poetry & flash fiction that is very very: Fiction

Welcome to V. Press Flash Fiction

Here you can find details of our flash fiction titles. To find pamphlets/chapbooks or books by a particular writer, please visit our Writers/Illustrators page, where authors are listed alphabetically according to their surname. Further information about selected individual titles may also be found in The Reading Room and on the Chez Nous page.

For our poetry titles, please click here.

N.B. We can no longer sell to the EU. Any other international customs/duty charges are the buyer's responsibility.

THE NEVERLANDS

“The Neverlands, a virtuoso mosaic of microfictions by Damhnait Monaghan, tells the story of Nuala, a child caught in the crossfire of her parents' troubled marriage. This is a family epic in flash form, masterfully and movingly distilled, both devastating and hopeful. A gorgeous debut.”
Kathy Fish

“The Neverlands is a heart-tugger of a collection. In pitch-perfect colloquial prose, Damhnait Monaghan waltzes us through the sorrows of a poverty-stricken Irish family, who struggle to love each other well. Funny, clever, warm and sad, this is a beautiful book.”
Nuala O’Connor

The interconnected stories in The Neverlands are very raw and very real.

WINNER of SABOTEUR AWARDS 2020 BEST NOVELLA!

36 pages
ISBN: 978-1-0682701-6-1

First edition, second printing (bound)*
R.R.P.: £7.50

A sample flash and review extracts can be read here.

PRE-ORDER a bound version of The Neverlands NOW using the paypal options below. [This bound version of The Neverlands is out summer 2026; pre-orders will be sent out in the week of publication.]

N.B. We can no longer sell to the EU. Any other international customs/duty charges are the buyer's responsibility.

* First edition, second printing (bound) means no significant changes to the flashes inside compared to the 2019 saddlestitch (stapled) version but the format and cover design have been updated to a paperback (spined) version.

ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN EBOOK IN THE U.K. AND INTERNATIONALLY ON KINDLE through Amazon, including Amazon.co.uk here and Amazon.com here.

BEREFT OF REASON

“Diane Simmons is an accomplished writer with an excellent eye for period detail and an acute ear for dialect, both on display in her latest, dazzling work, Bereft of Reason. Set at the tail end of the nineteenth century, the story concerns a horrific crime and explores the rippling consequences experienced by both family and the wider community. Simmons steps seamlessly between characters, never allowing the reader to settle in judgement. In so doing, she enlarges our capacity for empathy, even when faced with an abhorrent act. This is a well paced, page turner peopled with distinct characters I won’t soon forget.” Alison Woodhouse

“Bereft of Reason uses a fascinating ensemble cast structure to tell a compelling story about a crime in the 1890s. The multiple points of view allow Diane Simmons to work through a variety of male and female perspectives upon the central event, in a way that draws out implications and rewarding resonances for our contemporary world. Simmons fuses plot, action and dialogue so skilfully for character-led dramatic realism, as fans of her four previous novellas-in-flash will know. But in effortlessly wielding an ensemble cast structure to deliver a study of how society deals with crime, it feels like Simmons is expanding her writing – and the genre of historical flash fiction – in brand new ways. It’s wonderful to see.” Michael Loveday

Bereft of Reason is very compelling and very shocking.

ISBN: 978-1-0682701-4-7
38 pages

£7.50

A sample flash may be enjoyed here.

BUY Bereft of Reason NOW using the paypal options below.

N.B. We can no longer sell to the EU. Any other international customs/duty charges are the buyer's responsibility.

SUM OF HER PARTS

“Laura Besley’s tiny, enormous, sharp, dark, witty, surreal, moving, brave, joyous hybrid pieces will slip and slice into your heart, your mind, your softest parts and leave you feeling as if you have been deliciously dissected, seen, heard and put back together. Here is pain, here is insight, here is redemption.”
Tania Hershman

“Laura Besley's sum of her PARTS is satisfying and jarring. I love the sparsity of her language and her ability to bring so much to the page. Her words are surprising, absurd at times, but also full of the contradictory feelings many women have on a day-to-day basis. It's easy to see parts of you in these pages; it's both beautiful and unnerving.”
Nikki Dudley

Sum of her PARTS is very tiny and very fierce.

ISBN: 978-1-7394122-8-9

36 pages

R.R.P. £7.50

A sample from sum of her PARTS can be enjoyed here.

BUY sum of her PARTS NOW using the paypal options below.

N.B. We can no longer sell to the EU. Any other international customs/duty charges are the buyer's responsibility.

THE TRAJECTORY OF GHOSTS

“Tom Vowler takes us into the thick of the moment with slow confident detail that makes us poise within time, where actions have distinct consequences and there is a path taken through havoc. He captures what happens at the intersection of human fragility and the might of nature, using language that caresses and haunts.”

Catherine McNamara

“Beautifully written bite-sized stories, exploring ghosts and hauntings and loss. Stimulating and satisfying – a splendid collection.”
Alison Moore

The Trajectory of Ghosts is very ethereal and very necessary.

ISBN: 978-1-7394122-3-4
36 pages
R.R.P. £6.99

A sample flash fiction from The Trajectory of Ghosts can be enjoyed here.

BUY The Trajectory of Ghosts NOW using the paypal options below.

N.B. We can no longer sell to the EU. Any other international customs/duty charges are the buyer's responsibility.

FIFTEEN BRIEF MOMENTS IN TIME

“A book of unexpected insights and extraordinary grace, rippling with loveliness, sorrow, and finesse. All taking place in one room, bound by a single unraveling ribbon of time.”

David Eagleman

“Charter balances the light but rich ideas of philosophy and time with well-drawn if flawed characters, hustling and striving, and wishing for better lives. As one of them says, ‘There are no checks at the door. Anyone can walk in and expand their mind.’ I’m glad I took my seat for this novella and surrounded myself with the sounds and actions of its characters.”

Tommy Dean

Fifteen Brief Moments in Time is a very fast and very philosophical novella-in-flash.

ISBN: 978-1-7398838-0-5
52 pages
R.R.P. £7.99

A sample of the flash can be enjoyed here.

NOW OUT OF STOCK

FAMILY FRAMES

“Family Frames, the debut flash fiction collection by Alison Woodhouse, is like a treasured album of photographs you’ll want to return to again and again to discover more detail and depth. Each story is exquisitely composed. With vivid and evocative images of place and time, Woodhouse shows the distance, closeness and heartbreak within family relationships. The collection is satisfyingly framed with slightly different versions of the same story, placed at the beginning and the end. The subtle yet powerful variations in the second version emphasise one of the themes of the book – how fierce love can carry a family through anything that life brings.” Jude Higgins

“To quote from one of the titles in this fine collection, ‘home is not a place, but a feeling’. This is a moving exploration of family dynamics and the feelings that home engenders. Myths jostle with memory, siblings grieve together or alone, marriages end, parents disappoint. There is loss and sacrifice, grief and sorrow, but above all, a fierce love that binds families together. Beautiful and poignant.” Damhnait Monaghan

These flash fictions explore the power we possess to shift our relationships by examining our memories, questioning fixed narratives, revealing new perspectives. Family Frames is very raw and very relatable.

ISBN: 978-1-8380488-5-3

48 pages

R.R.P. £7.50

A sample flash fiction from Family Frames can be enjoyed here.

BUY Family Frames NOW using the paypal options below.

N.B. We can no longer sell to the EU. Any other international customs/duty charges are the buyer's responsibility.

SET A CROW TO CATCH A CROW

“These are stories that pulse with transformation, visceral, lush, and sound-rich. In Holmes’ lyrically-charged short fictions, worlds tilt, horizons thrum and yearnings come unmoored, and the language pulls us close to the bloodstream of her characters, feeling for their pressure-points, their broken wings. Their land and homescapes leap to life around them, set alight by breath-catching images that bind us into the textures and electrons of each scene, skin and earth, creek, board and bone. Each brief diorama in this volume delivers us a ‘quivering glint’ of characters caught in slipstream instants, lingering on the verge of fission, or hauled into ‘dark runnels of the heart’ where currents of longing and threat inescapably converge. Holmes’ writing rubs the fibres of life between our fingers, so we feel its restlessness and wonder.” Tracey Slaughter

“The stories that fill Mary-Jane Holmes’ Set a Crow to Catch a Crow are perfect, precise, highly burnished narrative shards that describe a moment in time but imply both what came before this moment and very likely may come after. It might only be a grain you are offered but you get a whole world. It is only writing of a very high order can pull off the feat that is pulled off here.” Carlo Gébler

Set a Crow to Catch a Crow is very textured and very liminal.

ISBN: 978-1-8380488-4-6

36 pages

R.R.P. £6.50

A sample flash fiction from Set a Crow to Catch a Crow can be enjoyed here.

CURRENTLY OUT OF STOCK IN PRINT FORMAT BUT AVAILABLE AS AN EBOOK IN THE U.K. AND INTERNATIONALLY ON KINDLE through Amazon, including Amazon.co.uk here and Amazon.com here.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND SYNDROME

“There could be no more apt title for Meg Pokrass's collection of brilliant and brilliantly disquieting flash fictions than 'Alice in Wonderland Syndrome', a condition in which objects appear larger or smaller than they should. Pokrass's stories are so much greater than their word count, entire worlds, but they also make the tiniest moments vital, enormous. Here, people – and, once, a rat – are on the edges of things; there is no settling in these worlds, as in ours, and animals are often more reassuring than humans. Is the ‘she’ who recurs in the stories Alice herself, or many Alices? Or is she us, trying to find our footing, to shrink and to grow, to restore some balance in a world that is forever tilting?”

Tania Hershman

“‘…there is always a story inside a story inside a dog…’ With dreamlike clarity, these beautifully choreographed stories slip, delve and spiral in and out of the quotidian and the surreal with such deftness and precision that like Alice in her wonderland, suddenly you find yourself catching your breath in the light and dark of a world both familiar and yet deliciously unsettling. Pokrass has once again produced an exquisite collection for our enjoyment.”

Mary Jane Holmes

Alice In Wonderland Syndrome is very tender yet very naughty.

ISBN: 978-1-9161096-3-6
36 pages
R.R.P. £6.50

A sample flash can be enjoyed here.

BUY a print copy of Alice In Wonderland Syndrome NOW using the paypal link below for U.K. delivery.

Currently, international shipping for this title is more expensive than usual, due to Covid-19 related issues. International customers are encouraged to use the cheaper eBook options for this title, through Amazon (link below the paypal button).

N.B. We can no longer sell to the EU. Any other international customs/duty charges are the buyer's responsibility.

Alice In Wonderland Syndrome is also available internationally (outside of the U.K.) as an eBook on Kindle through Amazon here.

AN INHERITANCE

“An Inheritance is a gem of a novella. It succeeds in spanning seventy years and four generations of one family, exquisitely capturing their relationships, secrets and divided loyalties. The historical changes wrought by each decade are delicately interwoven throughout the twists and turns within the family’s life. This captivating narrative will make you weep and smile.”

Joanna Campbell

“Despite large secrets and larger financial woes, one family’s superior love, kindness and understanding pulls them through the hardest of times, from generation to generation. An Inheritance is a poignant heart-warmer of a novella-in-flash and is a useful lesson in the importance of kindness in this life.”

Nuala O’Connor

An Inheritance is very readable and very intriguing.

SHORTLISTED for SABOTEUR AWARDS 2020 BEST NOVELLA!

A sample flash from the pamphlet can be found here.

ISBN: 978-1-9161096-5-0
44 pages
R.R.P. £6.50

BUY An Inheritance NOW using the paypal link below.

N.B. We can no longer sell to the EU. Any other international customs/duty charges are the buyer's responsibility.

THE NEVERLANDS

The interconnected stories in The Neverlands are very raw and very real.

WINNER of SABOTEUR AWARDS 2020 BEST NOVELLA!

A sample flash can be read here.

36 pages
ISBN:978-1-9165052-6-1
RRP £6.50
NB cover design above is the Kindle version.

CURRENTLY OUT OF STOCK IN PRINT FORMAT BUT AVAILABLE AS AN EBOOK IN THE U.K. AND INTERNATIONALLY ON KINDLE through Amazon, including Amazon.co.uk here and Amazon.com here.

MIDNIGHT LAUGHTER

The short fiction in Midnight Laughter is very funny and very unsettling…

“These are fantastic, absurd, coruscating, disturbing and laugh-out-loud funny gobbets of communication from journeys into that bizarre realm between dream and reality. Brilliant testaments to the power of the human imagination and the mad computer of the brain, each of these little detonations of alluring oddness make the world seem simultaneously stranger and sounder than it is. Superb stuff.” Niall Griffiths

“I absolutely loved Midnight Laughter and will be pressing it upon everyone I know. These are precision cut gems of stories – little shards of darkness, pathos, unexpected tenderness and wicked humour. A beautifully crafted collection.” Catherine O’Flynn

A sample flash from the pamphlet can be found here.

36 pages
ISBN: 978-1-9165052-5-4
RRP £6.50

BUY Midnight Laughter NOW using the paypal options below.

N.B. We can no longer sell to the EU. Any other international customs/duty charges are the buyer's responsibility.

THERE'S SOMETHING MACROCOSMIC ABOUT ALL OF THIS

The short fiction in There’s Something Macrocosmic About All of This by Santino Prinzi is very human and very heart-provoking.

“Hilarious, playful, profound and fierce, these stories ring with wonder at the messy world of sex and love. Prinzi's fiction is addictive because of their unflinching sensuality and sharp attention to emotional detail.” Meg Pokrass

“InThere's Something Macrocosmic About All of This, Santino Prinzi looks for the big truths in everyday moments. From coming out to falling out, each of these stories is a nuanced study of human nature – full of insight and wit.” Christopher Allen

40 pages

R.R.P. £6.50

A sample story from There's Something Macrocosmic About All of This may be enjoyed be here.

BUY a copy of There's Something Macrocosmic About All of This now using the paypal options below.

THREE MEN ON THE EDGE

Three Men on the Edge is a flash fiction novella by Michael Loveday featuring three men living on the edge of London.

The story of the three men – Gus, Denholm and Martyn – is narrated in three distinctive sections: Denholm – Cause for Alarm; Gus – The Invisible World; Martyn – Chewing Glass.

“A beautifully crafted novella-in-flash, small and perfect slices of life written with skill and heart.” Kit de Waal

“In his debut novella Michael Loveday sketches with a delicate brush the colourful lives of three troubled men living on the edge of London. With poetic language and emotional precision, Loveday writes like a cartographer about the wilderness we call ‘the human heart’.” Meg Pokrass

“This is a novella full of the aches and bruises left by loneliness. It's written in fragments, like a bottle smashed during a solitary boozing session, but it coheres around the vividly captured edgeland that haunts the three men. This a heart-felt book, but its prose is controlled by a steely intelligence. It's funny, too – and moving and scary. Michael Loveday is a name to watch. He's writing a new kind of fiction.” David Swann

Three Men on the Edge is very richly shaded and very unconventional.

Shortlisted in Saboteur Awards 2019 Best Novella category!!!

92 pages

R.R.P. £9.99

Sample flashes from each of the three sections of the novella may be enjoyed here.

BUY a copy of Three Men on the Edge now using the paypal button below.

WALKING BACKWARDS

The short fiction in Walking Backwards by Charlie Hill is very human and very distinctive.

"With Walking Backwards Charlie Hill gives us dense fragments of closely-observed lives, obsessive interiors and broken, unspoken loves. The result is touching, funny, melancholy.” AL Kennedy

“Charlie Hill dissects the solitary, dignified struggles of day to day life with great tenderness – his stories are beautiful and moving, a balance of cool observation and tenderness. A brilliant collection.” Catherine O'Flynn

“Charlie Hill writes artfully about the gaps between people, of those caught out by love or hushed by pain, or others seeking order within chaos, solace in the face of change.” Catherine McNamara

The title story from the collection may be enjoyed here.

R.R.P. £6.50

NOW SOLD OUT

THE CHEMIST'S HOUSE

The short fiction in The Chemist’s House by Jude Higgins is very evocative and very colourful.

“A collection that pokes softly at the spaces between people: sister, brother, father, mother, neighbour, friend. Higgins’ stories reveal moments where small truths, and lies, dwell. Understated and quiet, these small fictions paint lives gently, but oh so colourfully.” Michelle Elvy

“In interconnected, finely wrought flash fiction stories, Jude Higgins creates a coming-of-age tapestry — of family love and conflict; and of a girl’s passage into womanhood. Higgins' flash pieces blend into one masterly and moving whole: poignant, loving, and profound in emotional impact.” Meg Pokrass

A sample story from this pamphlet, 'Out of bounds', can be found here.

BUY a copy of The Chemist's House now, using the paypal link below.

N.B. We can no longer sell to the EU. Any other international customs/duty charges are the buyer's responsibility.

NOW AVAILABLE AS AN EBOOK IN THE U.K. AND INTERNATIONALLY ON KINDLE through Amazon, including Amazon.co.uk here and Amazon.com here.

HOMETOWN

Hometown is a pamphlet of short fictions by Carrie Etter, published in April 2016, and V. Press's first flash fiction title.

Hometown brims with emotion-charged stories, distinctive characters and situations of hidden and not-so-hidden tensions in everyday lives in the American Midwest. From characters’ differing sense of responsibility to themselves, their friends and their families, to the wide-ranging aftermath of a white man’s accidental killing of a black man in central Illinois, these flash fictions illuminate the daily struggle of being human. Hometown proves very immediate and very engaging from start to finish.

"Etter's stories climb into your head and reboot it from the inside, from the squealingly joyous to the darkly sad, some with gear changes that fling you backwards in your seat, some told in voices so strong you could lean against them, and then some fragile, as if the page held nothing but the faint impression of a delicate and long-dead insect. I can't wait for more." David Gaffney

R.R.P. £6.50

Buy a copy of Hometown now:

Pages

Fiction

WALKING BACKWARDS

THE CHEMIST'S HOUSE

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