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?

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Novella-in-Flash 2019 Award
Long List

Congratulations to all the authors who have made our Award long list and huge thanks to all who entered.

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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.
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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.
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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.

Flash Fiction Festival Two:

Things Left and Found At The Side Of The Road

Bath Flash Fiction Anthologies

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.

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.

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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

Interview with Emma Neale, Third Prize Winner, October 2018

Emma Neale won third prize in the October 2018 round of Bath Flash Fiction Award with her densely evocative and powerful flash fiction, The Local Pool. Nuala O’Connor the judge for the October 2018 round said this about Emma’s story.

I loved the elliptical nature of this flash, the reader is told just enough and the opening paragraph is a perfect blend of language and sense-memory. The story perfectly captures the confusion of adolescents dealing with large issues and does it at a remove that adds to the power of the piece.

In this interview Emma tells us more about the background to the story and shows how one event based in a small community in the past can, in the way it is written, give resonance to many larger concerns, also highly relevant today. So many layers in such a short piece. We very much like her advice to other writers about not rushing to a finished flash but rather leaving it for several weeks to ‘marinate’ so those deeper layers can emerge and then crucially, reading it aloud. Emma’s story is now also available to read in print in Things Left And Found By The Side Of The Road our new anthology of flash fictions from the 2018 Awards and you can also read her story. Courtship which was commended in the Bridport Prize in their new anthology. We also look forward to reading Emma’s new poetry collection, To The Occupant, forthcoming in 2019. It’s fascinating to see where a writer works; there are so many interesting objects on Emma’s wall, desk and door. And also we love the picture of her with the family rabbit which she sometimes pops out to see during a writing stint. Read in Full

Things Left and Found by the Side of the Road
Bath Flash Fiction Volume Three

133 short short fictions selected from the winners, short listed, and long listed authors from the three rounds of the 2018 international Bath Flash Fiction Awards. All 300 words and under, these stories are by writers representing over twenty different countries. Experimental fictions exploring many different themes and subjects which show the variety possible in his exciting and continually developing genre.

“Writers flowed but did not meander. I went to places I haven’t been before, and I was shown ordinary objects in a different light, heard language used in a new way, smelled new smells, felt new feelings.”
Tara L. Masih, novelist, short story writer, editor of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, author of My Real Name Is Hanna

“A fascinating dip into the psyche of creative writers at this point in time… lots of examples of great writing here, by great writers.”
David Gaffney, novelist and short story writer. Author of More Sawn-Off Tales, All The Places I’ve Ever Lived, The Three Rooms in Valerie’s Head

“The standard was high… powerful writing and interesting themes… a feeling that many writers were working hard and pulling from deep resources.”
Nuala O’Connor, novelist, poet and short story writer. Author of Joy Ride to Jupiter, Miss Emily and Becoming Belle

196mm x 134mm, 168pp
Paperback ISBN 978-1-912095-63-6

£9.99 GBP Buy Now

Interview with Zahid Gamieldien, Second Prize Winner, October 2018 Award

Zahid won second prize with his powerful story The Coast.The October Award judge, Nuala 0’Connor, said this about Zahid’s flash fiction:

“A harrowing and moving flash that immerses the reader entirely in the body of the main character, a wonderful feat. The menace and atmosphere of this piece carry it along brilliantly. This writer loves language and consistently reaches high for the perfect word and/or phrase.

Zahid is also a scriptwriter and a short story writer and tells us that attention to language is something he thinks about in every form in which he writes. We’re looking forward to reading his forthcoming short story in Platypus Press, a UK based publisher. Zahid, who teaches creative writing in Sydney, also offers online editing and critiquing services on all forms. We greatly value the international reach of the Bath Flash Fiction Awards and how writers allude to world-wide issues in the fictions they submit. In the 2018 anthology which is out at the end of November, there are writers from nine or more countries from around the world, and Zahid is one of six authors in the book living in Australia. It’s great that flash writers in another country can easily use his editing services and as well as writing feedback, get a different cultural take on their work Read in Full