Image Credits:-
One image created in Book Brush using a photo taken by Lynn Clement and a screenshot taken by me, Allison Symes. Other images from the Bridge House Publishing Celebration Event were taken by Debz Hobbs-Wyatt, Lynn Clement, and me, Allison Symes. One image from CFT archives. Two other images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.
It’s a lovely way to finish my Chandler’s Ford Today posts for Christmas by sharing festive related writing news.
Bridge House Publishing Celebration Event 2024
Despite the efforts of Storm Darragh, on Saturday 7th December 2024, many of us did manage to get to the annual Bridge House Publishing Celebration event, which was held at the marvellously named Theodore Bullfrog pub in London.
Incidentally, who names these storms? I wouldn’t have said Darragh was an obvious name. Once again the name Darren is cruelly overlooked! I am expecting a Storm Ernie though given we had Storm Bert and I’m definitely not the only Sesame Street fan. Having said that, at least the Waterloo Station Christmas tree was safe enough.
Last year due to delays on the trains I ran late. This year, despite the storm, I was one of the first to arrive. I guess it balances out!
Readings, News, and Crossing Paths
As ever the Theodore Bullfrog was beautifully decorated for Christmas and, let’s face it, where better to have a writing event than in a pub? Shakespeare often went to them. I guess those of us published by Bridge House and its imprints were following in excellent footsteps then.
One of the joys of going to writing events is catching up with friends and sometimes you get to meet up at more than one event in a year, which is lovely.
Anyway, it was great to catch up with friends at the BHP event including Debz Hobbs-Wyatt, whom I interviewed here recently about her novel, If Crows Could Talk. I also caught up with Rosemary Johnson, author of Wodka or Tea with Milk, who is a former Committee colleague from the Association of Christian Writers (we remain members) and also with June Webber, my dear friend from The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick.
June, like me, had work in The Best of CafeLit 13 released earlier this year. I’m thrilled to say Rosemary will be having a short story collection published by Bridge House during the summer of 2025. She is also a regular member of the flash fiction group I run for ACW. Both of us have just had festive flash fiction broadcast by Hannah Kate on her Three Minutes Santa show on North Manchester FM on 14th December 2024. (Four of us, including me, made it on to this year’s show, well done all!).
Everyone’s priority on arrival at the pub was to network, of course. We networked with considerable enthusiasm! What is nice here is being able to put faces to Facebook names.
Then after a splendid lunch (I had wonderfully cooked sea bass), we listened to authors reading from their works and were brought up to date with the latest BHP news.
I took my readings from From Light To Dark and Back Again and Tripping The Flash Fantastic. The author before me, Henry Lewi, read an amusing time travel piece. I have two time travel stories (linked flash tales) in TTFF (Mishaps and Jumping Time, which feature the same inept time traveller) and had already decided to read these two for this event. I couldn’t have known the theme would follow on so well. It is lovely when that happens. All of the stories flowed so effectively into each other and made for highly entertaining readings.
Oh and we were all delighted to find at our lunch settings, each of us had been given a bookish Secret Santa present to take home with us. That went down well with us all. I’m looking forward to reading mine in due course.
You get so used to writing away on your own for most of the year, it means, for me at least, it is special when you catch up with fellow writers in person (though online is also good but different).The BHP event is always great fun and this one was no exception. There was the book table – almost everyone had something of theirs on there. And we were told the theme for the 2025 anthology. It does give us a head start on getting those drafts done.
If you want to check out what CafeLit does, do check out the link. The second link takes you to my story page here. There is a lovely range of stories here and they are so supportive of writers.
I will always have a soft spot for them. They have been my way into being published at all via the BHP anthologies and then with books of my own via the Chapeltown Books imprint. In general terms, indie presses like this are wonderful for short story and flash fiction writers – big publishers won’t want to know us. They’ll focus on the big names who already have novels out. I can understand that to an extent (publishing is a business after all) but the indies give more choice to more readers and more opportunities for more writers.
Reader List for the 2024 BHP event
Penny Dale
Henry Lewi
Allison Symes
Madeleine McDonald
June Webber
Alicia Rouverol
Lynn Clement
Georgina Wright
Debz Hobbs-Wyatt
Three Minute Santas show – Hannah Kate – North Manchester FM – Saturday 14th December 2024
In other news, I was delighted to discover various members of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group had festive flash broadcast on Saturday 14th December on Hannah Kate’s Three Minute Santas show on North Manchester FM. This included my tale, Perspective. I also know someone connected to Friday Flash Fiction who also had their piece broadcast. Out of 23 authors taking part, I know five of them, have heard of many of the rest and then there’s me! Well done to all who had their work chosen.
I run the ACW flash group on Zoom every month and my theme for November was festive flash. Yes, November. That gave us all chance to draft and polish our work and send it in to Hannah! Do have a listen to the show – links below. I loved listening to them all. With so many authors taking part, it led to a wonderful range of stories and styles.
https://podcast.canstream.co.uk/manchesterfm/index.php?id=53941
https://podcast.canstream.co.uk/manchesterfm/index.php?id=53942
Friday Flash Fiction Christmas Competition
I also took part in the Friday Flash Fiction Christmas Competition. The challenge was to write two x 100 word stories, one had to contain the word peace, the other had to contain the word goodwill. You couldn’t use both words in one piece. You also only submit once a week to this site so you can only send in one story at a time. Again, this is a supportive website for writers and I’ve much appreciated the feedback I’ve had on my pieces here.
And To You, Pal – featured the word goodwill.
Printing Error – featured the word peace
Festive Temptation Story
And to finish my last post pre-Christmas 2024, I thought I’d include a Christmas themed story. Hope you enjoy it. This one started life as an exercise I set during the November Zoom meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group. I hope you sympathise with my vicar in this one!
Tact by Allison Symes
The vicar was finding it harder to turn down the mince pies and coffee but she was due at Slimming World on Tuesday. She’d meant to go to the organisation before but finally plucked up the courage to do so. Okay, maybe she should’ve left it until after Christmas, it would’ve been the sensible thing to do, but she knew if she deferred again, she would just keep on doing that. Something had to give and it would be nice if, for once, it wasn’t her will power when it came to festive food.Here she was faced with Mrs Bankworth’s delicious mince pies being wafted under her nose. Nobody knew how much brandy when into the home made mincemeat. All took the precaution of not driving anywhere after sampling some as nobody only ever had the one. Also people took the precaution of not having lighted candles near them. This had come about thanks to a near miss at last year’s Carols by Candlelight service when only a quick thinking verger stopped at a candle/mince pie explosive mix by snuffing out the candles fast.
‘Go on, vicar, I know how much you love my mince pies.’
The vicar smiled. If ever there was a time to come out with the line Get thee behind me, Satan, this was it, surely, but the vicar could guess how well that would go down. Lead balloons would’ve had a better chance of floating than the vicar getting away with this one.
‘Perhaps, Mrs B, I can have one now and take two to have later. You are always so generous with your baking and I did have a splendid lunch.’
Mrs Bankworth smiled. ‘Of course, vicar. Here you go. Just to make sure you don’t get hungry tonight, I’ve put five mince pies into the bag for you.’
The vicar smiled but inwardly quailed. Could she resist having those five before tomorrow night’s Slimming World meeting?
On the plus side, she did now have the theme for her first post-Christmas sermon – it would be about resisting temptation.
Ends
Allison Symes – November 2024
Conclusion
On that note, may I wish you all a very happy Christmas and New Year!
Related Posts:-
Author Interview: Debz Hobbs-Wyatt – If Crows Could Talk – Part 1
Author Interview – Debz Hobbs-Wyatt – If Crows Could Talk – Part 2
Introducing Rosemary Johnson – Wodka, or Tea with Milk: The Road to Publication
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.
Never miss out on another blog post. Subscribe here:
Leave a Reply