Ed's Wife and Other Creatures has landed!

Stunning - a gorgeously produced book, a real fizz to open my copies and sit on the floor going "Hey! Look who's here!"

Weird, wonderful and full of poetic truth.    We like to think we know our partner but this funny collection of stories shows just how complex our nearest and dearest can be. For some people, it can be a horrifying idea but Ed's Wife shows how wonderful 'different' can be.

                                                                                                       Andrew G Marshall 

This gorgeous book of beautifully illustrated short texts excavates the deep love between a man and a woman using  insect and animal behaviour as  a brilliant way to articulate the complexities of affection, bonding, intimacy, attraction, sex, loneliness and loss. A fabulous blurring  of short-short fiction and prose poetry, which cumulatively creates a novelistic experience as well as being a delightful dip-in dip-out box of bite size chunks you can enjoy on their own.

                                                                                                        David Gaffney

This collection of beautifully-illustrated, funny and poignant miniatures illuminates one of life's essential challenges: recognising that, although we look similar, The Other (even The Other who shares our bed), may actually be as different from us as another species. If you love me, Ed's wife is saying, don't pin me down, fix me in amber. Just let me be this... and this ... and this. Ed wakes up not knowing who - or what - will be there, struggling to understand, to accept, to just be.

                                                                                                        Tania Hershman 

Ed's Wife is published by Liquorice Fish Books, a new imprint of Cinnamon Press.

Liquorice Fish Books is a new imprint from Cinnamon Press to promote the innovative and idiosyncratic in contemporary writing: writers who are passionate and committed to finding an individual voice and approach to their writing; who are restless and want to explore the many possibilities inherent in language and the written word; or who wish to celebrate and extend the vibrant and varied traditions — and anti-traditions &8212; that emerged during the 20th Century but which have been too often marginalised and belittled by the world of corporate authorship

If you would like a copy, Ed is £8.99 plus p and p from all the usual suspects, but please support the indie presses by buying direct! 

 http://cinnamonpress.com/index.php/hikashop-menu-for-products-listing/fiction/product/104-ed-s-wife-and-other-creatures-vanessa-gebbie-ill-lynn-roberts

Flash! Free competition, article, and more, on Writers and Artists Yearbook website.

To coincide with a recent interview on the terrific and very useful Writers and Artists Yearbook website, HERE they are hosting a competition for you to showcase your literary skill.
They are asking you to write up to 300 words of flash fiction, to the theme of 'the lonely writers' journey' - to be judged by meself. The prizes are as follows:
First place winner will receive a signed copy of 'The Coward’s Tale' in hardback, a copy of the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook 2012, and also have their work featured on the website.
Second place winner will receive a signed copy of 'The Coward’s Tale' in hardback and also have their work featured on the website.
Highly Commended- two highly commended entries will also have their work featured on the website.
They say: If you think you are up to the challenge, read Vanessa Gebbie’s flash fiction article for inspiration and submit your entry to writersandartists@bloomsbury.com by the 22nd February 2012. Winners will be announced on the 7th March – good luck!

As said above, the theme is: The lonely writers’ journey... and the judge says, “interpret as you will - fiction, or creative non-fiction, or a mix of the two- who is going to know anyway?!”

There is also a Gebbie Patent Definition of flash fiction (!) - the slippery beast.

Imagine standing at the open door of a room where all is in darkness, and you can see nothing. Imagine someone flicking on the lights - to the count of one, two - then plunging the room back into darkness. You didn’t have time to take in much, but you know exactly what room this is, now - a bedroom, an operating theatre, a kitchen, a courtroom. Odds are, you also remember a few things about the room - something about the bed, for example - something out of place? Something odd about that operating theatre... what was that on the floor in the corner? The kitchen - who was that peering back at you from the window? The courtroom - was that a small boy crying in the dock? But this is today - we don’t put small boys on trial? Do we?

For the rest of the article, see HERE. in which I give names of some writers whose flash work I rate highly.
For another terrific example of flash fiction try ‘Fly’ by Elaine Chiew, which has just gone live on metazen. For other examples, the archive of the specialist flash zine Smokelong Quarterly is a gold mine.

BRIGHTON FRINGE - FLASH FICTION SLAM, THIS SATURDAY, WITH DAMIAN BARR

Brighton Festival Fringe Flash Slam Saturday May 21st, 8 pm – hosted by the somewhat incomparable Damian Barr at Hendrick’s Horseless Carriage of Curiosities /– Jubilee Square, Brighton.

The Festival Fringe website says this...

The ultimate short short short short story competition! Well-known writers Niven Govinden, Vanessa Gebbie and Stuart Evers read their Flash Fictions aloud and judge yours! Strict rules apply. Your story must be 3 minutes or less. Your story must be entitled ‘the End’. Prize: £100. Free entry: names drawn randomly on night. Complementary decadent libation included

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Damian Barr is a journalist, Radio 4 playwright, Host of the Soho House Literary Salon and cultural entrepreneur among other things...
Stuart Evers is the author of “Ten Stories about Smoking” (Picador) among other things...
Niven Govinden is the author of “We Are The New Romantics” (Bloomsbury) and Graffiti My Soul (Canongate)

Full details and booking info HERE >>> Brighton Fringe website