Ad Hoc Fiction, our short-short fiction press, is thrilled to publish All That Is Between Us, the dazzling debut flash fiction collection by Bristol-based author, K.M.Elkes. The collection “explores the complex fragility of human relationships, both the challenges of belonging and how much we risk to avoid being alone. It is a book of moments, evoking the beauty and comfort that connection brings, and the pain when it is severed.”
All That Is Between Us, includes Ken’s first-prize winning flash fiction, Extremities from Bath Flash Fiction Award, June 2018 and many more wonderful fictions and is highly rated by the eight well-known flash fiction writers quoted below. The art work for the stunning cover is by Bridport based artist, Suzanne Clements.
All That is Between Us is released on 22nd June when it will be available from the Ad Hoc Fiction bookshop and as an ebook from Kindle and Nook. Pre-order the paperback now for posting to world-wide destinations.
New Zealand based author Michelle Elvy’s “small novel in small forms”, the everrumble will also be released on 22nd June, National Flash Fiction Day in New Zealand and is available to pre-order. We’re very excited that these new Ad Hoc Fiction publications from two authors based at opposite ends of the world will be released on the same day and launched at the Flash Fiction Festival on 28th-30th June, at Trinity College, Bristol where Ken and Michelle are running workshops. We can’t wait to hear them read!
Praise For All That Is Between Us
“These stories explore the vagaries of human relationships with an uncanny, algorithmic precision. They linger in the heart and mind long after the final page. Truthful, revelatory, and beautifully written, All That Is Between Us is a collection you’ll want to read and reread. Highly recommended.”
~ Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life: Collected Works
“K.M. Elkes writes like a fallen angel, making the ordinary divine. Tender, visceral, and tough as diamonds, his work cuts every heartbreak into a shining jewel. All That Is Between Us finds light in the darkest of places. Though the world may not always be pretty, his characters seek beauty in the connections passing through their lives. This is breath-taking flash fiction at its finest. A book that deserves to be read again and again.”
~ Angela Readman, author of Something Like Breathing
“This is fiction of clarity and depth; K.M. Elkes brings a Cheever-esque emotional punch to his stories, married to a sweet, left-of-field insight that is all his own. These are moving, complex, intelligent stories, written in radiant prose. All That Is Between Us is a masterclass in the heart-jolting satisfaction of great flash fiction.”
~ Nuala O’Connor, author of Joyride to Jupiter
“The insightful and disarmingly honest stories in this debut collection shimmer with quirky brilliance, shining a fresh light on how messy it feels to feel. They succeed precisely where the characters’ connections fail, demonstrating how relationships can both exacerbate and heal the lifetime ache of being alone. Haunting and funny, these bitter-sweet tales show how even the most secure love can drive us mad.”
~ Meg Pokrass, author of Alligators At Night
“I could dazzle you with well-chosen superlatives or make clumsy attempts to sum up K.M. Elkes’ work, but really what I want to say is: This collection is so good. So very, very good. Whoever you are, whatever you like to read, you need these stories in your life.”
Tania Hershman, author of Some Of Us Glow More Than Others
“K.M. Elkes explores the mechanics of relationships with both sober realism and a sparkling, dry wit. This book is a string of perfect moments. Whether it examines friends, lovers or families, each flash lingers in the reader’s mind like a particularly bright, perfectly polished gem.”
~ Sophie van Llewyn, author of Bottled Goods, longlisted for the Women’s Prize For Fiction
“This collection is crammed with powerful and moving images…In my favourite piece, ‘Extremities’, a chainsaw accident leaves you thinking less about the victim and more about his severed hand, lying alone in the woods, fingers grasping at nothing. The stories move together like a murmuration of texts, each slipping in and out of the other, making every fragment part of a whole experience, almost as if it were a shattered novel you’ve found on the floor and are trying to piece together.”
~ David Gaffney, author of All The Places I’ve Ever Lived
“In K.M. Elkes’s fictional world, bruised dads turn up out of the blue to take their lonely kids on disappointing zoo visits, then return to claim back a wardrobe from their estranged wives. The wardrobe’s been made in Johnny Cash fashion, out of bits stolen from a mill. As it is dragged to the dad’s car, the wardrobe ‘gouges a black trail through the lawn’. These razor-sharp stories have left a trail like that in me, too. They are full of bruised beauty, and they will stay in your heart. A brilliant book.”
~ David Swann, author of The Privilege Of Rain
K.M.Elkes lives and works in Bristol. His work has won or been placed in a number of writing competitions (most recently the Manchester Fiction Prize, the Bath Flash Fiction Award and Reflex Fiction) and has appeared in nearly 30 print anthologies. A flash fiction collection called All That Is Between Us will be published by Ad Hoc Fiction in 2019. His short fiction has also been published in literary magazines such as Unthology, The Lonely Crowd, Structo and Litro. He is currently working on a debut short story collection and a novel.
