A message from Calum Kerr
Director, National Flash-Fiction Day

Hello everyone,

Well, here in the UK it is Election Day. I’m just about to head out to vote and I urge you to do the same. (If I said I don’t care who you vote for, I’d be lying – of course I care – but whoever it is, I just think you should vote.)

Once you’ve written your X in the box, maybe it’s time to sit down and use even more letters to create something almost as wonderful as a functioning democracy. I’m talking, of course, about flash-fictions!

Our Anthology is still open for submissions.…

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The Hunt

She will hunt down the men who took her family. She will have blood.

Rose is the one that got away. She was the prey in a human trophy hunt organised by an elite and secret organisation for bored super-rich clients seeking a unique thrill. She paid a terrible price – when she escaped The Trail murdered her family. Every moment since she has been planning her revenge. Watching, waiting …And now her day has come.

Chris returns from his morning run to find his wife and children missing and a stranger in his kitchen. He’s told to run.…

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Whilst on a trip around bookshops last week in London I stumbled across the brochure for Moniack Mhor – Scotland’s Creative Writing Centre.

This was a new one on me, but the Crime Writing Course they have on offer makes me tempted to jack in my job and set off trekking towards the highlands right now with laptop on my back. The course is from Monday 25th May – Saturday 30th May so, if I set off now, I should get there in time ….

According to the website, it is already fully booked (I’m not surprised) but there is a waiting list:

Want to know how to make a reader’s heart rate increase?…

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(image from Waking the Dead – via BFI website).

I’ve just spotted this on the BFI website and am sure it’ll be of interest to crime fiction and TV fans and, in particular, to those who have visited or are to visit the excellent ‘Forensics’ exhibition at the Wellcome Collection:

In conjunction with Wellcome Collection’s free exhibition ‘Forensics: The anatomy of crime’, BFI Southbank presents a special weekend of screenings and events looking at how advances in forensic science have been reflected in TV crime drama, and how factual TV programmes have reported on the world and work of forensic scientists.…

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Thanks to Laura once again over at www.officemango.com for the writing prompt photo for the latest HorrorBites challenge.

Here’s my 350 word effort:

‘You don’t understand. You’ll never understand.’

Billy stamped his feet hard on the concrete path outside the entrance to the next exhibit.

‘Only Granddad did – only him, none of you.’

He saw his mother’s shoulders rise and fall in reluctant acceptance, her head turning and looking at his Billy’s father – he merely held his hands up in defeat.

‘If it means we can get on with things, then I surrender, Billy.’

He reached into the rucksack that was strapped across the rear of Billy’s sister’s buggy, delved around a while and then, when he’d found what he sought, he handed an old rusted and clumsy looking pair of spectacles to Billy.…

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Not seen ‘Breaking Bad’ ?

Want to see season 5 of ‘The Walking Dead’ ?

You’re in luck with new channel Spike launching 15th April, according to this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-32068979…

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Some more great artwork from the London streets

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A few more images that caught my eye whilst trawling the streets last weekend.

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A business expo visit this week put me in Shoreditch, an area I’d not ever had the chance to properly explore, and I was so pleased I’d thought to take my camera with me – what a crazy, eclectic, vibrant and inspiring place it is.

I snapped away for hours – and plenty of the images I took could easily set me off on a short story or piece of flash fiction. Please feel free to use an image to kick off anything you’re writing, but I’d appreciate a link back to here to say where you got the photo from, thanks.…

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Audible.co.uk is delighted to announce that Avengers star Tom Hiddleston has narrated the audiobook of J.G. Ballard’s High Rise ahead of the release of a highly anticipated film of the critically acclaimed novel.

Hiddleston, who is known to millions worldwide for his role as the evil god Loki in the blockbuster Thor and Avengers movies, has lent his voice to this first UK audiobook adaptation of High Rise, which was published in 1975.

High Rise is an unnerving dystopian tale of life in a modern tower block falling into disarray. Within the concealing walls of an elegant forty-storey tower block, the affluent tenants are hell-bent on an orgy of destruction.…

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