The fourth in our series of prompts from David Swann, winner of the 2021 Novella in Flash Award. Our 20th single flash award, judged this round by Karen Jones, closes tomorrow, Sunday 6th February at midnight GMT. There’s a prize pot of £1460 and an opportunity to be published in our year-end festival anthology if you reach the longlist of 50. If you want inspiration for a last minute flash, look at David’s idea below. He gives an example about how he used Ekphrasis in his novella in flash, Season of Bright Sorrow.
David says::
Ekphrasis is one of the oldest tricks in the book, used by Homer in The Iliad. It’s when one art form responds to another, e.g. you write a poem about a painting. In Season of Bright Sorrow, on p. 79, I connected the wandering boy Archie to an ancient artwork in a church, and incorporated a description of the prop, as ekphrasis usually does.
Viking giant
Archie spotted the stone as he trotted home at last, past the open door of the church. It was a hogsback, the sign said –a curved grey oblong that the Vikings had cut to resemble a wild boar. It had lain exposed for centuries in the graveyard on the headland before being dragged indoors. There was another plaque explaining something about the stone’s purpose, probably to guard an important grave, but Archie was entranced by the object, and never had time to absorb the words. He used one finger to trace a stag and a wolf. There were trees too, and what felt to his finger like birds, but it was the snake that held him, a braiding of stone that formed the frame for the carvings. Its scales made the hogsback scary and reptilian, as if a fossilised crocodile had washed up. What Archie liked most of all was the giant human figure
which had braced itself beneath the serpent and raised both arms as if in celebration of a goal. The figure’s outstretched arms looked like they were supporting the full weight of the snake. Archie smiled. The figure was going to hoy that massive creature into the sea.
‘Can I help you, young lad?’
No, Archie never had the time. He loved an old church until someone in a collar or a uniform turned up, the vicar or the sexton. Then that was that for Archie – he was offski.He was fast, true. He ran like a hare. What he missed was some muscle. Maybe if he trained, he’d end up like that Viking giant, lift his enemies in the air and throw them in the sea.
David’s prompt_
Attempt the same — take a wandering character and connect them in some way to an artwork that fascinates you.
You’ll find interesting examples of ekphrasis here:
Guest Blog: 10 Examples of Ekphrasis in Contemporary Literature by Patrick Smith.
The launch of 
The Fourth of our second series of online flash fiction festival days
If you want to vary your sentence length for interest and colour in your flash fictions, read what David Swann has to say about writing long sentences and the example of a long sentence from the story called ‘Sentence’ in his first prize-winning Novella in Flash, Season of Bright Sorrow available from
For Tips on writing long sentences, read this at Copybot
we can add it in.
Dave Swann had lots of interesting things to say at the launch of 
Thank you to everyone from around the world who supported all our flash fiction ventures in 2021. We so appreciate all your support. This year we ran the three Bath Flash Fiction Awards, receiving 3947 entries in total from 64 different countries; the novella-in-flash award which over 100 writers entered and since March this year, have sponsored eight monthly on-line flash fiction festival days with fabulous workshops, talks, readings and mini-contests. 
We’re thrilled that Ad Hoc Fiction has now published Snow Crow 
We’d love to see pictures from the contributors when the anthologies arrive in their location. Either posed with snow, or crows or anything else! Here Jude’s copy is perched on a hedge with a crow (or maybe its cousin, a raven) looking down.
Come to the launch party, hosted by Ad Hoc Fiction director, Jude Higgins on Wednesday 22nd December, 7.30pm – 9.30 pm on Zoom for four of the novellas-in-flash published from our 2021 Award! Published today (9th December 2021), in a beautiful line up, One For the River by Tom 0’Brien a runner up in the Award; and two short-listed novellas, The Listening Project by Ali McGrane and Kipris by Michelle Christophorou. We’ll also be officially launching Small Things by Hannah Sutherland, highly commended in the 2021 Award and published in October. 
These are four brilliant novellas in flash, all very different and at the launch the authors will tell us more about them and each read three short pieces from the books.There will be break out chats and a book giveaways at the end of the evening. Hope you can come! Email jude {at} adhocfiction {dot} com for a link. All welcome. In the meantime, have a look at our 2021 judge,
The striking cover image was also designed by Sam and shows a prison notebook. Sam and Dave have supplied a ‘Property of the prison’ stamp for us to use to make the book unique before it is posted off to purchasers. Season of Bright Sorrow will also be available on Amazon worldwide at publication, but you won’t get an individualised stamp there!