Interview with Calum Kerr ? founder of National Flash Fiction Day ...

To read Calum Kerr?s
beautiful?flash,
SOARING, click here.

Calum Kerr?is the author of ?31? and the online collection, Flash 365 ? an ongoing project where he writes a piece of flash fiction every day for a year, to May 2012. He?s been teaching creative writing since 2001, he?s the managing editor of Gumbo Press, he blogs with unmitigated audacity and right now, he?s organising the inaugural NATIONAL FLASH FICTION DAY which is set to explode across the UK on 16^th May 2012.

Hi Calum, welcome to my blog. That?s a LOT of flash? what inspired you to write a piece every day for a year?

Available on Kindle

Well, there were a few things. First there was NaNoWriMo. I did that in November 2010 and really enjoyed writing every day. I missed the discipline of it when it was over. Then, in January 2011 I did something similar, but with flash, and wrote a story every day for a month. The result ended up as the book 31. ?Again, after that was over, I missed it. So, taking inspiration from the poet, Max Wallis, and his blog ?Something Every Day? I decided to do flash365. I thought it would be good for my writing, might raise my profile, and if nothing else I would have a huge bank of stories to submit to magazines and competitions.

A lot of people planning that kind of output would opt for a novel but you?ve created hundreds of flash pieces. Some have already been played on Radio 4, what are you going to do with the rest? Do you have themes running through, with a view to publishing collections, or was it just a wild creative outpouring?

It?s a mix of the two. I knew it would be hard to do it with no structure at all, just hoping for stories to present themselves. So ten of the months have themes for the prompts ? Paint Colours, Barbara Cartland book titles, Cities and Towns of the world ? but there is no theme to the stories themselves. Within each month I go where the prompts take me, but at the same time I try to vary things like voice, style, tone, genre etc. In part it?s to keep readers interested, but it also stretches me as a writer. Some themes have emerged, but not on purpose. As for putting together a collection, Salt are publishing a batch from November where the prompt was to have them all in the same place at the same time, and I think it will be easy enough to gather together like stories, but it wasn?t the intention.

The other two months, by the way, May last year and the approaching April, have no theme and no prompts. They are completely wild to be whatever they turn out to be. Last May they were completely random, but I think next month I might take the chance to revisit some of the earlier stories and characters as well as writing new things.

It?s like watching someone run sequential marathons, you?re the iron man of flash fiction! How do you sustain that kind of creativity ? do ideas pop up spontaneously, or do you go looking for them?

I think I answered this in the last question! However, in terms of turning prompts into stories, sometimes things present themselves in the way they do for all writers I guess, a compelling character, an event from the day, something you suddenly want to talk about. At other times, when it?s difficult, I have to fall back on good old fashioned creative writing exercises. I design a character, I decided on a plot arc, or whatever, and then I work through that. Mostly, though, they come fairly easily and that has certainly become more true over time. Practise helps!

What advice would you give someone who wanted to start writing flash?

Just do it! There is not the same investment of time as in a novel or even a longer short story, so what?s the worst than can happen? So, if someone wants to do it, they should sit down and do it! That said, they need to remember that even though it?s short it still needs to be a complete story with some sense of resolution. And they need to remember that when there are so few of them, every word carries a lot more weight so they need to be chosen carefully. Apart from that, I?d tell them to have fun. Flash is great to write and read, and should be enjoyable. That doesn?t mean it needs to be funny, just that it shouldn?t be thought of as work.

Does flash fiction need to contain all the components of a longer piece ? a ?story arc?, with beginning, middle and end ? or can it be a snapshot, a description of a moment?

Erm. Can I be equivocal and say ?both?? The problem with a question like this is that we get into the fuzzy boundary between flash-fiction and prose-poetry. I think the ?moment? on its own is more the province of the latter, but if the moment suggests a larger story then it?s the former. So, it doesn?t need to have the full arc of a story, but it should at least suggest it.

National Flash Fiction Day ? what inspired you to set it up?

Well, basically, National Poetry Day. My friend, Jo Bell, runs that, and when it came around in October last year it made me wonder if there was a National Flash-Fiction Day I could be involved with. There wasn?t, so I contacted a bunch of writers and asked them if they thought it was a good idea. They did, word started to spread, and the rest is history.

So far there?s been a micro-fiction competition, a call for flash submissions for a print anthology (open ?til 10^th April, folks), and we have a series of regional projects taking off ? what else would you like to see happening?

Click to see NFFD events by region.

Well, still more events and projects. We now have them all over the UK, but there is still room for more ? especially in Scotland, Northern Ireland and, surprisingly, London. In this first year I have had very few expectations. If we continue into future years then I might decide I want specific things, but at the moment I?m just grateful to all those who are giving up their time and effort to organise things.

One thing that I aim to do for the future is to try and engage with more ?closed? events. This would be where schools/colleges/universities/writers groups do things just for themselves for the day. But this year has already been enough, I think. A good start!

What will you be doing on May 16th?

Well, I?m an associate lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Winchester, so it seemed a shame to not do something there. As a result I will be holding a ?Write-In? where I am encouraging as many students and staff as I can to drop into a room, pick a prompt out of a bucket, write a flash and then blog it. We have a 4 hour slot and want to see how many stories we can get. I shall be opening this out online too, for the world to take part, so hopefully it will be huge!

On the evening I will be holding an event at the City Library in Southampton with Vanessa Gebbie, Holly Howitt and other writers. We will be reading, talking about flash, hopefully playing some videos from other writers, and launching the anthology. Should be a great evening!

And then, on the 17th, I?m going to sleep.

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Calum, thank you so much for taking time out from your very busy schedule to speak to us here ? National Flash Fiction Day looks all set to be a truly amazing experience!

Please note, everyone?s welcome to join in and there will be more nearer the day ? see the links above and these:

Events for UK writers.

International writers.

Calum Kerr?s homepage.

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