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 16th
May, has had a subsequent launch event at Blackwells in Manchester on 8th
June, 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.
