This year, we are incredibly proud to be bringing back our Flash Fiction Slam for the third year in a row. Take our challenge, and maybe you could end up in our Flash Fiction Hall of fame! This year, our slam judges are the legendary Tania Hershman, and brilliant Flash Fiction writer & performer Benjamin Judge. The rules are simple. Each contender has 5 minutes to read a complete story. […]
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Latest news and articles from the Northern Short Story Festival!
Are you an artist, film maker, developer, musician, or craft maker? Whether you knit or edit, our Creatives Mixer on June 2nd is for you. Hosted by the Northern Short Story Festival, the only festival in the North dedicated to short stories and short story writers, the Creatives Mixer aims to bring artists, makers and creatives of all types together to meet one another for potential collaborations and working relationships. […]
At The Northern Short Story Festival Flash Fiction Slam, flash fiction writers compete to win prizes, glory, and the respect of their peers, by reading their shortest stories of 5 minutes or under, out loud to an audience. Winners get a bundle of books, publication on the Northern Short Story Festival website, a detailed story critique by Strix editor SJ Bradley, and a coveted and hotly-contested place in the Flash […]
MEMOIR – or creative non-fiction – is enjoying a gathering popularity among contemporary readers. Why should that be? Because everyone loves a personal story, powerfully told. Despite the old-fashioned tinge of the word itself – ‘memoir’ – this form offers great imaginative possibilities to writers. Less constraining than straightforward autobiography, yet holding within it the power of a real-life experience, memoir can draw us into the world of another, in […]
“CHILD COMPANION WANTED age 6-7, for boy 7 Capt. Hall, M.F.H., St Breward, Bodmin” The brief notice in a 1938 edition of The Times newspaper was squeezed between adverts for a Cornish hotel and ‘Miss Oliver’s High Colonic Irrigation’. I don’t know to this day how I spotted it. I wasn’t even supposed to be reading the personal columns. I was doing research for my job as a TV […]
I’ve ringed the dates on my calendar with a fancy purple marker pen (not that I could forget!). The leaves are already bristling with the promise of exciting events at the forthcoming NoShoSto Festival. Here are just three which I’m particularly looking forward to. On Saturday 1st June, 2pm, the award winning short story writer C G Menon will be running a workshop called ‘Credible and Compelling Writing’. Through […]
A sense of place anchors a short story. Expertly created, a sense of location places our feet in the world of the short story, and makes the reader feel that they have really ‘been there.’ We asked award-winning short story writer Courttia Newland, recent guest editor of The Good Journal, to tell us about his favourite three stories that use a sense of place. Delhi, Vandana Singh (Read for free […]
Sunday 2nd June, 1.30 – 2.30 Northern Short Story Festival Academy Showcase + Naomi Booth [£4 / FREE] The Northern Short Story Festival is proud to support & develop 12 new short story writers. Featuring prizewinning short story writers, Pushcart nominees, a Best of British Short Stories author, and poetry slam champions, this event showcases just what it is that makes our Academy members so special. Come along to hear […]
Formed in 1976 in Salford, Joy Division are one of the most influential and best-loved bands Britain has produced. They developed a unique sound and style that made them one of the pioneers of the late-1970s post-punk movement. The We Were Strangers anthology (Confingo publishing) delivers a thoughtful, absorbing and intense response almost 40 years on. “These collected stories are achingly modern” The Guardian. Featuring authors Richard V. Hirst, […]
Saturday 1st June, 5.30-8.30, The Victoria Pub. FREE “Last night I dreamed I went to…. [BLANK] again…” Come and join us for a round of Fiction Blankety Blank, hosted by Ian ‘Les Dawson’ Harker of Strix magazine. This event will be held at The Victoria Pub on Great George Street, where food & drink are served. This is a FREE event and we very much hope you will join us. […]