Happy National Flash Fiction Day!!!

HAPPY NATIONAL FLASH FICTION DAY!!!

To celebrate National Flash Fiction Day 2019, V. Press is delighted to offer a special flash fiction pamphlet offer.

Our 'double delight' flash fiction pamphlet duo means UK-based readers can get Damhnait Monaghan's The Neverlands together with Paul McDonald's Midnight Laughter for just £12.

The offer, which includes postage and packing, runs until the end of the month and is available for UK-delivery only. Please use the Paypal button below to purchase this.

'Double Delight Flash Fiction Pamphlet Duo' (UK delivery only)

NEW FLASH REVIEWS

The Neverlands

"Monaghan draws these characters and their hardscrabble existence with a skilled hand, taking care to grant readers intermittent moments of dark humor and optimism. This slim pamphlet contains unblinking truths about families, motherhood, childhood, poverty, and manages to make readers feel as though they’ve read an epic novel about Nuala and Mammy in just a handful of words."

Frannie Mcmillan, SmokeLong Quarterly, full review here

Midnight Laughter

"This is the perfect collection for someone who wants to read and think, to get something out of the time they put in to reading: weird and wonderful, seductive and strange."

Jon Wilkins, Everybody's Reviewing, full review here

FLASH READERS' NOTES & EVENTS

Following on from the new print run and shortlisting of Michael Loveday's flash fiction novella Three Men on the Edge, V. Press is delighted to share the reader's notes and potential discussion points that he has put together for book groups here. (And you can find details of a range of Michael's forthcoming events below.)

FLASH FICTION FESTIVAL - Sunday, 30 June

V. Press is delighted to be taking part in the 'Publishing with an Indie Press' event at this year's , Flash Fiction Festival at Trinity College Bristol, Stoke Hill, Stoke Bishop, 2.45-3.45pm. This event is part of the weekend festival – full details on booking can be found on the festival website at https://www.flashfictionfestival.com/. Diane Simmons, whose debut flash fiction collection Finding A Way was published by Ad Hoc Fiction in February 2019, Damhnait Monaghan, whose debut flash fiction chapbook The Neverlands was published in April 2019 by V. Press, and Susmita Bhattacharya published by Dahlia Press will talk about their journeys to publication and what has happened in the few months since. With publishers Jude Higgins from Ad Hoc Fiction, Sarah Leavesley from V. Press and Farhana Shaikh from Dahlia Press. Diane, Damhnait and Susmita will read samples from their collections and there will be Q and A.

ALSO at the festival:

Saturday, June 29: Michael Loveday (author of Three Men on the Edge) chairs a panel discussion / Q&A on the Novella in Flash with Meg Pokrass, Charmaine Wilkerson, and two writers from this year's Bath Flash Fiction Novella-in-Flash Awards: Ellie Walsh and Johanna Robinson.

Sunday, June 30: Michael Loveday (author of Three Men on the Edge) runs a writing workshop on "Flash Fiction Sequences".

OTHER FLASH EVENTS

Malmesbury Festival , Sunday, August 11, 10am-1pm, Michael Loveday (author of Three Men on the Edge) runs a writing workshop on prose poetry, flash fiction and the cross-over between them.

Retreat West Flash Fiction Retreat , November 18-24, Michael Loveday (author of Three Men on the Edge) teaches some workshops on the novella-in-flash at the 6-day retreat.

More Festival & Other News...

"I'm trying to write the stories not only of how my family suffered, but how they survived": Natalie Linh Bolderston talks to activist writer and poet Alice Hiller about witnessing, and healing, in The Protection of Ghosts. The full interview with Natalie can be found here.









WORCESTERSHIRE LITFEST - Tuesday, June 11 to Friday, June 14

V. Press is very pleased to have a selection of titles available at special ‘festival’ prices at Worcestershire Litfest’s 2019 LitFest Hub from Tuesday June 11 to Friday, June 14. The Litfest Hub will host the book shop, an illustration exhibition, and day time poetry performances too and can be found at The Old Pheasant, 25 New St, Worcester, WR1 2DP from Tuesday 11th to Friday 14th June from 12 noon to 6pm and Saturday 15th from 12 noon for the Festival Finale, Slams and Raffle. There are also special evening events from 7:30pm on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. More about this year’s festival and the bookshop can be found here.

FLASH FICTION FESTIVAL - Sunday, 30 June

V. Press is delighted to be taking part in the 'Publishing with an Indie Press' event at this year's , Flash Fiction Festival at Trinity College Bristol, Stoke Hill, Stoke Bishop, 2.45-3.45pm. This event is part of the weekend festival – full details on booking can be found on the festival website at https://www.flashfictionfestival.com/. Diane Simmons, whose debut flash fiction collection Finding A Way was published by Ad Hoc Fiction in February 2019, Damhnait Monaghan, whose debut flash fiction chapbook The Neverlands was published in April 2019 by V. Press, and Susmita Bhattacharya published by Dahlia Press will talk about their journeys to publication and what has happened in the few months since. With publishers Jude Higgins from Ad Hoc Fiction, Sarah Leavesley from V. Press and Farhana Shaikh from Dahlia Press. Diane, Damhnait and Susmita will read samples from their collections and there will be Q and A.


LEDBURY POETRY FESTIVAL - Sunday, 14 July 

This year's Ledbury Poetry Festival includes three V. Press poets, Margaret Adkins, John Lawrence and Brenda Read-Brown, giving FREE 20-minute readings on Sunday, July 14.

Photo by Leah Adkins

20 Minutes with… Margaret Adkins
12:20 pm - 12:40 pm

Margaret Adkins will read from her debut pamphlet, Mingled Space. It won the inaugural V. Press Poetry Prize in association with the University of Worcester, and was launched in May. These poems inhabit real and imagined everyday spaces. Other work features in recent issues of Under the Radar and Prole magazines.

20 Minutes with… John Lawrence
3:20 pm - 3:40 pm

John Lawrence will read from his V. Press debut collection The boy who couldn't say his name. His poems are packed with heart, humour, and a unique slant on everyday life. The Poetry Book Society Spring Bulletin reviewed The boy who couldn't say his name as ‘… a thoroughly enjoyable debut collection. Running the full gamut of the comic and the tragic...’

Photo by Andy Smith

20 Minutes with… Brenda Read-Brown
5:20 pm - 5:40 pm

A look at the sharper edges of life, love and laughter, performance poet Brenda Read-Brown has turned to the page with her new collection, Like love (V Press). “The poems in Like love are uncluttered. They are simple, profound, and immensely touching...” Brian Patten. "These poems remind me of the tingles. I’m so happy to feel them. This collection makes me want to run outside, kiss, fall in leaves and then write.” Hollie McNish

Romalyn Ante is also a Nine Arches/Poetry School Primers:Volume Three poet reading on Saturday, July 13. (You can find details of her V. Press pamphlet Rice & Rain which won the Saboteur Awards 2018 Best Poetry Pamphlet here.)


(Thanks to Herefordshire Libraries who are supporting these readings.) The festival runs from Friday, July 5 to Sunday, July 14 and you can check out the full festival programme here.