Great Flash Fiction Festival Throwdown February 26th

On By nancystohlmanIn flash fiction, flash fiction challenge, Reading, The Writer's Life, Uncategorized, workshops, writing

Friends!

For a number of (good) reasons, I will not be teaching any online workshops until the late summer/early fall (more on that soon). So I wanted to make doubly sure you knew about this wonderful opportunity to work with not only me but an entire program of flash fiction greatness THIS SATURDAY via Zoom.

I will be ending out the program and teaching one of my favorite types of writing: The Strange, the Surreal, and the Absurd

Details and links to register are below. Note that all the times are London/UK time!~

more soon! xo Nancy

Online programme February 26

On the programme below, all the information to let you know what’s happening each month – 11.00 am – 6.30 pm GMT

You can book here.£30 for the whole day

  • A ‘Throw Down’ writing challenge set and judged by different judges.
  • one or one and a half hour workshops on different aspects of flash fiction;
  • at least two half hour mini workshops or talks on different aspects of flash fiction;
  • three fifteen minute readers’ slots;
  • yoga stretches for writers;
  • small break out groups to chat to writer friends from around the world.

Read more about the workshops on these two days here.

Note: If you can’t attend the whole day, events are recorded and videos are sent to participants after the day is completed.

Session and Workshop Descriptions

Nancy Stohlman

The Strange and Surreal: Opening the Back Door into Our Big Truths with Nancy Stohlman, February 26th 5.00 pm – 6.30 pm

While realism in fiction has its place, some truths can be clumsy when faced head on. When you cannot take the front door into your material because it’s too raw, painful, blunt or overdone—then you must find the back door, a less obvious way into the story where The Big Truth can be revealed. The strange and surreal can create faster pathways to emotional resonance by keeping the audience off guard, unprepared, and more receptive. Come prepared to get weird!

Nancy Stohlman has been writing, publishing, and teaching flash fiction for more than a decade, and her latest book, Going Short: An Invitation to Flash Fiction (Ad Hoc Fiction, 2020) is her treatise on the form. Her other books include The Vixen Scream and Other Bible Stories, The Monster Opera, and Madam Velvet’s Cabaret of Oddities, a finalist for a 2019 Colorado Book Award. Her work has been anthologized widely, appearing in the W.W. Norton New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction, Macmillan’s The Practice of Fiction, and The Best Small Fictions 2019, as well as adapted for the stage. She teaches at the University of Colorado Boulder and around the world.

Hermit Crab Hangouts, February and March half hours

‘Hermit crab’stories take different forms of writing, anything from recipes to flat pack instructions, to parking tickets to wild-life guide books, Q & A’s. It’s endless.She will introduce a different hermit-crab form each month with examples and get you to try out hermit-crab flash during the session.

Jude Higgins

Jude Higgins devised and programmed this and the previous online Flash Festival six month seroes as Director of Flash Fiction Festivals UK. She founded Bath Flash Fiction Award in 2015 and is Director of Ad Hoc Fiction, the short short fiction press. She runs a popular weekly online class to write and get feedback on flash fiction and this summer ran her first series of Hermitcrab Hangouts online. She has stories published or forthcoming in the New Flash Fiction Review, Flash Frontier, FlashBack Fiction, The Blue Fifth Review, The Nottingham Review, Pidgeon Holes, Storgy, Inktears,The MoonPark Review, Fictive Dream, the Fish Prize Anthology, National Flash Fiction Day anthologies and Flash: The International Short Short Story Magazine among other places. She has won or been placed in many flash fiction contests and was shortlisted in the Bridport Flash Fiction Prize in 2017 and 2018. Her debut flash fiction pamphlet The Chemist’s House was published by V.Press in 2017. She has been nominated for Best Small Fictions 2020 and for Pushcart Prizes and will be included in Best Microfictions 2022 has had stories included in BIFFY50 in 2019 and 2020.

Susmita Bhattacharya

Hour long Workshop For Young People wih Susmita Bhattacharya

A workshops happening in parallel with the events for adults with a special prize.

Susmita Bhattacharya is an Indian-born British writer. Her novel, The Normal State of Mind, was published in 2015 by Parthian (UK) and Bee Books (India) in 2016 and was long listed for the Words to Screen Prize, Mumbai Association of Moving Images (MAMI) Film Festival in 2018. Her collection of short stories, Table Manners, was published by Dahlia Publishing in 2018 and won The Dorset Award in 2019.She teaches contemporary fiction at Winchester University and also facilitates the Mayflower Young Writers workshops, a SO:Write project based in Southampton. She lives in Winchester.


Farhana Shaikh

Small Good Things. The joy of small press publishing: half an hour talk with Farhana Shaikh on February 26th.

In this 30 half-hour talk, founder of Dahlia Books, Farhana Shaikh will discuss independent publishing, building writing communities and what she’s learnt about her own writing from her publishing adventures.

Farhana Shaikh is a writer and publisher born in Leicester. She is the founding editor of The Asian Writer. In 2010 she established Dahlia Publishing to publish regional and diverse writing and the Leicester Writes Festival to celebrate local writing talent.
She was part of Curve Theatre’s Cultural Leadership Programme 17/18. In 2017 she won the Penguin/Travelex Next Great Travel Writer competition and has since been longlisted for the Thresholds International Short Fiction Feature Writing Competition and Spread the Word Life Writing Prize. Her short play Risk was developed through the Kali Discovery programme. She is the author of From Imposter to Impact: Arts Leadership in the 21st Century.

Meg Pokrass

Writing Collaborative Fiction a half hour talk with Meg Pokrass and Jeff Friedmann, February 26th

Have you ever thought about writing stories with another writer? Meg and Jeff have a collection coming out with Pelekensis Press in March 2022 and will tell you about the process of writing together.
Meg Pokrass, is the author of seven flash fiction collections, two novellas-in-flash, and an award-winning book of prose poetry. A recipient of San Francisco’s Blue Light Book Award, her work has been internationally anthologized in two recent Norton Anthologies, Best Small Fictions 2018, 2019, Wigleaf Top 50 (multiple times) and has been published in over 500 literary magazines including Electric Literature, Craft, Tin House, Passages North, Wigleaf and McSweeney’s. Meg serves as Flash Challenge Judge for Mslexia, Co-Editor of Best Microfiction, 2020, Co-Founder Flash Fiction Collective Reading Series (SF), & Founding/Managing Editor of New Flash Fiction Review and a festival curator for Flash Fiction Festivals, UK.


Jeff Friedmann’s eighth book, The Marksman, was published in November 2020 by Carnegie Mellon University Press. He has received numerous awards and prizes for his poetry, mini tales, and translations, including a National Endowment Literature Translation Fellowship in 2016 and two individual Artist Grants from New Hampshire Arts Council. Two of his micro stories were recently selected for the The Best Microfiction 2021. Meg Pokrass and he have co-written a collection of fabulist microfiction that will be published by Pelekinesis Press in March 2022.

Fifteen minutes of Yoga stretches for writers with writer and yoga teacher Sudha Balagopal. Both February and March.

Sudha Balagopal

Each of the five months, Sudha will introduce stretches to rejuvenate and refresh writers sitting in front of a computer screen on our long festival days. Something really useful to take and practice at home as well as writing prompts and ideas.

Sudha Balagopal’s fiction straddles continents and cultures, blending thoughts and ideas from the east and the west. She is the author of a novel, A Dawn, and two short story collections, There are Seven Notes and Missing and Other Stories.Her short fiction has been published in journals around the world, has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions. Her novella in flash, Things I Can’t Tell Amma was highly commended in the 2021 Bath Flash Fiction Award and published by Ad Hoc Fiction in 2021. When she’s not writing, she’s teaching yoga.

College, runs the yearly Culturama Workshops in the Arts month and lives in the Inland Empire.

One Sentence Stories with Matt Kendrick

Matt Kendrick

There are many flash fiction pieces written in the form of a single, looping sentence, rippling through their narrative without a solitary full stop. These one-sentence stories are often described as breathless. They can feel effortless, as if they have arrived on the page by magic; but there is often a clever architecture holding everything in place. In this mini workshop, we’ll look at some brilliant examples, considering the why, the where, the what and the how of this wonderful – but also wonderfully tricksy – narrative form.

Matt Kendrick is a writer, editor and creative writing teacher based in the East Midlands, UK. His short fiction has appeared in Bending Genres, Cheap Pop, Craft Literary, FlashBack Fiction, Fictive Dream, Lunate, Spelk, Splonk, Storgy, and elsewhere. He has been listed in various writing competitions including Bath, Flash 500, Reflex and Leicester Writes, and he won the Retreat West “Abandoned” flash fiction competition in June 2020. His stories have been featured in the Biffy 50 list for 2019-20 and Best Microfiction 2021. He has also been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions and the Pushcart Prize.

There are many flash fiction pieces written in the form of a single, looping sentence, rippling through their narrative without a solitary full stop. These one-sentence stories are often described as breathless. They can feel effortless, as if they have arrived on the page by magic; but there is often a clever architecture holding everything in place. In this mini workshop, we’ll look at some brilliant examples, considering the why, the where, the what and the how of this wonderful – but also wonderfully tricksy – narrative form.

Matt Kendrick is a writer, editor and creative writing teacher based in the East Midlands, UK. His short fiction has appeared in Bending Genres, Cheap Pop, Craft Literary, FlashBack Fiction, Fictive Dream, Lunate, Spelk, Splonk, Storgy, and elsewhere. He has been listed in various writing competitions including Bath, Flash 500, Reflex and Leicester Writes, and he won the Retreat West “Abandoned” flash fiction competition in June 2020. His stories have been featured in the Biffy 50 list for 2019-20 and Best Microfiction 2021. He has also been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions and the Pushcart Prize.