Dave Swann had lots of interesting things to say at the launch of Season of Bright Sorrow at the Flash Fiction Festival on January 8th. We’re very happy that he has agreed to run a half hour session on The Fibonacci method of writing at the March 26th festival day, showing how he used this in one of his stories. In the meantime, we are including some more of the prompts he kindly sent to us which inspired more stories in the novella.
Bricolage. (‘Do it yourself’, in French). Here, the writer works as a beachcomber, picking up fragments, like Mr Flook in my novella. (Jude says: Throughout Season of Bright Sorrow there are fascinating short list pieces showing what Mr Flook finds on Morecombe beach. Here’s the first piece below):
In the bag
One straw hat.
Two mermaid’s purses.
Needles.
Syringes.
Sea-glass (blue).
Two lengths of barbed wire.
Copper coin or token (unidentifiable).
Many plastic bottles, many bags.
Child’s hair band.
Whelk shell (broken), plus egg-cases (attached).
So go out into the street and either collect or photograph, say, ten fragments that you come across (litter, pebbles, leaves, etc.) Then lay them out before you and write a flash, or a series of flashes, that use your ‘beachcombing’ as props in a narrative chain. On p.60 of Season of Bright Sorrow, you’ll find an Outsider Artist working as a bricoleur.
For another example, see Outsider Environments Europe: Willem van Genk, Busstation Arnhem/Arnhem bus station (outsider-environments.blogspot.com). For those who are interested in finding out more, Jarvis Cocker made a brilliant series about Outsider Art.
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!
Karen Jones is a flash and short story writer from Glasgow, Scotland. Her flashes have been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Micro Fiction and The Pushcart Prize, and her story 'Small Mercies' was included in Best Small Fictions 2019 and BIFFY50 2019. In 2021 she won first prize in the Cambridge Flash Fiction Prize, Flash 500, Reflex Fiction and Retreat West Monthly Micro and was short listed for To Hull and Back, Bath Flash Fiction Award, Bath Short Story Award and longlisted for Fractured Lit Flash Fiction Prize. Her work has been published in numerous anthologies and magazines. Her novella-in-flash,