, a flash-mob, whatever - we'd love for you to join us again. If you didn't, but would like to for 2013, then we'd be delighted to have you on board too. Please get in touch so we can register your interest.
We'd also like your help to get in touch with those organisations who might be able to help, or who would like to be involved. So, if you are part of a writing community, work for or with an arts organisation, have a publisher who might be interested in promoting their flash-fiction titles, are on friendly terms with a librarian, or whatever, we'd appreciate it if you could either ask them to get in touch with us, or send us their details so we can contact them directly. We managed to reach a huge number of people this year, and spread the flash word, but we could do a lot better, and with their help we hope we can do so.
Additionally, in order to raise the money that all of this costs, we will shortly be launching a crowd-funding project, and it would be great if you could keep your eyes peeled for that and spread the word to help us reach our target. 
And what are we offering in return. Well, you remember how much fun NFFD was this year, don't you? Imagine that but... you know... more!
However, we thought you might need something to jog your memory, so I'm pleased to be able to announce that we are running another of our FlashFlood pop-up journals. Submissions open today, and close next Wednesday, 10th October, at 23.59 (BST). The journal will run next Friday, 12th October, from midnight to midnight. We had a huge response to this in May, so let's see if we can do it again! Send your best flash-fictions (max. 500 words, limit of 3 stories per author) to flashfloodjournal@gmail.com and let's make it even bigger and better! Please use all your social media tools to spread the word.
And, if that's not enough, here are some other things you need to know about:
  • A display of flash-fiction books is working its way around South Glos libraries as part of the Discover festival: www.southglos.gov.uk/discover.
  • The successors to my flash365 project, Mrs Flash365 (Kath Kerr) and Son of Flash365 (Chris Bissette) are over the 150-story mark and will hit the halfway point at the end of the month. Please have a read, leave some comments, follow, share, like the Facebook page or follow them on Twitter. Your support is what keeps them going.
And finally, on a sadder note, we heard last week that Brian George, whose story 'Chemoids' was included in Jawbreakers, passed away at on the 23rd September. I'm sure you'd like to join us in sending out condolences to his wife, Chris, and to his family and friends, and to express our thanks for the pleasure his writing brought while he was with us.

So, that's it for this time. Lots for you to think about, get involved with, and lots of 'yes, I want to join in and so do all of my friends' emails to send us. We'll be waiting!
Until next time, take care.
Calum

-- 

Calum Kerr
Director, National Flash-Fiction Day

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Published on 1 Comment on NFFD Report

I just had to write a roundup of the day for the Arts Council. I was amazed to re-explore all that went on, and thought you might like a read. So here it is!

The intention for National Flash-Fiction Day (NFFD) was to encourage writers, publishers, readers and the general public of the UK to engage with the form of flash-fiction in a diverse range of ways through print, spoken-word performances and online.

At the time of making the original bid a number of events were already organised, all of which took place, but in the time between the bid and the actual day on 16th May, a large range of extra activities emerged.
Physical events took place in Edinburgh, Carlisle, Leeds, Hartlepool, Manchester, Liverpool, Abergavenny, Cardiff, Shrewsbury, Derby, Oxford, Trowbridge, Winchester, Southampton, Brighton and Dublin. These included reading/open mic events, workshops, flash-mob-flash-readings, slams, exhibitions and competition finals.

Eighteen competitions were run to coincide with the Day, including events in USA, New Zealand and Australia, with many announcing their results on 16th May itself. Another five have also been created, inspired by the day, with deadlines to come during the year. Many of the competitions provided prizes, and all have involved some sort of online publication, physical presentation on the day, or publication in printed anthologies. In many cases this publication was not limited to a small number of winners but has seen the publication of dozens of the entries. The top three pieces from most of the competitions are also being gathered together for publication in a free e-book which will shortly be released by NFFD, entitled I Can Show You The World and other stories.

In the southwest of England a group was created by Rachel Carter especially for the Day, called Flash-Fiction South West. The results of their competition were turned into a print anthology entitled Kissing Frankenstein and other stories. This group will continue beyond the day running flash events and competitions and creating publications.

Likewise, the Once Upon a Time competition, run in the UK by Susi Holliday and in the USA by Anna Meade, having collected 88 flash-fiction fairy tales, will soon be available as a print anthology.
NFFD itself also created an anthology which came to be titled Jawbreakers after the submitted story from Jen Campbell. This featured a number of paid commissioned pieces, including Tania Hershman, Vanessa Gebbie, David Gaffney, Jonathan Pinnock, Valerie O’Riordan, Simon Thirsk and Jenn Ashworth. It also included freely donated work by Ali Smith and Ian Rankin, as well as over thirty pieces gathered by an open call for submissions. As a result of the way it was put together this book now features writers at all stages of their careers, from those seeing their work in print for the first time, to established names, and everything in-between. It is now available in paperback from the NFFD website, as a print-on-demand edition from CompletelyNovel, and as an e-book from all branches of Amazon. The book was launched at the Southampton event on 16thMay, has had a subsequent launch event at Blackwells in Manchester on 8thJune, and further events are currently being planned to be held in Foyles in Bristol and London later in 2012. It is also currently stocked in Waterstones in Brighton.

In addition to the print anthology, NFFD organised a number of online publishing opportunities for writers. These started, in the build-up to the day, with prompts being provided through Facebook, Twitter and the NFFD blog, to which writers had just a few days to respond. The resulting pieces were published on our NFFDFlashes blog. Pieces created at NFFD workshops were also uploaded to this blog.

In the week leading up to the Day, we opened up worldwide submissions for a ‘pop-up journal’ called FlashFlood, also hosted on a blog. Seven editors took a day each to read and approve submissions, resulting in 144 pieces being posted on the 16th May, one every 10 minutes from midnight to midnight. The editors have subsequently agreed to make this publication a regular one throughout the year, on a 3-4 monthly basis.

On the day itself, a four hour window was devoted to writing and publishing stories on a blog entitled The Write-In. Over 200 prompts were provided by a number of volunteers and were uploaded for writers to respond to as many as possible in the time allowed. All submitted pieces were then posted. This produced over 100 pieces of flash-fiction from all over the UK and the world. The prompts have been left-online for writers and workshop facilitators to use.

Additionally, a number of online projects were set-up, initially in support of the day but with the intention of continuing on afterwards, as well as FlashFlood, these included 1000words (providing images as prompts for stories) and Flashpoints(site-specific writing).

As well as producing new work, NFFD sought to promote the existing work of flash-fiction writers. As such, the website has expanded to over 150 pages, featuring profiles of more than 70 writers (64 from the UK and 9 internationally) with samples of their work and links to their publications, blogs, websites etc. This includes both high-profile and the unknown writers making no discrimination between them, and has helped to create a real community of flash-fiction writers. The site also includes pages for 18 magazines/websites/publishers, video clips of writers reading their work and links to flash-fiction e-books,

On the day itself, we were also able to promote the e-book publications of our writers with Jawbreakers and eight individual e-book collections being provided for free download on Kindle throughout the day. This resulted in the download of approximately 1200 e-books. We were also able to provide a copy of the Brisbane-produced pamphlets compiled by Photocopier Press for the day on the NFFD website, which is still freely available.

We were pleased to secure a wide range of press coverage including articles in local and national papers including The Guardian, interviews and features on BBC Radio Solent and BBC Radio Bristol and coverage on BBC Radio 4’s iPM programme. Added to this, we received a huge amount of coverage on websites and blogs – both personal and professional.

The response to National Flash-Fiction Day was over-whelming, with the majority of the activities listed above being organised and run by volunteers who were simply happy to be involved in such an exciting event. As a result of the day flash-fiction has raised its profile in the general consciousness, and it has been commented by the people involved that they feel as though flash-fiction writers have finally come together in a community of their own. With this now formed, moving forward to other events and publications is now easier and more likely.

Also, as a result of the day, there has been a lot of interest internationally. As commented above we had events and publications created to coincide with our day occurring in Ireland, USA, Australia and New Zealand, and NZ are now holding their own NFFD on their shortest day, 22nd June, for which we will be hosting another online writing event. In addition we received expressions of interest from France, Portugal, Cyprus and Hong Kong. As such, plans for next year are to make the UK’s NFFD part of an International Flash-Fiction Day.

With that in mind, we are very much looking forward to making this year’s Day an annual event, with many of the volunteers who were involved this year making plans for 2013 already. The aims of the Day have not just been met, but greatly exceeded, with hundreds of writers seeing their work published, performed and publicised, and the general public being made aware of the form through print and broadcast media as well as in person. The enthusiasm generated for flash-fiction, in the writing community and beyond, has been much larger than our expectations. In this respect, this year’s event has created a bedrock on which future years can build.