Oxford celebrated National Flash Fiction in
style with its first ever Flash Slam (http://eightcuts.com/events/flash-slam/),
which showcased this fabulous format with some of the performance and pizzazz
of a poetry slam. Fourteen fabulous writers came from as far afield as
Birmingham, Bristol, and Gloucester, and included the likes of Jonathan
Pinnock, bestselling author of Mrs Darcy vs the Aliens (http://www.mrsdarcyvsthealiens.com/),
and Gloucester poet Laureate candidate Sarah Snell-Pym (http://www.snell-pym.org.uk/sarah/).
They each performed for four minutes to a packed Albion Beatnik Bookstore, and
subjected themselves to the scrutiny of expert judge and our headline reader
Tania Hershman (http://www.taniahershman.com/), one of the UK’s most celebrated
flash fiction writers, who delighted us later in the evening with readings from
her book My Mother Was an Upright Piano. They were then scored out of 100 by a
panel of judges comprising Paul Askew (http://paulaskew.tumblr.com), poetry
slam winner and editor of Ferment Magazine, author of short story collection
Knowing Look Rebecca Emin (http://ramblingsofarustywriter.blogspot.co.uk/), and
leading Oxford cultural blogger Ingrina Shieh-Carson (http://aicarson.wordpress.com/).
All presided over by yours truly.
The top three performed again in a final
that demonstrated perfectly the dazzling diversity of the form. The pieces that
got them there couldn’t have been more different. Joe Briggs (http://somedaysthethundergetsyou.blogspot.co.uk/)
is a music blogger whose semi-autobiographical pieces have the energy and edge
and sense of imminent eruption of those underground punk gigs you heard about
but never seemed to go to. Anna Hobson (http://makewordsnotwar.wordpress.com)
is one of the leading figures in the Oxford literary scene, coordinator of
poetry (and many other things) at Oxford International Women’s Festival and MC
of spoken word at Oxford Pride. Her first round flarf (an alternative form of literature
achieved by pasting quotations from the internet into a formal structure) was
the highest scoring piece of the night by a long long way and it took the
audience several minutes to regain their composure after her
exquisitely-crafted and breathtakingly delivered look at the strange world of
internet dating. But the winner, fittingly, was Bristol’s Kevlin Henney (http://asemantic.blogspot.co.uk/),
an award-winning die hard practitioner of the flash form who married superb
storytelling with effortlessly engaging delivery to carry off the spoils.
I should add a postscript that shows just
how successful this whole endeavour has been, and illustrates the debt we all
owe to Calum and NFFD. On Wednesday of this week, I took a troupe of my
fabulous eight cuts gallery regulars to the Poetry Cafe to perform at London
Literature Lounge. Anna reprised her flarf to equal acclaim, and we were joined
by Marc Nash, master of flash (sorely missed on NFFD). Literature Lounge host
Anjan Saha was so buzzed by the vibrancy of the flash community that he and I
will be running a flash slam at the Poetry Cafe on September 19th.
And that’s not all. Thanks to NFFD, the Warwick Words festival organisers got
in touch with me and have asked me to put on a flash slam for their festival,
on October 4th. The format will be the same as Oxford – only this
time our judge and headliner, for his sins in Oxford (and he thought he was
just coming for a jolly night out), none other than Kevlin Henney.
So, thank you all who took part. A special
thanks to Tania, and our judges on the night. And biggest thanks of all to
Calum – new worlds are opening up.
- Dan Holloway
