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I'm very excited to have a story published in the recent Hint Fiction anthology. The books contains stories of 25 words or fewer and I am thrilled to be published alongside people like Jonathan Carroll, Joe Lansdale and Peter Straub.

I'm fascinated by how small a story can be. Much very short fiction is disappointing, little more than summaries. But when someone gets it right, the effect is stunning, like the Baby Shoes story that is often attributed to Ernest Hemingway. So simple, yet so surprising. The anthology's editor, Robert Swartwood, says that Hint Fiction "should be complete by standing by itself as its own little world", and the book contains some great examples.

There's an interesting discussion at The Millions here and a New Yorker review here. The latter includes some examples, including Bob Thurber's Shipwrecked and LR Bonehill's Cull, two of my favourites from the book.

People who follow the weblog or twitter will know how much I fret about writing author biographies. Hint fiction has 25 word biographies for each of the writer, and Michael Martone's entry is the best example I have seen yet.

Thanks to Robert Swartwood for organising the anthology.

I'm a little tardy in posting this, but I have an article in the first issue of Friction magazine, which is published by the Newcastle Center for the Literary Arts:

"If the current growth in creative writing courses continues for another 70 years, more people will be learning to write than taking driving lessons.

This unlikely and invented statistic underlines a genuine problem. I am bombarded with invitations to paid creative writing workshops and courses. While some of these are probably excellent, the barrage of announcements makes me want to weep. (If you’re attending or, please god, holding a course in social media ‘platforms’ for writers, you need to stop and think about your life)." (More here)

There are some fascinating pieces in the first issue. My favourite was Alex Lockwood's article on The Responsibilities of the Novelist, which discusses Nick Royle's novel Quilt and Scarlett Thomas' The End of Mr Y. I enjoyed reading Nick's novel and it's good to see a thoughtful response. There's also a fascinating story by Max Dunbar.

Someone once asked Raymond Carver how he wrote his stories. Carver replied "I write the first sentence, and then I write the next sentence and then the next."

On Saturday, we held the fourth and final session in this season's Brighton Creative Writing Sessions events. People worked throughout the day on writing stories, starting with first sentences and building on them until a story was completed.

The first part of the day was spent coming up with first lines. Ellen and I provided prompts, as well as a 'magic box' filled with inspiring objects. We heard some strange and provocative ideas. Selecting the most promising from these, people then produced first paragraphs. 

In the afternoon, everyone took their favourite opening and developed it into a finished piece. The session was intensive, with lots of writing, so Ellen and I provided distractions to give people a chance to relax, including party poppers, fortune telling fish and sweets. Despite the hard work, everyone seemed to have a great time, and we heard some fascinating stories.

Running the four sessions in this season has been fun. We've met some fantastic people and enjoyed leading the groups. We were particularly excited when one of the students arrived for the session with home-made cake. Thanks, Sandy!

We have one more session planned for the year, about the Tarot and Writing which we should be announcing soon. We are also going to be involved with something exciting for White Night. Details to follow…