Congratulations to all the authors who have made our Award short list.
News
February 2019 Long List
Congratulations to all the authors who have made our Award long list and huge thanks to all who entered.
Interview with new Ad Hoc Fiction author, Diane Simmons
Ad Hoc Fiction, the small independent press that publishes our Bath Flash Fiction Award Anthologies recently published Diane’s Simmons debut full collection of flash fiction Finding A Way. Diane tells Jude how the book came into being and the pictures on this post and in the gallery below are from her recent packed book launch with family and friends at St James Wine Vaults in Bath on February 9th. The collection is available in print to buy in several different currencies from the Ad Hoc Fiction online bookshop and also as a Kindle or Nook ebook.
- Jude: Ad Hoc Fiction is delighted to publish Finding A Way , our tenth published book and second single-author collection. Can you give us a short synopsis of the book and tell us how the flash fictions work together?
Six Bath Flash authors selected for Best Microfiction 2019
We are thrilled that micro fictions by five authors who won prizes, or were listed in our Bath Flash Fiction Awards 2018 and one winner from Ad Hoc Fiction were selected by guest editor, Dan Chaon from lists drawn up by series editors Meg Pokrass and Gary Fincke for their new anthology series Best Microfiction.
Read in Full
Highlights from the book launches, 19th Jan, 2019
The gallery room at St James Wine Vaults, Bath was packed with readers, their friends and family and our guests for the joint launches of Flash Fiction Festival Two and Bath Flash Fiction, Vol 3, Things Left and Found By the Side of the Road. last Saturday, 19th January. We heard a wonderful variety of flash fictions from twenty-two readers in all, who had travelled miles from all over the country to attend. Bath Flash Fiction supplied wine and two ‘book cover’ cakes, which you can see Jude cutting up in the pictures, to celebrate the occasion. Everybody read brilliantly and we thank them very much for coming.
In the first half of the evening, ten writers, pictured in a group here, and who you can see individually in the gallery below, read their micros from Flash Fiction Festival Two, beginning with well-known flash writer, poet and Reader at Bath Spa University, Carrie Etter, who led a workshop at the festival and who is quoted recommending it as a place to be inspired on the back of the anthology.
Read in Full
BFFA anthology launches
We are excited to be launching our two latest anthologies this week, on Saturday 19th January at St James Wine Vaults, in Bath, 7.30 pm – 10.00 pm. It’s going to be a fun and pacy evening with readings of micro fictions (around 2 mins reading time each) from Flash Fiction Festival Two by writers who came to the second Flash Fiction Festival in Bristol last July in the first half of the evening and after a break for chats, drinks, cake and book buying, readings from some of the winning, shortlisted and longlisted writers who are published in Bath Flash Fiction Vol Three, Things Left And Found By The Side Of The Road.
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Here’s our list of fabulous flashers, some local and others travelling from all over the UK to be with us. Reading from Flash Fiction Festival Two: Carrie Etter; Alison Woodhouse; Matt Thorpe Coles; Jeanette Sheppard; Jude Higgins; Andrea Harman; John Wheway; Grace Palmer; Philip Webb Gregg, Dave Alcock, Alison Powell and Santino Prinzi. Many of these flash fictions were prompted by workshops at the festival.
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And in the second half, the launch of Things Left and Found At The Side Of The Road, we’re thrilled to begin with all-the-way-from Brighton, Jo Gatford, who wrote the title story and who won first prize in February 2018. She’s followed by K M Elkes who won first prize in the June 2018 Award; Ingrid Jendrzejewski, a former first prize winner, also commended in June 2018; 2018, Conor Haughton, second prize in the June Award; Rosamund Davies; Steve Partridge; Diane Simmons; Steven John,Bronwen Griffith; Thomas Malloch; Gail Anderson and lastly, Tim Craig, third prize winner in the June round.
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We’ll have special cake, wine and nibbles a thirty minute break in between readings plus a late bar. All the Bath Flash Fiction Anthologies will be for sale plus other flash fiction books from NFFD and by some of our authors. Let us know asap if you are in the area and would like to come. We might be able to squeeze you in.
Around the world with the third Bath Flash Fiction Award Anthology
We posted out contributor copies of Bath Flash Fiction Vol 3 Things Left And Found At The Side of The Road at the beginning of December and the anthology has been arriving all over the world in the snail-like Christmas post. Here’s a selection in the gallery from a few of the authors who posted marvellous pictures on Twitter of the anthologies by and on roads, some with extraordinary landscapes in the background. We also see them on doorsteps, next to pipes, travelling on trains and down lanes, perched on postboxes, with flowery backgrounds or with sparkly lights and holiday greetings, or on bookshelves, in a duo with another lovely book, by a window with a cat and on a new rug.
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Thank you to Adam Lock, Anika Carpenter, Christine Collinson, Emily Devane, Gail Anderson, Jane Westwell, Steven John,Tim Craig, Stephanie Hutton and Susanne Stich from the UK; Fiona Mackintosh, Molia Dumbleton, Joyce Wheatley, Mahesh Nair and A E Weisgerber from the USA; Louise Mangos and Marissa Hoffman from Switzerland; Charmaine Wilkerson from Rome, Italy, Shannon Savvas from Cyprus, Vineetha Mokkil from India and Simon Cowdroy from Australia for posting up your pictures. If you have a story in the anthology, do send us a picture to add to the gallery, showing where the book has landed. Or if we’ve somehow missed your Twitter photo, let us know. We’d love to see more.
We’ve Canned Heat’s ‘On The Road Again’ to go with the gallery of pictures. Do listen!
Buy the anthology to read these and the other stories in this wonderful collection (133 stories of up to 300 words each,in total), from the Ad Hoc Fiction Bookshop.
And if you are in or near Bath on Saturday 19th January come to the anthology launch at St James Wine Vaults Bath. 7.30 pm – 10.00 pm with free wine and cake. Authors coming who will be reading their stories from the anthology include first, second and third prize winners from the June round of the Award, KM Elkes, Conor Haughton and Tim Craig together with Diane Simmons, Ingrid Jendrzejewski, Thomas Mallock, Steven John, Steve Partridge, Bronwen Griffith and Rosamund Davies. We’ll also be launching the anthology of stories from the 2018 Flash Fiction Festival, Flash Fiction Festival Two, on the same occasion and you’ll be able to hear micros from some of those authors in that anthology too. Let us know if you can make it.
Bath Flash Award number eleven is now open for entries. Deadline February 10th. In six weeks. And all fifty longlisted pieces will be offered publication in our 2019 Anthology.
Highlights from Bath Flash Fiction, 2018
2018 has been a fabulous year for Bath Flash Fiction and our publisher, Ad Hoc Fiction. We began the year with a joint launch of The Lobsters Run Free, Bath Flash Fiction Vol Two, the Ad Hoc Fiction published anthology from the 2017 Awards and Flash Fiction Festival One, 
the anthology of flash fictions submitted by particpants and presenters from the first Flash Fiction Festival in Bath. Thirteen writers, pictured on the left and below, who had fictions in one or both of the anthologies read their micros at the event. It was very pacy and fun. Read in Full
Ad Hoc Fiction author, Diane Simmons, on Radio Bristol
We are delighted that our publisher, Ad Hoc Fiction is publishing Diane Simmons’ collection, Finding A Way, fifty one linked flash fictions which show one family’s grieving journey over the three years following a devastating loss. Diane is widely published in anthologies and magazines and has been successful in many writing competitions. She is a member of the organising team for Flash Fiction Festivals, UK and is also a Co-Director of National Flash Fiction Day, UK. This Thursday, (November 15th) she read A Collection, the first story from her forthcoming book, on BBC Upload, the fantastic new evening magazine programme dedicated to showcasing local artists and writers, at Radio Bristol. Click here to listen. She comes in about 1.34 mins into the programme.
Radio Bristol have created a brilliantly simple system in Upload. All you need is a mobile phone to record and submit your creative works for possible inclusion on their programme which airs weekday evenings, from 7.00 pm to 10.00 pm. Jude was approached by the presenter, the dynamic Adam Crowther, who asked if she could suggest some local flash writers and it seemed a perfect opportunity for Diane to read one of her stories and talk a little about Finding A Way. Do listen. Diane often reads her fictions in the Flash Fiction Evenings Jude organises in Bath and she is pictured here at the Flash Fiction Festival in July, 2018, reading A Picnic in the Park, another story from her forthcoming collection. As always, she reads wonderfully here on the radio and in the interview with Adam after the reading, she talks more about her new collection and her writing. Do listen. Diane is currently putting the finishing touches to her book, which will be published in January and available for sale at bookshop.adhocfiction.com in several different currencies for world-wide sales. We are really looking forward to seeing it in print. More details soon!
Meg Pokrass: Writing From the Inside Out
Writer, writing tutor and editor Meg Pokrass is well-known for her amazingly inventive prompts. And she uses them herself in her own writing. This is what she says about it —
When people ask me: how did you do that? How did you incorporate that prompt idea? (as though it is a magic trick) this is what I almost always wish to say:
The writer works from the inside out. They live with a feeling, such as loss, for example the loss of love (my favorite) and they use the prompt as a way to explore the feeling in new ways, to “process” it (if we’re being new-agey about it). There is no “trick” it is just letting oneself see your own life differently by using different filters, or metaphors, or situations, and letting oneself feel sad once again, which admittedly sucks (when writing hard stuff, feeling the loss again by looking directly at it). But on the bright side, to express it in some creative way, can create a huge sense of relief.
For November Meg is posting a prompt a day based on her wonderful collection Alligators at Night, which was published this July
by Ad Hoc Fiction and which is available from the Ad Hoc Fiction Bookshop. Meg is posting extracts or full stories from the collection and giving you ideas to inspire a story. A great way to write in inventive ways, build up a sequence of fictions and to whet your appetite to read the whole collection. Hop over to her website to take a look. Her illustrative pictures are prompts in themselves.
And just for an added bonus, here’s Meg reading the title story from ‘Alligators at Night’, a flash that was chosen as one of Wigleaf magazine’s list of top 50 stories in 2018.