I am very pleased indeed that my story 'True' has been chosen by the Unchained Writers of Bristol for their St Valentine's Day Hangover event to be held at the Southmead Centre in Bedminster, Bristol on Sunday 21 February. I will be reading it. Other readers/writers include Debbie Young, Ali Bacon and Dan Gooding.
All info here
'Three Legs' has been published today by the US website 101Words. Yes, it has 101 words.
It's here
Stroud Short Stories next event will be on Sunday 24 April 2016 at 8pm at the SVA, John Street, Stroud, GL5 2HA. This will be our eleventh event. We are now open for submissions.
All information is on the SSS website -
http://stroudshortstories.blogspot.co.uk/
The US website 101Words has "tentatively" scheduled the publication of my story 'Three Legs' for Wednesday 13 January 2016.
How lovely to start 2016 with a story being accepted. I submitted 'Three Legs', an exactly 101 word story, to 101 Words yesterday (3 Jan) and received a response this morning (4 Jan). This was the response - "Thank you for your submission - what a lovely story! I enjoyed the flow and humour. We are interested in publishing it - let me get back to you with a tentative publishing date." Lovely.
I will be reading short stories and chairing/Mcing the short stories section of the 2016 Hawkesbury Upton LitFest on Saturday 23 April 2016.
My fellow judge for the spring 2016 event will be novelist, short story writer, poet, editor, non-fiction writer, reviewer, blogger and podcaster Nimue Brown with whom I judged our last event - the November 2015 sell-out Eerie Evening.
More about Nimue here -
https://druidlife.wordpress.com/about-the-author/
There's a new judge joining me for the autumn event when short fiction writer, independent/self-publication guru, Hawkesbury Upton LitFest organiser, non=fiction writer, blogger and reviewer Debbie Young judges for the first time.
More about Debbie here -
Both Nimue and Debbie have read at Stroud Short Stories in the past. I am enormously grateful to both these really busy and successful authors for giving their time so generously to our event.
There are no dates yet for the spring event (these have to be agreed with our venue, the SVA), but if you receive this email you will receive information about submissions as soon as I have it.
I can tell you that the spring event will have an open theme, max 1500 words, previously published or unpublished, Glos/South Glos authors, max two stories, "blind" judging, and, of course, it will be free to submit.
My story 'Sunday Morning' was Long Listed in the multi-story.co.uk flash fiction competition (max 500 words).
I have been invited to judge the 2016 Evesham Festival of Words Short Story Competition. This is open from 1 December 2015 to 31 March 2016.
David Penny has re-engineered the video of Moses Hardwick reading my story 'Strange Fruit - An Imagining' at the Cheltenham Literature Festival 2015 so that it is louder. It's here.
The hugely successful Stroud Short Stories Eerie evening held on 15 November was videoed by the lovely author David Penny. The videos are now available on Stroud Short Stories own YouTube channel
And on the Stroud Short Stories website http://stroudshortstories.blogspot.co.uk/
There about a minute and a half of me reading my story 'Lips' at the launch of the BSSA Anthology on the BSSA website here. Also my plate, mentioned in the story, is on the website.
The Worcestershire Literary Festival 2015 Flash Fiction Anthology entitled 'A Stash of Flashes' has been launched/published. It includes my First Prize winning entry 'Sensitive', as well as two more of my pieces 'A Hot Summer's Day' and 'The Banker'.
It' s the launch of the Worcestershire Literary Festival Flash Fiction Anthology today at Drummonds Swan With Two Necks pub in Worcester, About 20 authors will be reading. I am reading 'The Banker', 'A Hot Summer's Day' and the first prize winning piece 'Sensitive'.
All three pieces are in the Anthology.
Today my story 'Fanciful', read by actress and author Angela Wren, was broadcast for National Short Story Week on Sine FM.
Click here to listen.
Tonight I'm reading an extract from my short story 'Lips' at the launch of the Bath Short Story Anthology 2015 at Mr B's Emporium of Books, John Street, Bath, BA1 2JL from 6.45 to 8.30.
Twitter 14/11/2015
Just read Lips by @JohnHol88897218 in the@BathStoryAward Anthology. Captivating, uplifting and very funny.
The line-up of authors and ticket information is now on the SSS website for the 15 November Eerie Evening at SVA, John Street, Stroud at 8pm (doors 7.30)
I have been asked to judge the short story competition at the first Evesham Festival of Words in 2016. The Festival is 1-3 July 2016.
As runner-up in the Gloucestershire Writers' Network short story competition based on the theme Crossroads I was invited to read my story Strange Fruit - An Imagining about Billie Holiday, Lester Young and the racial equalities issues raised by the song Strange Fruit at Cheltenham Literature Festival on 11 October 2015. Unable to attend because of a holiday/my son's wedding the story was read by the actor Moses Hardwick.
Here is the video-
https://www.dropbox.com/s/s6q22lqtnqqo2n2/john-holland-strange-fruit.mp4?dl=0