Happy National Flash Fiction Day - And A Giveaway!

It's National Flash Fiction Day!! Here's hoping you all have a good one... head over to the official website to find out what's going on around the country! A huge round of applause for founder and organizer Calum Kerr, what a job this man has done. Wow. Check out his Flash Flood journal, with a veritable cascade of fantastic flash fiction posted since midnight last night, and ongoing! The Thresholds short story forum has a great article celebrating the day, and Twitter-length flash fiction that has been submitted.Also: the amazing anthology he has produced, Jawbreakers, which includes stories by Ali Smith, Ian Rankin, and more (including me) is FREE to download just today for the Kindle. Get it here. And the Flash Fiction South West's gorgeous anthology, Kissing Frankenstein and Other Stories, is available here.

And me? Well, I'm heading off shortly to Oxford to the gorgeous Albion Beatnik bookstore (see the pic) for Eight Cuts' Flash Fiction Slam which starts at 6.30pm tonight, a feast of flash fiction slammers going head to head (not me, I'm too cowardly). I shall be offering gentle comments on the proceedings and some stern words about the joys of flash fiction. Come join us!

If you can't make any of the events, not sure what this is all about, a great place to start are the anthologies that first inspired my love for the short short story:

This is a pic of them on my desk... they were published from the 1980s onwards (no flash fiction was not invented in the 21st century), all edited by the indominitable Robert Shaphard and James Thomas, and include luminaries such as Grace Paley, Aimee Bender, Barry Yourgrau, and many many more.

The eagle-eyed amongst you many notice that I actually have TWO copies of Sudden Fiction: American Short Short Stories, and so to honour this day I am going to give away a copy to one lucky blog reader. No need to do anything, just express interest in the comments section and one person will be picked out of a hat later in the week. I will send it anywhere in the world...

Happy happy flash fiction day!

Publication Day!

My Mother Was An Upright Piano: Fictions, published by Tangent Books, UK

It's here! My Mother Was An Upright Piano: Fictions is officially published today! Wow. I can't quite believe I am now the author of two books, two gorgeous books full of fictions. I'm very lucky. In a minute I'll invite you to head over to my newly-redesigned website taniahershman.com to find out more about the book, read some of the fictions, and find out where to buy it. (And read two newly-published interviews with me, at The View From Here magazine, where I talk about short stories, and at Christopher Allen's I Must Be Off blog about ex-pats, where I talk about being an ex-ex-pat...)

And if you are in or near Bristol, do come and raise a glass with me at my book launch at Arnolfini's bookshop tonight, Thurs May 3rd, 6-7.45pm!

But before that, take 1 minute 28 seconds to watch the fabulous book trailer created for me by my wonderful partner, James! I rather like it... (my first ever book trailer):

There are enough for all of you!

Ok, now you can head over to my newly-redesigned website taniahershman.com ...!

My Mother Was An Upright Piano... nearly here!

Well, it's all kicking off now! I'm delighted to announce that my new collection, published May 3rd, is now available for pre-order!

A collection of 56 short fictions, here are a few lovely things I cajoled writers I greatly admire to say about it:

"Funny, fresh, lyrical.  These stories are like colorful glass lozenges holding the substance of our everyday lives, sparkled up by the unusual and wondrous."

Aimee Bender, author of Willful Creatures and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

"Tania Hershman writes with such passion and playfulness, the pain and the fear and the hope woven through her stories hits all the harder. The result is beautiful, funny and quietly devastating."

Nicola Walker, actress (Spooks, Inside Men)
 

"Tania Hershman makes immaculate tiny stories that punch ten times heavier than their weight, as if a 500 page novel had been ground up and distilled into capsule form. They are so biting and so perfect they seem to hang in the air for moments after you’ve finished reading them, like little prayers. Emotionally wrenching, funny, quirky, and full of condensed wisdom, insight and love, Hershman’s short short stories are whirring, ticking word machines waiting to explode inside you."

David Gaffney, author of Sawn-Off Tales, Aromabingo, and The Half Life of Songs

The writer Alasdair Gray once described himself as “a maker of
imagined objects.”  It strikes me that Tania Hershman needs a more
artful descriptor than ‘writer,’ too: brilliant; mysterious; not of
this earth—I adore her and I adore this book.
Marjorie Celona, author of Y

 

"Simply superb, and anything but simple, these fictions peel back the layers we build up over our lives with the sharpest of scalpels: the eye of that rare creature - a real writer."

Vanessa Gebbie, author of Words From a Glass Bubble, Storm Warning, and The Coward's Tale  

“This collection is two rich catalogs interleaved. In the first, the stories succeed precisely where their own characters fail: these deft fictions are full of (and about) the humor and heartbreak made manifest when communication fails. In the second, meaning somehow gets through, albeit not through words, but through physics, say, or music, say, or love. Together the two halves lay bare a world where speaking clearly is nothing short of heroic.”

Roy Kesey, author of Pacazo, All Over, and Nothing in the World

If you would like to pre-order, please visit my lovely publishers: Tangent Books. Also available is a special limited edition of 30 signed and numbered copies into which I will be hand-writing a brand new and unpublished 57th very short fiction! You can order one of those here and I will be doing hand exercises in preparation...

It's all flash!

Flash Fic News 1

So, I'm a little excited over here... I've just been asked to run not just one but a set of FOUR flash fiction workshops at one of my favourite festivals, the Cork International Short Story Festival in Cork, Ireland, in September. This is a festival you want to sell anything to make sure you can go to - it's heaven for short story writers, and not just the events but the after-parties where writers mingle with readers and listeners are a huge part of the attraction. So, come flash with me... or just come and be there! (Booking's not open yet, I believe, but soon...)


Flash Fic News 2

I'm delighted to have been commissioned, along with a fairly fabulous roster of flash writers, to write a new piece for the National Flash Fiction Day anthology - and the anthology wants your stories too. Here are the guidelines:

Submission Guidelines:

We are looking for flash-fictions of between 150 and 500 words (not including the title) from UK writers only.

They can be in any style or genre but we want you to use only a single word for the title and this word should be the prompt for the piece or indicative of the story's theme.

You may submit a maximum of two pieces.

Stories should be emailed as .doc, .docx or .rtf attachments. Please put your name, the title of the submission and your address (for proof of UK residence) into the body of the email.

Email your entries to nffdanthology AT gmail DOT com.

Stories should be previously un-published (except maybe on a blog for the purposes of workshopping) and no simultaneous submissions, please.

The deadline for submissions is 23.59 on Tuesday 10th April. Any submissions received after that time will not be considered.

If you are included in the anthology you will receive a free copy of the e-book edition plus a chance to buy a copy of the physical edition at a greatly reduced price.

Happy writing!

I'm delighted to announce...

that I'm having another book! Now that the contract is signed, I can reveal that my second collection, My Mother Was An Upright Piano: Fictions, will be published by excellent Bristol publisher Tangent Books. It will be a collection of fifty or so very short flash fictions written over the past few years.

Because Tangent are well known for their art books, such as Banksy's Bristol: Home Sweet Home, about Bristol's most famous graffiti artist,

as well as the Naked Guide to Bristol

and two collections of short fiction from Stanley Donwood, who also happens to be Radiohead "artist in residence"

this physical version of my book is going to be a beautiful object, which will involve a local Bristol illustrator too. So, truly a local affair and I will be involved in every step, which I am very very excited about!

The book and ebook will be published in Spring this year, I will reveal more details as they are decided upon. It's been 3 and a half years since The White Road and Other Stories came out, and I finally feel ready for another book, and slightly better equipped than I was the first time to deal with everything that comes with a new book. We are planning some special treats, a limited edition and other things... what fun!