Today I have a tiny flash fiction piece up on a British literary journal called Fictive Dream. It’s part of an annual special feature they do called Flash Fiction February, where a different story is published every day of the month.
I won’t tell you anything about it because it’s an odd little thing that works better without explanation, but I’d be delighted if you’d care to give ‘Baggage’ a read here. Do also pop back for their daily contributors. It’s been a really impressive line-up so far, starting with Meg Pokrass’s moving ‘Bullseye’ on day 1, and you won’t want to miss the writers who are coming up over the next few weeks.
Thanks to editor Laura Black, who is so approachable and incredibly efficient. She even went to the trouble of matching each story with a bespoke illustration by artist and poet Claudia McGill. Claudia has a blog post here about how she interpreted some of the stories sent to her which is really fascinating. I’m delighted to be featured in such a great journal – just a couple of my favourite stories in recent times include ‘Sarah Bears the Scars’ by Susan Barsby and ‘Viaduct’ by Chrissie Gittins.
If you’re interested in submitting, Fictive Dream accept short fiction of between 500-2,500 words, and look for stories with a contemporary feel that give an insight into the human condition. Their response time is very fast, aiming to respond to writers within one month.
[Edited to add: Claudia’s post is now available with her breakdown of my story here. It’s a pretty unique experience to see your work analysed in words and images. And ‘Baggage’ was also analysed in a blog post by writer Adam Lock. He picks up on elements I didn’t even know were there, not consciously, anyway. My thanks to both for taking my work seriously enough to discuss it – that’s a real honour.]
Photos: Pixabay.com
Word herding 
I loved your story and illustrating it was a pleasure. I l was able to use some of my favorite colors (!) and your writing is vivid and evocative. Thank you for the mention here. I’m doing posts on all the stories as the event goes along and yours will be coming up soon (I’m doing them in groups of four and after their publication on Fictive Dream).
Thank you for such a great story.
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Thank you very much for that, Claudia, it’s much appreciated. It’s such a joy to see the landscape, the colour palette, even the featheryness (is that a word? Not an art critic!). I am so, so impressed with the level of thought put into this by you and Laura. Reading your back-and-forth comments was very interesting, and you were both spot on in each case. I would like to have all your illustrations on my walls!
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