Flash Bang Wallop! (but quieter)

As people who come here will know, I am not always a fan of flash fiction. Reading a piece on its own and if its good then I get it. But reading a whole collection and it's just not enough... like eating a whole meal of hors doevres and wanting a proper meal instead. Whenever I think of putting a collection together, I can't help but want them to hang thematically somehow. A couple of years ago I wrote 51 stories in flash that were about my late dad. The unpublished collection is called 'Art in Heaven' and it hangs together because each story presents a piece of my dad and the whole acts as a memorial portrait of him. And I wrote, here on this blog, a collection of 120 or more flashes that created a portrait of a village and held a small village mystery within the threads of the stories.

I must admit that I do have fun writing flash fiction, though as often as not for me a flash is a brainstorming exercise and my better ones yearn to wear bigger pants and walk taller. I have turned many flash fiction pieces into full stories even turned one flash fiction into a full length novel. Flash, when I do it, is like sketching is for an artist.

I don't think I am alone in thinking flash fiction often falls intellectually and imaginatively short of what it needs to be. The quirky and the anecdotal and the small gag, things that so frequently feed flash fiction, is not enough for me.

For these reasons, I don't often shout about my flash fiction and don't feel completely comfortable when I do. So, whispering here, I am saying that three of my flash fiction pieces have recently done rather well... in competition terms... with a win and a 2nd place and a shortlisting for a nice anthology.

There, said it. Now I don't want to hear any more about this. Ok

ANNOUNCEMENT

NEW SUN RISING: STORIES FOR JAPAN – an anthology

I remember when the call went out asking writers to submit work for an anthology to raise money to help in Japan after the disaster. I remember the shock of the tragedy and the wanting to do something, anything. I remember one call in particular which gave a list of the things still missing from the proposed anthology that they would like to see included. On that list it said they wanted schoolgirls and mythology and in that was the seed of my story ‘Kimika and the Ants’.

It’s been an e-book for a wee while and on 16^th November it’s to be a hold-in-your-hands physical paper-and-print book.

I saw a tv programme recently – well a snatched bit of a programme… something about the millions promised by the Japanese government to help rebuild the worst hit areas not having reached the stricken communities and no new buildings yet to replace what had been so dramatically wiped away. There were pictures of the places where the tsunami had struck hardest and they were no less desperate in their appearance today than they had been over 18 months ago.

What this says is that help is still needed… as it is in so many places in the world… so why give here? I have no particular drum to beat with Japan; the family of a close colleague live there and that’s all the bridge that I have. I do not think you have to give here specifically; I give everywhere and I simply urge you to give too – and I expect that you do. But if you are looking for an interesting Christmas present to buy and to give, then this anthology can’t be bad… and you’d be giving twice: once of the book and once of your money which will go to help those still in need in Japan.

I wish you well and wish everyone everywhere well.