Saturday 27th June 2015 marks the fourth annual National Flash Fiction Day, a celebration of all that is bold and brief about this ultra-short literary form. Every year there are a number of events, competitions, readings, and publications - including the ever-impressive National Flash Fiction Day anthology. The book this year is called "Landmarks" (after Ian Shine's story) and is centred on the theme of "Geography". Over 60 writers contributed to this volume, taking the theme in a huge variety of literal and metaphorical directions - with none of the stories coming in at any more than 500 words. I'm delighted to have had a story accepted for the book; mine is called "Postcards". Buy a copy of the book in print or for your Kindle at this link. |
This month, I've been online, via a variety of media... Firstly, here's the resulting video of Chris Fielden's "To Hull and Back" competition, which I won last year. Can a literary award get any cooler than this? Then came a Tweet-length story I sent to Shirley Golden (@shirl1001), which I was pleased to see she marked as one of her favourites. The remit was to place Thor, the Norse god of thunder, in an unusual setting. (This was part of the intriguing "Nine Realms", a Viking-themed collaborative project combining art, poetry, and stories, which is well worth a look.) My tweet is below, but you can read all the very entertaining efforts at the Artipeeps website. Finally, I wrote an article entitled "What Makes a Good Short Story?" for the online literary magazine The Red Line. I'm not entirely sure I succeeded in addressing the question, but I did manage to shoehorn in references to pies, Ferraris and ninjas. So that's OK.
Announcing news of what is, and surely will be, my shortest ever short story - at least, to win a competition! In December last year, the Exeter-based Riptide Journal advertised this call-out for submissions... So I tweeted my effort... ... and won a few books!
Since I usually struggle to get my short fiction below 3,000 words, I'm actually rather pleased with this result. It doesn't quite beat the one word story I saw published in the flash fiction anthology "Scraps" (which has to be read to be believed), but telling - or at least, hinting at - a tale in six words certainly represents a victory for brevity. Coming up at a literary event near you: a zero-word story contest for mimes. |
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