Suspicious or curmudgeonly about tiny stories? Be convinced.

You can order your copy in advance here. And why wouldn’t you? Apart from my story, there are delights from Ian Rankin, Vanessa Gebbie, Tania Hershman, a micro fiction from Ali Smith (oh yes),  and many more. Too many for me to list. Just buy the book. Hooray.

National Flash-Fiction Day is the result of a lot of love and hard work from Calum Kerr and as well as the anthology publication, the day will be marked by a series of events, competitions, meet-ups and publication oportunities all over the country. (I am pleased to say that the North-West is particularly well represented. We loves our flash up here, we do).

Get involved here.

photo by I Like

What I like best about bus stations, train stations and airports is the indeterminacy of them. The fact you’re not at home, but you’ve not arrived yet either. I have never quite got over the strangeness of almost living at Manchester Piccadilly for the few days that we were performing the Station Stories project last year. Whenever I pass through the station now, it’s the place where David dropped his birthday cards – where Tom scared us by making us see a Masonic Temple where there wasn’t one before.

These places of indeterminacy – of inbetween-ness (Edgelands is the word I am wanting to use – after reading Paul Farley and Michael Symmon Roberts’ book of the same name recently) is important to Cold Light too. There’s the bus-station, the nature reserve, the park – all the wild and at the same time not-wild places – locations but not destinations – that Carl and his girls hang out in. And the most edgelands-ish place of all – adolescence – where the rules of childhood don’t apply (you know they don’t really all live happily ever after by now, don’t you) but the ‘wisdom’ and freedom of adulthood hasn’t yet arrived. If female adolesence was a place, it would be nomansland – and just as dangerous.

Here’s an article from Sabotage Times about Preston Bus Station – one of my muses for Cold Light (you can see a bit of it in the Cold Light trailer too).

Here is one of the most detailed and thoughful reviews of Cold Light that I’ve ever received (courtesy of Libraries of Babel) – a piece of writing that, appropriately, is in a kind of edgelands of itself – not quite a review, not quite a personal essay, and something better and more interesting than either of the two. It shows how the place where we read a book (in this case, on a night bus) can colour our view of it and what we bring to it.

Slowly working through the stories of John Cheever – and after being sidetracked by Flannery O’Connor and some musings on redemptive acts of violence and the grotesque – was reminded today by Amber Paulen at Descripted Lines to go back to him.

Recently finished The Turning by Tim Winton – an author I’m ashamed to say I’d never heard of before this collection was recommended to me by a new friend. Lots of broken, scarred and hurting bodies in this one too. And much more. Am reminded, again, of what a deep well the teenage years and the homes you had during them is for a writer. As if I’d forgotten.

I am half way through On Writing Fiction: Rethinking Conventional Wisdom About The Craft by David Jauss. (In America it is called, slightly more pleasingly – Alone With All That Can Happen) A book to get your teeth into – and to disagree with – certainly. (Does that make me conventionally wise? I can only aspire to it…) Best essay on point of view I have read in a while – Jauss reminds us of what it is easy to forget, which is that point of view is about distance and not person. Apparently he’s also brilliant on present tense and epiphanies, so will look forward to that.

I don’t need to write it on a post-it – I carry that quotation from JCO around in my head with me – about her soul being as thin as a playing card, and the reading, the writing, restoring it. I have been washed out, finishing that novel. And the work it needs isn’t done yet. But it’s all there. Short stories have been bringing me back to myself and I have even been writing them.

Learn This Phrase has also reviewed both books recently – A Kind of Intimacy here, and Cold Light here.

It is really great to see both books still being read and reviewed once the initial flurry of responses in the aftermath of publication day has settled down – I know reviewing is more time consuming and tricker than it looks, so thanks, everyone. Really appreciate it.

I’ve been a bit crap at keeping up on twitter – so if you’ve recently followed me and I’ve not followed back, give me a shout and I will sort it out. I’ve been up to my eyeballs in the third novel and other things, like washing and tweeting, have had to go. Normal-ish bleating will resume soon.

Jenn Ashworth is a Preston born novelist – her first novel, A Kind Of Intimacy, was published in 2009 and won a Betty Trask award. Her second, Cold Light, came out earlier this year. Both books have been published in Europe and the US and shortlisted for a number of awards.

Jenn is also an award winning blogger and has appeared at literature festivals and events across the country. All her fiction is set in Lancashire, and during this event she’ll read from her own work, which has been critically acclaimed for its striking sense of time and place, and talk about how Lancashire has shaped her work and how her writing has shaped her sense of Lancashire.

Where: Lancaster Library, Market Square, Lancaster, LA1 1HY

When: Tuesday 22 November at 7pm

Tickets: £2 including refreshments and £1 off a copy of one of Jenn’s books.

I’ve attended the Writers’ Toolkit before – both as panel member and a participant – the things I learned and people I met at them were instrumental in me having the nerve to jack in my job and be a full time writer – so it is well worth going.

You can find out more details about booking arrangements and the sessions available here. You can read the Writing Smithy blog here.

Free Entry, limited space.

The facebook page for the event is here.

The Harvest Preston Creative Community can be found here – for creative Prestonians of all types.

There might never be a better time for a novel that gives voice to Kenneth Clarke’s “feral underclass”. Made in Britain introduces us to three young people on the brink of adult life, each desperate to escape from the depressed east Lancashire town where the book is set. These are troubled teenagers; victims of a society they are powerless to influence and who, in turn, mete out petty and not so petty injustices to the world that made them…

Here’s the latest review I wrote for The Guardian – on Gavin James Bower’s Made in Britain.

I’ll be at the festival on the 16th October, reading and talking and doing my thing. Here’s the link for the event, where you can find out more and buy tickets.

On Saturday 24th September Cheshire East Libraries, in conjunction with Time to Read, are holding a Readers and Writers Day at the Lyceum Theatre in Crewe. The theme for the day is bringing books to life and there will be a panel of bestselling authors, workshops, discussion, books to buy and book signing, and a prize draw – all Chaired by former Cheshire Poet Laureate, Jo Bell.

The author panel will include Manchester-based Cath Staincliffe, author of the Sal Kilkenny mysteries and writer of the Blue Murder TV series; S J Watson, whose haunting debut novel, Before I go to Sleep, has been highly acclaimed; Jenn Ashworth, whose first novel, A Kind of Intimacy, won a Betty Trask Award and Nigel Cawthorne, author of over eighty books, most recently A Brief History of Sherlock Holmes.
Michael Schmidt OBE FRSL, Professor of Poetry and convener of the Creative Writing programme in the Department of English, University of Glasgow and founder and editorial and managing director of Carcanet Press Ltd, will lead an after lunch debate. Michael is also general editor of PN Review.

Bringing books to life aims to cover various aspects of realising a book – from concept to finished product, whether as the printed word, electronic publication, translation or film. There should be something for everyone who loves reading and writing, as we explore bringing books to life in the beautiful Edwardian setting of the Lyceum Theatre in its centenary year. For full programme details download the Bringing Books to Life leaflet (PDF 956KB).

The day starts at 10.45am and closes at 4.30pm and tickets cost £18.00. Lunch and afternoon tea will be provided. To book please contact the Lyceum Theatre box office on 01270 537333.