Sam Payne February 2022 Commended

When a Youtube clip of Diego Goes Viral

by Sam Payne

Everyone sees Diego pacing his enclosure, those big bear eyes of his all sad and lonely. But Diego hasn’t been the same since his brother died. There are plans to pair him with Tallulah, a rescued dancing bear who’s a bit of a handful, and even though Diego’s never had a successful relationship the zoo will try anything to make him happy. They explain all of this in a lengthy PR campaign, but people still gather outside the entrance waving placards and chanting no more cages and nobody visits because nobody wants to walk through a full-blown protest. Except Harry. Harry, who works the night shift at Ginsters and owes nineteen grand in payday loans. Harry, who’s been coming here with his daughter every other Saturday for months. What do they think will happen if the zoo closes? This is Diego’s home and it’s no fun having to leave your own home, I can tell you. Harry’s daughter, who once stepped on a spider and cried every night for a week, trails behind as he points out flamingos, llamas, zebras and rhinos, but when they see Diego she stops and her bottom lip wobbles and Harry knows what’s coming and he gets down on his knees and says, shit, none of this is perfect kiddo, you know how it is. Some bears end up in Alaskan rivers slapping salmon up in the air and some bears end up here. That’s just life. And even as he says this, he knows it’s not right, he knows he’s making excuses and his daughter pulls away and Harry looks at Diego, looks into those big bear eyes, all sad and lonely, and all around them baboons shriek, hyenas laugh, and somewhere not far from here, a wolf howls to an absent moon. 

About the Author

Sam Payne lives in the UK and her work has appeared in a variety of places including; Fictive Dream, 100 Word Story and Flashback Fiction. She won Flash 500 in 2020 and prevously placed 3rd in the Bath Flash Fiction Awards. She holds a BA in English Literature and a Masters in Creative Writing. Sam is also a reader at Janus Literary and is on twitter @skpaynewriting

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Ad Hoc Fiction, Small Press Award regional finalist!

We’re very proud that Ad Hoc Fiction, our short short fiction press is, for the second year running, a regional finalist (South West) in The Bookseller Small Press of the Year Award! They said they had more entries than ever this year,so it’s wonderful to have reached this stage. The winner of each of the regions will be announced on 17th March. So fingers crossed for then.
Have a look at our 2021 round up to find out more about the books Ad Hoc Fiction published last year. Eighteen different ones: anthologies; single author collections; a craft guide book and twelve novellas-in-flash. A lot for a tiny team of two, in pandemic circumstances! More books in the pipe-line, out this Spring.

As Well as publishing books, along with Bath Flash Fiction, Ad Hoc Fiction is a sponsor for our in-person Flash Fiction Festival taking place in Bristol UK, on the weekend of Friday 8th to Sunday 10th July. Booking open now. Ad Hoc is donating book bundle raffle prizes and the production and publishing of the Festival Anthology, which will be published after the in-person festival with stories from participants and presenters. Our small press has also donated the publishing and printing costs of the anthology from the online festival days. This book is in production now, and will be out soon and sent out free to contributors worldwide.

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Prompt 4 of a series by David Swann

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.

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What’s happening in February – read all about it

There’s a lot going on this February! Our 20th Award for flash fictions of 300 words or under ends this week, Sunday 6th February. And for intrepid last minute writers, the Last Minute Club with badges for late entrants opens on the final day. Writer and editor, Karen Jones is judge for this round. You can see what particularly appeals to her and get some great tips in our interview. There’s a prize fund of £1460. Results are out by the end of February. And all longlisted authors are offered publication in our end of year anthology.

The launch of Snow Crow the 2021 Bath Flash Fiction Award is this Friday, 4th February. Many of the winners, commended and some writers of listed stories from the 135 in the book will be reading their brilliant pieces. If you would like to come, write to jude (at) adhocfiction (dot) com for a link.

The longlist for the 6th Novella in Flash Award will be announced later this month. The judge is Michelle Elvy, a New Zealand based writer, editor for Best Small Fictions and founder of the long established literary online magazine, Flash Frontier. Ad Hoc. Final results out in April.

The Fourth of our second series of online flash fiction festival days, The Great Flash Fiction Throw Down takes place on Saturday February 26th with workshops from Nancy Stohlman, Farhana Shaikh, Matt Kendrick, Jude Higgins and Meg Pokrass and Jeff Friedmann. Plus readings. The festival contest where you can win a mug and £30 is judged by Sage Tyrtle. Only £30 for the whole day with videos sent afterwards.


And, Very Exciting News! The fourth in-person Flash Fiction Festival, sponsored by Bath Flash Fiction Award and Ad Hoc Fiction is opening for bookings this Thursday 3rd February. The event takes place in the wonderfully located Trinity College, Bristol, glimpsed here in the picture. 8-10th July 2022. We’ve a fantastic line up of workshops and panels over the weekend. Often four running in parallel for people to choose from. Presenters leading workshops are: KathyFish, Nancy Stohlman, Christopher Allen, K B Carle, K. M. Elkes, Karen Jones, Nuala O’Connor, Vanessa Gebbie, Carrie Etter, Jude Higgins, Hannah Storm, Deb Tomkins, Judy Darley, Alison Woodhouse, Emily Devane and Sharon Telfer, Tim Craig, Alison Woodhouse. Stephanie Carty, Electra Rhodes, Michael Loveday, Diane Simmons and Johanna Robinson, Susmita Bhattacharya, Ingrid Jendrzejewski. Lovely meals from a Bristol based caterer, bookshop, readings and karaoke in the bar! We plan to offer an online component to the Festival also. More details on flashfictionfestival.com tomorrow (Feb 3rd)

Finally, Ad Hoc Fiction our short short fiction press is working on four books, two more novellas in flash; the Flash Fiction Festival Anthology Four from all the online days up until January and the guide book on writing a Novella in Flash by Michael Loveday. All out in early Spring.

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Prompt Series from David Swann, No. 3, Long Sentences

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 Ad Hoc Fiction and Amazon. We love the triple meaning of the title ‘Sentence’ in this story. There is literally a long sentence, the character Lana is ‘sentenced’ to live in a dilapidated boarding house and her father is serving a sentence in prison.

David says:
The first part of the flash ‘Sentence’ copied below from page 83 of my novella in flash Season of Bright Sorrow is written as one continuous sentence. I enjoy these experiments because they shake me out of old habits, and I like seeing where the sentence carries me. I think there are also long-term benefits, e.g. the elastification of one’s syntax. Usually this device works best when the lone sentence has a character and/or narrative purpose, and isn’t simply showing off! Here, I was trying to give a sense of mounting panic in Lana, so that the form and content were working together. My friend Greg Challis once wrote a hilarious long-sentence flash that was powered by the pomposity of the treasurer of a working man’s club who was offering increasingly ridiculous explanations for some missing funds.

Sentence
Yawning and rubbing her eyes, Lana stumbled towards the shower, worried as usual that she’d breathe in spores from the bathroom’s fetid air, worried that the spider may have been forced by some obstacle to hang even closer than usual to the mirror where she brushed her hair and that it would get tangled up with the brush and wriggle into her ear, as a kid at school had claimed was possible, not that you could trus the squirts in her class, most of them as bad as Archie, the stuff they came out with: wild boasts and bare-faced lies – for instance, loads more mad stories spouted by the lad who’d invented that nonsense about spiders wriggling into your brain, the same lad who’d claimed that no piece of chewing gum was ever digested by your body, so that all the chewing gum you ever swallowed would still be in your stomach when you died, and if the morticians cut you open with a knife, they’d find it all rolled up together, an entire history of your horrible habits compressed into a solid pink boulder, like the gum they’d discovered inside the life prisoner after he’d snuffed it in his cell of scurvy or something like that, what with the lack of vitamins in him, on account of scoffing junk like chewing gum for twenty years, which, of course, Lana should know all about, her being the daughter of a bloke who was serving a life sentence for…

For Tips on writing long sentences, read this at Copybot
How To Write A Brilliant Long Sentence

The digital age has changed the way we read. We skim copy for important bits of information that cater specifically to our need to know. Being concise and grammatically nuanced, as well as quick and relevant is a challenge.

Another writing tip from David Swann coming next week!

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Launch of Snow Crow, Friday 4th February

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We’re delighted to launch Snow Crow, the sixth Bath Flash Fiction Anthology on Zoom on Friday 4th February,7.30 pm – 9.30 pm GMT, two days before the deadline of our 20th Award where all fifty longlisted writers will have the opportunity to be published in the 2022 anthology, There are 136 stories in Snow Crow , 300 words and under so we can only listen to a selection of them but it’s wonderful that many of the winners and commended writers from the three rounds of the 2021 Awards can come and read. ·

Those confirmed so far are first prize winners, Geeta Sankar, Dara Yen Elerath, Doug Ramspeck; Second prize winners, Emma Phillips and Jo Gatford; Third Prize winners Leonie Rowland and Tim Craig and commended writers, Sara Hills, Audrey Niven, Debra A Daniel, Chloe Banks and Regan Puckett. We’ll also hear stories from shortlisted and longlisted writers, Sage Tyrtle, Kathryn Aldridge Morris, Diane Simmons and Amy Barnes (plus a few more to come). Because the stories are all so short there’s room for around twenty-one readers altogether.

Snow Crow , the title taken from the October winning story by Doug Ramspeck was published by Ad Hoc Fiction, just before Christmas and has arrived in many different countries so far. We know it hasn’t quite reached some parts of Canada yet. Thank you to everyone on social media who’s showed us the book in different locations around the world.

In the slide show above, we have authors posed with their copy of the book; books posed with decorative Christmas and other birds (including crows, ravens, robins and parrots; books in snowy and other locations; books in offices and on tables; in line=ups with other anthologies; a book partially eaten by a dog (plus a picture of the dog!) a book showing a map of its impending travels from an author couple who both had a piece in the book. We also have samples of a few stories among the slides. If we’ve missed off your picture, please let us know and we can add it in.
Here’s a new one just arrived from Antionette Bauer in Australia

At the launch there’ll be three reading slots to hear the stories from each round of the Award, break out groups for chats and a book giveaway. A fantastic selection from an anthology of really wonderful pieces. The launch is hosted by BFFA founder, Jude Higgins, and everyone is welcome. To get a zoom link email Jude {at} Judehiggins {dot} com asap, We look forward to seeing you there!

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An Etymology prompt by David Swann


Here’s the second prompt in our series from award winning writer and senior university lecturer, David Swann, based on the definition in the frontispiece of his prize-winning novella-in-flash, Season of Bright Sorrow
We’ve quoted the definition here:

‘derelict (adj.) 1640s, “left, abandoned by the owner or guardian,”
from Latin derelictus “solitary, deserted,”… “leave behind,
forsake, abandon, give up,”… Originally especially of vessels
abandoned at sea or stranded on shore. Of persona, “unfaithful,
neglectful of responsibility,” by 1864.’ — Online Etymology
Dictionary, derelict | Origin and meaning of derelict by Online
Etymology Dictionary (etymonline.com)
Season of Bright Sorrow – a phrase sometimes used to describe
the cold, sunny days of Lent, a time of both hunger and hope.

Our second print run of Season of Bright Sorrow will be back at the Ad Hoc Fiction book shop shortly, but in the meantime, you can buy from Amazon (linked to your country on the bookshop page) or purchase a signed copy direct from David. Just email jude at jude{at}adhocfiction{dot}com and she will pass on details to him.

David’s prompt

Browse the etymology website below until you find a concrete image hidden inside a word that intrigues you. For instance, our word ‘scene’ contains an ancient vestige of Arabian tents! Or ‘dereliction’ contains a stranded boat. This may take a while. But, once you have found an image that excites you, see if you can give this image to a lonely character. Then wait to see what happens when you connect their loneliness to the prop and the word. This is one of the ways in which ‘Season of Bright Sorrow’ first fired into life, all its elements brought together by the theme of ‘dereliction’. See: Etymonline – Online Etymology Dictionary

Etymonline – Online Etymology Dictionary
The online etymology dictionary (etymonline) is the internet’s go-to source for quick and reliable accounts of the origin and history of English words, phrases, and idioms. It is professional enough to satisfy academic standards, but accessible enough to be used by anyone.
www.etymonline.com

Our 2022 Novella in Flash Award just finished and we’re looking forward to reading more wonderful novellas in flash. Thank you to everyone for entering. We expect final results to be out in April, 2022.

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