National Flash Fiction Day

# Story Sunday

2012-03-04T03:50:00.002-08:00

It's #StorySunday over on Twitter. In case you don't know what that means, people but the 'hashtag' #StorySunday into their tweets and post a link to a story they like. I've been watching it this morning and a number of people are posting their links to stories which won the first National Flash-Fiction Day micro-fiction competition. I wanted to add a National Flash-Fiction Day voice to the throng, but what an invidious choice, asking me to pick between my children. So, I thought I would post all of the stories here, giving you the chance to read them if you haven't yet, and then I can post a single link and no-one gets left out!

So, in alphabetcial order, here are the ten wonderful stories which won this year's competition. I hope you enjoy them and please feel free to tweet this post, share this post on Facebook, tell your friends on the phone or just sit back on a lazy Sunday and enjoy.

'New Shoes'
by Jenny Adamthwaite

Dad wanted trainers.
"I'd like to know I could run away," he said.
When the hospital bed lay empty, it gave us a moment's hope.

'Sad Lover'
by Jason Bagshaw

Beth and Alana had reservations at the restaurant in town. On the phone Beth said, 'I'll meet you at seven,' and Alana faked excitement and said, 'Can't wait.' Half past seven and the two of them were seated, ordering their drinks, listening to the piano of a popular composer coming through the speakers. 'It's Bach,' said Beth. 'I know,' Alana replied, but she knew it was Mozart and she wanted to break things off with her. 'I'm going to tell George everything,' said Beth and Alana cried inside. 'Good,' Alana said and hummed along to Mozart. To Bach.

'Black Hole'
by Daniel Carpenter

There is a black hole above her house.

This swirling cosmic nothingness, ever expanding, tendrils reaching out across the sky. She does not know how it got there. She knows it's taking her things. She does not remember last Saturday. When she tries to explain it she can't. She wants to say, "There's a black hole above my house and it's stealing every memory I have ever treasured," but it is not the kind of sentence people understand.

The black hole expands, time collapses in on itself.

She discovers her twelve year old self in her attic.

'She'll Leave You For A Man'
by Kirsty Logan

You've always known it: that gleam, that glint, that licking of lips that means she is thinking about them. Men.

She thinks about them while smelling night jasmine, while rolling out pastry, while signing the bill for the waiter.

And so she will go. She will forget the shape of your hands.

But she will tire of her stubble-rashed chin, of long silences and calloused thumbs, of nothing to pillow her head.

So wait. Just wait.

'Meredith'
by Amy Mackelden

On Grey's Anatomy, everyone's slept with everybody, and although real life is complicated, I'm sure it's not that complicated, or if it is then everyone's fucking without me, doing it secretly, when I'm at Pilates, or sleeping between ten and eight.

'New Build'
by Clare O'Brien

There is no door to close. Just space, scaffolded, bathed in mud and builder's grit. The air rolls in, clouds of steam boiling from impervious stone, steel rods singing down into the sea.

I can already smell the tang of a fire burning at our bare hearth as the rain sweeps through the rafters. Our boys climb ladders lashed to girders, laugh at the water which sticks their shirts to their backs.

Around our house's heart the rooms are growing shells. Inside these plotted squares we'll live our story. The windows wait outside, roped against the wind.

'The Worst Head in the World'
by Angela Readman

Liam gave me his mother's head. I guess he was sick of carrying it around.

'It's just for a while,' he said, placing the jar on the drawers. In the dark, lips made budgie-like kissing sounds. We had a reason to screw loud.

Come morning, the head tutted, 'I WANT a doily.'

It frowned if I wasted chicken bones, or didn't ask Liam if he'd washed his hands.

When he went, Liam left the head behind. It wavers in the water, tells me I'm not good enough, nods when I iron seams in jeans.

'Alterations'
by Tim Stevenson

After the accident she came home rebuilt.

At breakfast, the platinum beneath her skin glows, pulsing with electricity, curiously alive.

I take some toast, spread butter. I see that there are no eggs in the pan.

She smiles, a mechanical lighthouse across the blue ocean of tablecloth. Her head turns smoothly towards the window, her warmth coming only from the sun.

I open my newspaper setting the pages full sail, seeking guidance in the new star of her unreadable face, in the night of her eyes.

Tonight I know I will not dream of her, only of the sea.

'Relieving Mafeking'
by Alun Williams

The 06:17 from Nuneaton stops for three minutes outside Wembley on its approach to Euston. For one hundred and eighty seconds, Mafeking Jones sits open mouthed in his usual seat, staring at a naked woman, framed like a fallen Madonna at her open bedroom window.

No one else notices, no one else sees, perhaps because they are insularly wrapped up in newsprint tales of economic gloom and sporting deeds that have now passed to memory.

Mafeking is an accountant, a man of spreadsheets and numbers but for those three Wembley solitary minutes he's Michaelangelo in a Florentine dream.

'First Person'
by Martha Williams

You lie within me, cupped and curled. You're in me, I'm in you; we're each other's inside out.

They count your fingers, toes, chromosomes... twice. My head spins.

Are you upside down?

They turn off the monitor. They speak in needles, numbers, and odds. I strum my fingers to your kicks.

They say, "If you... we have pills... the products of conception would..." They don't smile. My belly tightens.

Can you feel me? I'm your first person.

I say, "The products of conception, call them 'Emma'".

You lie still...

When you wake, you can call me 'Mum'.

NFFD - Bulletin 3

2012-02-10T03:56:00.000-08:00

Hello Flash-Fictioneers,

Well, as you have a probably noticed, now that Christmas is well and truly over the engines have started turning over again here in Flash-Fiction Day central. Things are starting to move and we're ready to get on the road.

We have added a whole new batch of writers to the website and had our first entry on our 'International' Section. A batch of new events has been added and there are more to come. Our micro-fiction competition has come and gone, and results will be announced around the end of the month. And we are waiting to hear back about an Arts Council Bid which will allow us to do some more shiny things.

All of this is fantastic, but it is still really just a start. We need to keep going and keep growing and ensure that 16th May is the spring board for annual Flash-Fiction Days in the years to come.

So, if you are a writer of flash-fiction (with at least a couple of publications, or a flash-fiction blog or something similar) then get in touch as we'd like to list you on the site. This applies to International writers too - please get in touch.
If you run a flash-project such as a magazine, a blog or a website, we'd like to start a new section to feature those separately from the 'Writers' pages, so please drop me a line about those too. (Again, international projects also welcome.)
If you are planning an event, even if you aren't sure of all the details yet, let me know so I can at least put something up to make people aware of what's going to be happening in their area. And, if you aren't yet planning an event... why not? If you need inspiration, some of the things happening so far include: flash-readings, flash-slams, competitions to be announced on or near the day, workshops and anthologies. If you're a student or teacher, why not organise something within your Uni or school? If you work at, borrow from, or live near a library, why not get in touch with them and see if they want to do something? If you have a local paper, radio or TV station, why not drop them a line and see what they think. At least one local newspaper will be running a competition, so why not suggest that to yours? (Also, if you are doing something, but it's not open to the public, such as a class being run in a school or uni, please let us know anyway so we can share it as a source of inspiration to others).
If you have a blog or website, then please think about promoting the day. I'm available for online (or in person) interviews about it all, if that's any use to you.
Conversely, if you would like to write a guest blog entry for us about flash-fiction, why you like it, how you came to it, how you do it, or anything else flash-related, we'd love to hear from you.
If you have a webcam, why not film yourself reading a story and put it up to YouTube or similar. In the recent update we have added Nik Perring reading one of his and it looks great. We'd like to build up a YouTube channel if we can.
Please share the FB page and website on your social media channels and get the word out there. Also, this bulletin will be on our blog soon, so please share that too. (http://nationalflashfictionday.blogspot.com/)
And finally, if you would like to be the co-ordinator for your region, please do get in touch and we'll make it happen.

And, of course, if you think of anything that we haven't listed, please let us know, new ideas are happening all the time and it's great to be able to share. This is shaping up to be one heck of a day, but we do need your help to make it happen.

Thank you all for your hard work so far, and roll on May 16th!

All the best

Calum

Guest Blog: 3hundredand65 - Graphic Flash

2012-01-17T01:39:00.000-08:00

[A flash-graphic novel? Whoever heard of such a thing?! David Kirkwood, that's who...]

Sit down. I'd like to tell you a story. The only thing is, this one will take a whole year to tell.

We're calling it the 3hundredand65 project and it is a story told day by day, tweet by tweet, writer by writer.

So far, it's lovely and delightful, scary and intriguing. We've no idea what it will be like tomorrow. That's because each day, a new writer takes over and tweets the next stage in the story. 140 characters to move things along a bit and keep people reading. And each day, that Tweet is turned into an illustration by Dave Kirkwood - the chap whose idea this whole thing was to start with.

The writers are all volunteers. Anybody can put their hand in the air and pick a date which they would like Tweet on. Those dates are going fast so prospective writers have to check the calendar on the official site. Then they just send a Tweet to @3hundredand65 and put in a request. In total there will be 365 writers with one (@jake74) Tweeting twice. Because he went first so it's only proper that he goes last.

You can view the site here http://www.3hundredand65.co.uk/ and keep on top of how the story progresses.

So why are we doing this? Apart from the fact that stories are great, of course?

3hundredand65 is being done to raise awareness and money for The Teenage Cancer Trust. We want people to give money so they can continue the excellent work they do.

To help that, the site offers easy links to quickly donate (http://www.teenagecancertrust.org/get-involved/as-a-fundraiser/fundraisers/3hundredand65/) and we are also auctioning off the 12 original notebooks which, at the end of the year, will tell the full story. Bidding starts at £120, the cost of these beautiful books which are 300x210mm, hard bound with 200g/m2 top quality, acid-free paper. And if people want to commission any original, signed drawings of the characters then we'll do that too.

Stories really are great. They can inspire lives. We want to use ours to save them.

For more details: dave@davekirkwood.com or dom@head-first.co.uk

Follow on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/3hundredand65

Guest Blog: Dan Holloway of eightcuts on Flash-slamming

2011-12-28T07:32:00.001-08:00

I’m absolutely delighted to be celebrating National Flash Fiction Day by hosting a Flash Slam (http://eightcuts.com/events/flash-slam/) in Oxford. Hurrah, you cry, and what might one of those be?

Well, I first came across the idea through Amy Riley and Tim Lay who run Brighton’s top literary night Grit Lit, where I had the privilege of performing this summer (http://gritlit.wordpress.com/2011/07/23/dates-for-your-diary-flash-lit-fiction-11-september-grit-lit-9-december/ ). What we have planned is part slam and part Literary Death Match-style panel show, all designed to show just how great the flash form can be when read aloud.

Yes, but what does that actually mean? Right, well the slam bit is like a poetry slam. Anyone can sign up (within reason – we have 12 spaces available in advance and on the night) to read flash fiction for no more than 4 minutes. They will then be scored, in an informal, friendly way by 5 pre-selected members of the audience. The highest and lowest scores will be removed and the reader with the highest score will “win.” And everyone will have an entertaining, educational, raucous and really rather fabulous time and come out fired with passion for flashing.

The panel show part consists of the fact that we have an MC (yours truly) and a judge (the wonderful Tania Hershman, one of the UK’s most feted and fabulous flashers), who will offer brief humorous but constructive comments on each performance.

And to top it off, Tania will be performing a headline set of her flash pieces. There will also be drinks and music all in the surrounds of the Albion Beatnik, Oxford’s finest bookstore.

[If you would like to submit a guest blog entry for the site, please send us an email at nationalflashfictionday AT gmail DOT com with your proposal.]

And... we're off!

2011-12-16T09:04:00.000-08:00

Well, it's taken a while since the first inkling of an idea, but preparations for National Flash-Fiction Day are now underway, some of the events have already been organised, writers, readers and publishers are talking and making plans, and the website is now up and running at http://nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/ complete with details of our Micro-Fiction Competition.

So, what now I hear you say. Well, Christmas first, I think, and then the planning starts. There are many, many possible ideas for events for Flash-Fiction Day, so time to start thinking about what YOU are going to do.

Are you going to write, read, slam, teach, publish, collaborate, run a competition, a combination of some or all, or something completely different. Whatever it is, this is your chance to join with others across the country to celebrate the tiny fiction form that does so much!

Visit the website regularly to see what's going on in your area, and soon we will have regional co-ordinators who can lend you a hand, and let's make this first National Flash-Fiction Day a day to remember!

Oh, and before I forget, we're looking for guests to write for this blog. We want your posts on all areas of flash-fiction: your definition of a flash, what you like about it, why you started writing it, who your favourite writer is, a review of a book, a plan for an event, even a piece of flash-fiction and an explanation of where the idea came from and how you wrote it. Whatever you fancy writing for us, as long as it's flash-fiction related, we want to know.

So, send us an email at nationalflashfictionday AT gmail DOT com with your proposal for a blog post and let's get it filling up with all your wonderful thoughts.

To start us off we will soon be having a post from Dan Holloway of eightcuts who will be talking about the flash-slam he is hosting for National Flash-Fiction Day and explaining just what a slam is anyway!

So, Happy Christmas from us, and we'll be back with words from Dan very soon.

An Open Letter

2011-10-16T09:23:00.000-07:00

Dear Flash-Fiction Fan,

I am a flash-fiction writer, an editor and a lecturer in Creative Writing, and I have a dream of a day celebrating flash-fiction.

Flash-fiction exists in the grey area between poetry and the short story, so, why not have a day in between the two National Days for those forms dedicated to it? It would be a day in which we tell the world about these short, short stories that we craft and encourage them to read and write them.

As a result, Wednesday May 16th 2012 will be National Flash-Fiction Day in the UK and I need your help.

What I would like is for the day to co-ordinate all the activities you would already do - readings, open-mics, workshops, publications, competitions, and anything else you think of - all under the banner of National Flash-Fiction Day.

There will soon be a website to co-ordinate the events and let people know what's going on in their area. It will also have pages for all flash-fiction writers taking part on which they can feature themselves and their work, add links to buy their books, etc. I want it to be a resource for flash-fiction as much as a site for the Day itself.

So, what I need from you is to start thinking and planning your events; spread the word about the day, about this blog and our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/nationalflashfictionday), ask people to sign up for the mailing list at nationalflashfictionday@gmail.com and generally become part of the whole thing.

There is no funding behind this event, no mass team of adminstrators, so apart from co-ordinating it, I'm relying on you to do what you do best and bring this thing together.

If you want to volunteer any ideas for promotion, your time to help out, or anything else, please get in touch.

This will be the first National Flash-Fiction Day, but with your help it won't be the last.

Thanks for your support and roll on next May.

All the best

Calum Kerr

National Flash-Fiction Day Co-ordinator.

National Flash Fiction Day

# Story Sunday

'New Shoes'by Jenny Adamthwaite

'Sad Lover'by Jason Bagshaw

'Black Hole'by Daniel Carpenter

'She'll Leave You For A Man'by Kirsty Logan

'Meredith'by Amy Mackelden

'New Build'by Clare O'Brien

'The Worst Head in the World'by Angela Readman

'Alterations'by Tim Stevenson

'Relieving Mafeking'by Alun Williams

'First Person'by Martha Williams