Flash fiction is a term used to describe short short fiction – complete stories told in 100 words, 300 words, rarely over 1000 words. Or as described by one of Aotearoa’s very best short short form writers, Frankie McMillan:
“Flash fiction – a rooster running this way and that, his red comb lighting small fires in the woods.”
Since 2012, NZ National Flash Fiction Day, has celebrated this short form on the shortest day of the year with a 300 word story national competition for adults, joined by a youth category in 2018. Running in conjunction is Micro Madness, a 100 word story international competition. This year's adult competition is judged by Ingrid Horrocks and Louise Wallace, youth by Josiah Morgan, and Micro Madness by Tim Saunders and Tania Hershman, with simultaneous events happening across the country to announce winners.
I began writing flash in the early days of NZ NFFD, and was longlisted in 2014, giving my first ever public reading at the Ōtautahi event. And I was hooked; I am now an editor at Flash Frontier, an Aotearoa online publication of short short fiction, and alongside Neema Singh, chair the Ōtautahi National Flash Fiction Day event. This year’s event is looking to be a banger; we have free kai and a great lineup of guest readers including poet, performer and youth judge Josiah Morgan, spoken word poet Dietrich Soakai, and from Write On – School for Young Writers, Mithali Manoj, with poet Gail Zing as emcee.
Hosted at Tūranga, the event brings together new and established writers, youth and adult, those who have read their work many times, and other who like I was, are taking first steps. It’s a celebration of the amazing talent we have right here in Ōtautahi with local writers often in the winning lineup.
This year we held free flash workshops in the run up to the event at Tūranga, with sell out adult sessions. There is a special kind of silence in a room full of people writing, the letting go of what a ‘good’ story should be and letting a prompt take you away. The results are always surprising and sometimes wonderful.
It is these wonderful smallest stories, those that move between prose and poetry, that share large truths in small forms, that I am very much looking forward to on 22 June. There are fragments that stay with you over the years. For me this is one, Islands and Cities by Sarah Dunn, winner in 2014 – “I put my hands over my eyes and the black light white of the birds was still there.”
Join us at Ōtautahi NFFD - Monday 22 June. 5.30pm for free kai, event from 6-7.30pm. TSB Space / Tautoru, Tūranga. We are ever thankful to those who support this event and our local creative community – Creative NZ Creative Communities Scheme, Christchurch City Libraries, New Zealand Society of Authors Canterbury branch who provide the Regional Award, and Scorpio Books and The Clocks Bookshop for spot prizes.
Find out more
- Find out more about NZ NFFD
- Read NZ NFFD’s winning stories at Flash Frontier
- Shortest Day? That'll be the Winter Solstice
Sugggest short reads
- Short | Poto - The big book of small stories | Iti te kupu, nui te kōrero, edited by Michelle Elvy and Kiri Piahana-Wong
- Eddie Sparkle’s Bridal Taxi by Frankie McMillan
- More New Zealand Flash Fiction
Rachel
Library Assistant, Tūranga
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