A Sudden, Bright Flash

Highlights & Insights from the Flash Fiction Festival

The Flash Fiction Festival was a whirlwind of workshops, readings and reconnections, bringing together writers from all over the globe. Now that the dust has settled, I can share my highlights. 

Trinity College, Bristol, where the festival is held annually.

‎On Friday afternoon, ‎I joined Kathy Fish's pre-festival workshop, Flash Magic, Conjuring Beauty & Originality. She arrived with a magic wand and a joyful attitude, teaching in a way that was both funny and engaging as she worked her magic to get us to write. Over the course of three hours, she guided us through a series of exercises that led us to write a surprising amount.

‎Writing on narrow strips of paper by hand, I had no chance to plan beforehand, only write and see what emerged. And that led to some lovely surprises.

Kathy Fish, the Fairy Godmother of Flash Fiction

In the evening, Jude Higgins welcomed us to the festival with an introductory speech, followed by the launch of the 2024 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology and readings from selected writers.

After a short break, we had readings of work nominated for Best Small Fictions. ‎

We ended with readings from the Novella-in-Flash Award, and each of the three winners read powerful excerpts from their newly-published novellas. Debra A. Daniel read from In the Dark Eyes of the Rabbit, Fiona McKay read from The Lives of the Dead and Stephanie Carty read from Spin of the Triangle.

It was a warm summer night so the evening continued with drinks and discussions outside on the lawn and in the Badger's Pouch Bar, where Christopher Allen and Helen Rye set up fabulous decorations and led karaoke.

Outside the doors of Trinity College ‎

Saturday morning we went straight into workshops. 

‎I started the morning with Jude Higgins' workshop Precious Jewels, where she shared a series of exercises based on a piece of jewellery. Using the jewellery as a focal point prompted us to spark a wide range of new stories. Writing from the perspective of the jewellery itself led to something interesting.

At the same time, Anika Carpenter showed how art overlaps with flash fiction, Judy Darley shared a fairytale toolkit, Rosaleen Lynch shared from a book called 52 Stories for Readers and Writers, and Katheryn Aldridge Morris shared on how to build a flash fiction collection.

All participants of the festival joined the world's biggest game of Word Cricket, led by Vanessa Gebbie. She got us all writing, throwing in random words to direct and take our narratives in new directions. What if the word didn't fit to what we were writing? We had to bend our drafts to fit it, leading to odd and hilarious results.

In Packing an Emotional Punch, Finnian Burnett showed how we can encourage the reader to feel.

"Our stories have a lot of heft, and that's something that will overshadow machines." - Finnian Burnett

What makes readers feel? Universal emotions, such as fear and the desire for love, safety or control.

When asked to give examples of something scary, someone suggested snakes coming out of the toilet, which made us all laugh and turned into a running joke for the workshop.

We looked at examples of flash fiction, questioned beliefs and motivations, and our challenge was to pick a desire or fixation and write about it.

One of the examples was Sharon Telfer's flash fiction, Terra Incognita, the 2016 winner of the Bath Flash Fiction Award and part of her novella-in-flash, The Map Waits. Finnian spoke about how the language evokes the movement of the sea.

With Cole Beauchamp and Finnian Burnett

‎Emily Devane brought a curious assortment of objects for her workshop Lost and Found, where we got to pick one and write about it. A pair of red gloves, an antique box, an old clock, a dinosaur... each object was ripe with potential. She also showed through this workshop how objects can be used as a starting point, wherever you find them.

Emily Devane

The other afternoon sessions were Play it by Ear from Kathy Fish, A Sense of Wonder with David Swann, The Stories in your Phone with KM Elkes, Transforming Setting into Place with Damian Dressick, The Female Gothic in Flash Fiction with Susmita Bhattacharya and The Dark Side with Stephanie Carty--all fascinating workshops I would have attended if they weren't on at the same time!

In the afternoon there was an excellent panel discussion called Strategies for Success in the Novella in Flash, hosted by Michael Loveday with David Swan, Deborah Tomkins and Laura Beasley. Each had such different and interesting perspectives to share on the form. Deborah shared her experience with the query process and how deciding to send her manuscript out one more time led to publication. Her book Aerth came out this spring followed by the release of her debut novel this summer, The Wilder Path. Laura Beasley, author of The Almost Mothers, spoke about writing flash flash fiction and a novella-in-flash book club she runs where Deborah was the guest. David Swann, author of Bright Sorrow, spoke about how he became obsessed with the process and not bothered by the product. He distrusts success while trusting in failure because he knows where he's at with it. He had such a laid back and humourous approach to experimentation and sending off his work, it was enjoyable to listen.

In the evening, there were readings from the lastest Bath Flash Fiction Award Anthology, titled The Constancy of Wood Pigeons after a piece by Tracey Fells.

Tracy Fells reading The Constancy of Wood Pigeons

I read my longlisted story, Everything on the Menu Except What Fills the Ache. The anthology had just been printed, and for the first time I held it in my hands. Several other writers read their work, all powerful and emotionally resonant.

Anika Carpenter reading her flash fiction, published in the anthology.

Afterwards, we moved to the Badger's Pouch Bar, where the festivities continued.

On ‎Sunday morning, ‎Nora Nardjaran’s workshop on unreliable narrators took a fascinating dive into psychology as we analysed several short texts. She guided us to question how the narrator could be obscuring events and why.

Nora Nardjaran, who travelled to the festival from Cyprus

Other workshops on that morning were: The personal is political: finding relevance and resonance in our everyday lives with Shelley Roche-Jacques, Borrowing and Stealing from the Classics with Farhana Shaikh, A Short-Short Introduction: A Form of Japanese Flash Fiction with a Twist with Heidi Clark and Heavenly Mud: a drawing and writing workshop with Jet Rotmans

Diane Simmons and Karen Jones launched the latest National Flash Fiction Day anthology, on the theme of seasons. Diane then spoke about writing to theme and how to make your story stand out in a sea of submissions. For example, don't title it Seasons! In past anthologies, multiple submissions in which the title was also the theme created a real challenge for the reading team. The most creative and original interpretations of ‘seasons’ can be found in this year’s anthology.

In the afternoon, Kathy Fish spoke about sound in the workshop Play it by Ear, Writing Flash that Sings. She told how to speed up or slow down a piece of writing, make it feel staccato with shorter sentences or draw it out with longer ones, and how sentence length can create or diminish a sense of breathlessness.

We considered the sound of the syllables, soft or hard and chose specific sounds to use in the writing exercises. The last exercise was to write a short piece starting with the phrase I love... and the way... I really enjoyed the sharing in that round because it was beautiful to hear what everyone came up with!

Other workshops on then were:

Revolutionary Creativity: The Sustainable Artist’s Life as an Act of Resistance: with Nancy Stohlman, Take Inspiration from Virginia Woolf – Use Movement, Flux and Colour To Make Your Flash Shimmer with S.A. Greene and The Weird and Wonderful World of Flash with Vanessa Gebbie.

Flash fiction is truly a weird and wonderful world and the possibilities are endless.

In the final workshop, ‎Michael Loveday gave a workshop on writing complex, authentic characters in a novella-in-flash. I followed the exercises using the protagonist of my novella in flash, a character I know well, yet discovered new insights in the process. He guided us to ask each other questions about our characters, considering all different aspects of their lives which helped to make our characters deeper and more rounded.

At the same time there was: A live feedback session with Fiona McKay, The Star in the Room: Improving your Prose Poems with Carrie Etter and Transforming Tales: Hybrid Forms and Structures in Flash Fiction with Farhana Khalique.

In between sessions, Debbi Voisey and Tracy Fells ran the bookshop, filled with a treasure trove of short fiction anthologies and novellas-in-flash. Some of these can be found on the website of Ad Hoc Fiction, and of Dahlia Books.

‎The festival ended with a raffle where we cheered each other on for each prize won.

‎In a flash it was over, and we dispersed across the globe, to Scotland, Germany, Cyprus, India, Canada, Colorado, Costa Rica and beyond.

Outside Trinity College.

Why did participants travel so far? Because there is nothing else like this, and while gathering so many writers together, inspiration flies like sparks in a lightning storm. We each gained so much that we can share when returning home.

The Flash Fiction Festival was an inspiring, action-packed and truly amazing event! Each of the fantastic teachers mentioned here has flash fiction that you can read online or buy in print. So read some flash fiction! Dive into a novella-in-flash! Write something flash-length and share it with the world.

Keep writing,

And may your words shine

Malina Douglas

Iridescent Words