Funny Submission Guidleines #2

My first post of Funny Submissions Guidelines went down well, so here are a few more entertaining ones. These are all markets for short fiction, by the way.

The Canary Press:
Payment: We strongly believe that writers should be paid for their work, especially considering what the Kardashians are paid and the price of alcohol these days.

Not really a submission guideline, but I love this on the same site:

"...join our email list we will never give away your email address or send you spam, except at Christmas time when, if things are going well, we may send you some actual spam...which will last for years in your kitchen cupboard."

Penny Dreadful (Haunted Press)  Yes, even you, as wretched and forlorn as you may well be. We want you to submit to us... (their acceptances are on the snidey side, too!... See my post Finding Acceptances.)

Some zines offer services above and beyond to their authors: Space Squid promises: "...not to give your name to the FBI after we find out what goes on in that freakish head of yours."

Flash Fiction zine, Whiskeypaper is much more charming: "We cannot pay you for your story but we love you the same. And we will respond to your submission as soon as possible. We know how it feels to wait and wait and wait. We will do the best we can. We appreciate your patience and sweetness."  and:  "We dig kindness and light."

But sometimes the years of trauma just leach out into the guidelines of more seasoned publications. You can sense the frustration in this fromDaily Science Fiction: "We do not accept reprints. We do not accept reprints. Also, if you were wondering about reprints--nope, we don't take 'em"

and...

"Don't send us another until we send you a response. You can send us another as soon as we send you a response (either "Yea" or "Nay). After, not before. (If that's confusing, ask Grover at Sesame Street. He's really good at prepositions." 

And finally...Apex Magazine throws down this gauntlet: "If you are rejected, don’t get angry—instead, become more awesome. Write something better, and better, until we have to accept you."

Free Flash!

To celebrate this weekend's Wirral Festival of Firsts, my flash collection will be available FREE from around 9am today for 24 hours!

On Saturday 13th July there are more than 70 music acts - acoustic, rock, unplugged, rap, gospel, folk, jazz playing for FREE in the bars of Hoylake from 1pm until late... and did I mentioned the Jazz Parade through town at 1pm?  I'm running a Flash workshop as part of First Write at Hoylake Library from 11.30am and then I'll be having some festival time!

On Sunday 14th July we have a 2 mile exhibition of  'Art on the Prom' with displays and workshops at Hoylake Community Centre, and entertainment in and around the Parade Gardens (including me around 4pm!) . Such fun! 

To pick up your FREE copy of my collection of 24 flash fiction stories, click here: Tales from a Broken Biro - There Will Be Ink. And don't worry if you don't own a Kindle - it's easy to download their free reading apps and then you can read it on your PC, laptop, tablet or electric toothbrush (just kidding about that last one!). 

And if you read this too late, it's less than £2 when it isn't free, so click on the link anyway.

An interview with National Flash Fiction Day's Calum Kerr

My guest today is Calum Kerr is a writer, editor, lecturer and director of National Flash-Fiction Day in the UK. He lives in Southampton with his wife -  the writer, Kath Kerr -  their son and a menagerie of animals. His new collection of flash-fictions, Lost Property, is available from Amazon or from the publisher, Cinder House.

So I tidied up Broken Biro Towers - sweeping puns under the settee and tittivating the double entendres - and settled down to ask Callum a few questions about flash (or 'micro', or short short) fiction:

Why flash? What's so good about short short stories?

Because a novel tries to give you all the answers but a short story, especially flash, does little more than pose questions. Given nothing more than the outline, the reader then has to paint it in for themselves. It’s more satisfying, I think, and stays with you longer.

Also, from a writer’s point of view, you can experiment, try things, play around, without the long term commitment of a novel.

Flash in a pan or here to stay?

Well, it’s only had the name ‘flash-fiction’ for twenty years, but it’s been around a lot longer than that. People are already challenging that name, so I imagine it will fade out, but the short short story will always be with us, I think.

Where does your inspiration come from?

Can I quote Douglas Adams and say ‘a mail order company in Cleveland’? Seriously, though, it comes from everyehere, things I see, things I hear and overhear, things I read, things I watch on TV and in the cinema, and more than anything from my experience of being alive, interacting with friends (and enemies) and family, and from experiencing emotion.

Slice of life or twist in the tail?

Both. Neither.  I’ve written both, but I don’t privilege one over the other. Twisty ones can be all about the punchline, which weakens them as stories. Slicey ones can be all setting and no plot. I think I try and find a middle ground. The ending might be a surprise, but it is truly formed from the content that comes before it. Slice of life, with a twist, then.

What's your No.1 tip for someone just experimenting with the form?

Just go for it. Write whatever you want, as often as you can, and don’t worry about the quality. It’s about feeling your way and that’s something you only get with practice.

And No.2?

Edit like crazy. Any piece of writing needs editing, but flash even more so. Did the first draft come out at 400 words? I bet you could make it 200 without missing the point and, in fact, while making the whole thing stronger.

Who are your favourite flash fictioneers / recommended reading as examples of the form?

David Gaffney was the first flash-fictioneer that I read. He has such a wonderful ability with the tiny tale. Sawn-Off Tales was where I started, and as soon as I get paid I’m going to buy his new one, More Sawn-Off Tales. I also enjoy Tania Hershman and Vanessa Gebbie. Kevlin Henney writes amazing things, as does Valerie O’Riordan. Oh, and Jenny Adamthwaite has my eternal jealousy for what she achieves.

Anything else you'd like to say about flash fiction?

Yes. I think what’s interesting about it is that it’s new. The form has been around for ages, as I said, but it’s only in recent years that it has been classified and arguments still rage over what exactly it is. This means we get to make our own definitions, to help mould this form into a shape, or, more likely, explore how the ways in which it’s impossible to mould, to categorise, or confine. It’s a very exciting time to be writing a very exciting form of story.

Is any of this real?

Sadly there's no date on this picture - any clues?

For all my talk of notebooks the other day, we are firmly en-meshed in the digital world, are we not?

What a strange world it is:

• I have written a 'virtual' book (Tales from a Broken Biro: There Will Be Ink) on my computer and published it online.
• People can buy it on (and read off) a screen.
• I am promoting it using Twitter to friends I've only met in the ether, and they to their wider networks
• I have already sold (and given away in yesterday's promotion) a total of 100 copies, including more than 20 in America

In the first 48 hours it even reached the top ten Amazon Kindle Bestsellers in the free short story category, alongside (okay, a bit under) names I see every day at work - Carole Matthews and Stephen Leather.

Is any of this real?  (Answers on a virtual postcard)

There Will Be Ink

I've only gone and done it!

My first collection of short fiction is now available on Kindle!  It's called Tales from a Broken Biro: There Will Be Ink and contains 24 short stories, most have which have been published at some point in journals and zines but are thrown  gathered  herded collected together now like a bunch of awkward people at a party.

It's a snip at £1.98, and hence cheaper than buying me a congratulatory glass of wine, but I'm offering it for FREE on Saturday 22nd, which is National Flash Fiction Day.

Whether you buy it or download it free, I'd be delighted if anyone wished to write a short review on Amazon and give it a rating.

Two of my stories are also in this year's NFFD Anthology: Scraps and another in Lost and Found, the University of Chester's High Sheriff’s Cheshire Prize for Literature collection to be launched next week.

I am one excited bunny.

Superdense

What's on the conveyer belt then?  My story Cuddly toy, fondue set was published on Flash Flood a couple of days ago and my single-sentence 100 worder 'Slather' was highly commended in the National Flash Fiction Day competition.

This flurry of short fiction prompted Benjamin Judge - a flash fictioneer from Manchester - to ask the question: Do we need a National Flash Fiction Day?  In particular, he worries about the term 'flash' implying something dashed off, instant and disposable... a poor cousin on longer fiction.

In fact good flash fiction takes more effort and editing than longer work - each word has to work harder. By focusing on the particular it, ideally, reveals something bigger. More like a flash of lightening or a camera exposing an essential truth.

I'd like to get all sciencey about it but I'm not trained. I want to say it's 'neutron' fiction - because I think neutron means tiny but superdense, but when I looked it up on Wikidpedia my eyes glazed over.  I think, yes, NFFD a good way to introduce readers to the form, promote excellence in it and create links between people who like writing it.

What does 'flash' fiction imply to you? Do you like your fiction superdense or would you rather linger? And what else would be a good name for it? Answers on a cyber postcard.

Incidentally, Benjamin writes excellent tiny stories about famous writers, called, appropriately enough Very Short Stories about Very Good Writers.  Benjamin lives in a curious world of his own creation where Saul Bellow gets all pie-charty, Wendy Cope does it Gangam Style and Agatha Christie is abducted by George Clooney.

p.s. My topsy-turvy little parable Sky/Sea is in Flash Frontier's April issue (you have to scroll down a bit to get to it)

Hungry Dogs

When I was a kid (and yes, I was weird then, too) I used to collect proverbs the way other kids collected... I don't know... what were they collecting?

I wrote my favourites down in an exercise book - and although I've only recently rediscovered the book, it turns out I've been using some of these lesser-known proverbs over the years even though no-one else has heard of them - just another reason why people look at me funny.

But it has always saddened me that people stick to the same old sayings when there are rich pickings:

• He who has a head of wax should not walk in the sun 

• Far fowls have fine feathers 

• You a lady, I a lady, who will milk the cow?

• Praise is not pudding

• He who speaks the truth must have one foot in the stirrup

• He that thatches his house with turds will have more teachers than reachers

• A cat in gloves catches no mice

• Random stomping seldom catches bugs

• He that lives in hope, dances without music

• Toasted cheese hath no master

I mention all this now because one of my favourites (because it is so very true and I really can't think of another that says the same thing so appositely) is:

• Hungry dogs will eat dirty puddings. 

It's a proper proverb... it says so here.

I mention this, because my very short story - Hungry dogs, dirty puddings - was featured last week on 3:AM Magazine. (Rated 'R' for adult content and obscenity - mum will be so proud!)

Btw, looking for an illustration for this post, I found the one above that would have done nicely for my Mousetrap post. Really, I'd have liked to use this from the Saatchi Galleries but am probably not allowed to.

Flash... aha!

'Tis the season to be flashy, with various contests around in the run-up to National Flash Fiction Day on June 21st.

I was chuffed to get one of my short, shorts if not exactly in Smokelong Quaterly, at least on the back of one of their giveaway candy cigarette boxes. I know: WTF?  The stories had to be under 40 words

Here's the story:

Hunter

All day he’d been hunting for that screwdriver, his grubby fingers blunt amongst the sharp things. Nothing.
At nightfall, he scattered a trail of screws in likely corners, and waited.
Finally his patience paid off...

So anyway, those competitions:

The first is from the lovely people at Flashtag, Manchester, part of the Chorlton Arts Festival. You may remember, I won this one last year with 'Two Swans' - which is now in the excellent (and freely downloadable) Listerature II anthology. This year they want 400 words by 26th April on the fairly all-encompassing theme of: Past, Present, Future.

The second is Writing on the Wall's 'In the dark' competition - 500 words by 6th May. What I don't like about this competition is that all entries have to be posted to their site, which means they're technically published if you ant to send them somewhere else.

 I can't pretend either of these offers much reward to winners except a lovely warm feeling, some literary freebies and the chance to go on and on about it on their blogs.  But the third - The Bridport Prize - offers a whopping £1000 first prize for the best 250word flash - deadline  31st May.

There's an excellent guest post by Vanesse Grebbie on the Bridport Prize site, and she also has a fun flash fiction exercise on the Writers & Artists site.

You might also like to read about the most quoted six-word stroy ever written: Hemmingway story explained

Out there

If I'm not here, I must be somewhere else.

There's a little something of mine at Flashpoints, for example.  This gorgeous site offers tiny pieces of site-specific flash fiction. A story written in and about a specific location  is left there. I wrote my story in the library and left it on the Mills and Boon stand (left). A week later it was still there. If anyone noticed they didn't say.

I read a blog recently where the writer ( sorry, but I can't remember who it was or find it now - if it was you, fess up and I'll put a link in!) ) had over 100 submissions awaiting response.

She inspired me to send more stories and poems out - I'm up to 54 so watch this space for yee-hahs or ya-boo-suckses.

I'm also on (at? in?) the Lancashire Writing Hub being interviewed about Poetry24, the daily ezine I co-edit with Martin

Shorts

I'm packing my shorts for a week in Mallorca, but they're not the shorts that I mean. It's International Short Story Day and I've had a couple of short pieces accepted recently, which is always nice after a run of rejections.

My story 'Neighbours' was on 330 Words last week - a Manchester-based site which wants stories of around that length inspired by a picture. Anyone who was reading my blog a year or so ago won't be surprised at the picture or the content of the story, which I promise is only true up to a certain point!

Even more excitingly, I have two short pieces - a poem and a nano story in the latest issue of Short, Fast and Deadly - Body wRites. SF&D is  a US-based "eLit Mag where brevity reigns and the loquacious are sent to contemplate their sins in the rejection bin."  (These are the same people behind textual mash-up project  rIgor mort.US where they invite people to submit previously published works they retain the rights to, and other people to come along and reinvent them as startling new artwork, poetry and short prose.)

(Incidentally, looking for an image to go with a piece about tiny stories, I came across this lovely miniature book of tiny stories on hitRECord - where I got the image above from. Spookily, this also turns out to be a collaborative project of art and words... and music and film... hosted by Joseph Gordon-Levitt who we loved  in Third Rock From the Sun.  I may have a play with all of this - watch this space!)

Meanwhile... you can read my pieces, and the rest of SF&D below. I'm on pages 8 & 12 (although, oddly, vi and x in numerals)

Open publication - Free publishing - More and deadly

Also, I'm reading poem and short stories as part of Midsummer Night's Read at Wallasey Village Library (i.e not my branch, the diddy one on St Georges Road) this very night at 6pm -come along!

Flash Fiction - Competitions

We're now less than a month away from National Flash Fiction Day on 16th May.

I'm a big fan of Flash - I like reading them and I like writing them. The length can be anything from 140 characters ( e.g. HERE) to 100 words (e.g. HERE) 1000 words depending where you look- and that's a massive difference, but this definition seems to cover it nicely:

"Flash fiction work contains the classic story elements: protagonist, conflict, obstacles or complications and resolution. However unlike the case with a traditional short story, the word length often forces some of these elements to remain unwritten: hinted at or implied in the written storyline."
Bridport Prize website

I've listed some of the competitions around which are linking to National Flash Fiction Day in case you are tempted to give them a try:

• Enter now! Lancashire Writing Hub's Flash Fiction Competition closes today - April 20th - and asks for exactly 165 words (including title).
• Manchester's Flashtag writing collective want 500 words or less by Friday 27th April.
• Yearning for Wonderland wants Unexpected Fairy Tales of under 350 words before 29th April.
• Writing on the Wall in Liverpool want stories no more than 3000 characters (letters, not people - that would be silly) on the subject of 'The End of the World' by 30th April.

There are more competitions, events and initiatives at the National Flash-Fiction Day 2012 website

If you have the best flash fiction story ever, you could invest in the hefty £6 entry fee to the Bridport Prize's new Flash Fiction category which offers a first prize of £1000 for 250word stories - which equals £4 a word!

Related post: Short ... and I mean short... stories

Nano-fiction

My first published story of the year is a wee one.

It's not quite as wee as the 6-word stories I wrote about in this post but at Twitter-length of 140 characters, Nanoism's stories aren't exactly verbose. But they still have the power to say more than they say.

My story is HERE.