Image Credits:-
Many thanks to Janet Williams for taking pictures of yours truly at The Hilt Book Fair. Other photos were taken by me, Allison Symes, as were all screenshots. Other images created in Book Brush using either my photos or Pixabay ones.
It’s been a busy time of late. As well as going to the Association of Christian Writers (ACW) Autumn Gathering event in Rugby, literally the following week I was at The Hilt, taking part in the Book Fair.
I was pleased to see this back and while it was quieter than last year, it was great to meet writers from last year, meet new authors, and have a good chat with those I’ve known for a while, including our own Richard Hardie who was promoting his new book, Remember Remember, the third in his Temporal Detective Agency series for YA readers. (I’ve not been a YA for some considerable time but still love books like these and see no reason why my age should preclude me from reading them!).
ACW Autumn Gathering
I wrote more about this in a recent CFT post but it was especially nice catching up with people I’ve not seen in person for a couple of years. There’s always something special about that. ACW also run events on Zoom and I will try to get to some of those as the online events are a lifeline for where you can’t go in person.
I continue to run a flash fiction group on Zoom for ACW which is great because all of the members live several hundreds of miles apart (one is from the US) and we could never get together in person. But I do love the in person events too and I hope to get to more in 2025 and not just for ACW.
ACW developed Zoom meetings due to the pandemic. It meant we could still get together in some way and it has proved a boon for those, for whatever reason, less able to get to in person events.
The Hilt Book Fair
It was great to see a good range of authors and their works here. Many thanks to Vie Portland for the huge amount of work she put in organising the event. Many thanks to all who came and showed their support by chatting to the writers, buying their books etc.
I was pleased to sell books, sign people up to my monthly newsletter, and I enjoyed giving a short talk on flash fiction (in the Cranbury Room). I also read out a couple of my published pieces. I’ve found the best way to show people the strengths of flash fiction is to read them some! I’ve known it to help sales too!
It was lovely to catch up and chat with Mike Sedgwick and Janet Williams too. A huge thank you to her for taking the publicity shot of me at the Book Fair. Always tricky trying to take that kind of image yourself! I still use the one Janet took of me at last year’s fair as my Gravatar. Indeed it appears every time I log in to Chandler’s Ford Today to put up my next post, is on my website etc.
A huge thanks also to all at The Hilt for the teas, coffees, refreshments etc. Those went down well with the authors and the public.
Flash NANO
Flash NANO is something I’ve taken part in over the last few years. It was two members of the ACW Flash Fiction Group who told me about it. You never know when authors share information with you where that can lead. Am so pleased to have discovered this one as it is a great challenge and keeps me on my creative toes every November!
Flash NANO is the short form writer’s equivalent of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). For the latter, writers aim to write 50,000 words by the end of November, which roughly works out at 1666 words a day over 30 days. For Flash NANO, flash fiction writers are given a prompt daily over the month and you can choose to do as many or as few as you want.
You can also share your stories on the private Facebook page and I have to say the support and encouragement on there is so useful. It’s also good to know it’s not just you out there writing away.
If you want to find out more do check out Nancy Stohlman’s website at https://nancystohlman.com/flashnano/
What I find useful about this is the variety of prompts. Some are kinds I’ve often used, others I’ve rarely used, while yet still others are new to me. One such from a year or so back was to write a story in the form of an American police report. Never tried that before. Loved doing it. Piece ended up being broadcast. I call that a result.
Bridge House Publishing Celebration Event
This is coming up again on Saturday 7th December at the wonderfully named Theodore Bullfrog pub in London (Charing Cross area). Am looking forward to catching up with friends, including Debz Hobbs-Wyatt, whom I recently interviewed here about her new novel, If Crows Could Talk. I’ll also be meeting up with a fellow writer I know from The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick.
The event is a fabulous celebration of stories, Bridge House bring us all up to date with their news, including the theme for their anthology for next year, and we all get to have a marvellous chat over lunch! I’m not in the Bridge House anthology for 2024 but I am in The Best of CafeLit 13, which we’ll also be celebrating. Above all, the whole event is fun. It’s the only time I usually get to see fellow Bridge House authors in person too so I try not to miss this one.
Competition News
I was delighted to come third with my story, Catching Up, in a flash fiction competition run by Esther Chilton (fellow Swanwicker). If you’d like to read the tale, do follow the link here.
It was great fun to take part in this and a joy to be placed. That buzz never leaves you. Am also busy preparing other pieces for other competitions. Well, as the saying goes, you have to be in it to have any chance of winning it, right?
I’ve found over the years the discipline of writing to deadlines, as you must for competitions, has helped me so much. It has made me more productive. Also where there is a set theme, these things have given me invaluable practice at writing to topics set by someone else. (Great practice for Flash NANO too!).
Editing
I continue to be busy here too, having recently completed both freelance projects and one, which is ongoing at the moment, for a small publisher. I ran a two part course at Swanwick this year on editing, looking at the topic from the viewpoints of author, editor, and competition judge (given I am all three). I had good feedback on that and I was pleased because at the end of my sessions, I give time for questions. That led to some interesting discussions.
This is another reason why it pays to get to in person events when you can. You can miss out on that kind of thing on online events (partly because you are limited by the time allowed on Zoom so you have to stick to your presentation pretty much).
Story Judging
I was pleased to be asked to judge a flash fiction competition for Ayr Writers’ Club. This is all done by email and judging is done anonymously. I had no idea who wrote what and that is how it should be. It is the only way to be objective. I had to choose first, second, third places as well as Highly Commended and Commended. I also gave a short critique on each story. (Have been on the receiving end of this – critiques are so useful in helping you evaluate what a stranger made of your work. It can be enlightening and it is what every writer needs, I think).
It was tricky picking the winners but the task was a joy to do and I wouldn’t be surprised to see at least some of those placed stories in print at some point.
Conclusion
It has been a busy year then. My third flash fiction collection has been accepted but I don’t yet know when it will be out. I love the variety of writing and editing work I do. It’s also a joy to write for Chandler’s Ford Today. It keeps me on my creative toes for the non-fiction side of my writing life. Always handy that!
I look ahead to a busy year to come in 2025 too. Oh and it won’t be long before I’ll be writing and submitting my festive flash fiction once again. Always fun to write and it’s lovely to head to the end of the year with lighthearted stories designed to cheer.
Related Posts:-
Read interviews with Chandler’s Ford writer Allison Symes: Part 1 and Part 2.
Read blog posts by Allison Symes published on Chandler’s Ford Today.
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