Before the Earthquake, After The Retreat: National Flash Fiction Day 2026

In 2026, I decided to enter both the National Flash Fiction Day (NFFD) competition (for stories under 300 words) and the associated international Micro Madness competition (for stories under 100 words). It turned out to be a good decision, as my story “Before The Earthquake” placed third in the NFFD competition, while my story “The Retreat” was longlisted in the Micro Madness competition.

The results were announced on National Flash Fiction Day, 22 June – the shortest day of the year. The Wellington event was held at Newtown Library, ably organised by Constance Phua, with judges Ingrid Horrocks and Tim Saunders in attendance. It was a great night!

You can now read the winning stories, and watch them being read, at the excellent Flash Frontier site:

National Flash Fiction Day results and stories, including “Before The Earthquake”: https://flashfrontier.com/june-2026-national-flash-fiction-day/

Micro Madness stories, including “The Retreat”: https://nationalflash.org/2026-micro-madness/

National Flash Fiction Day logo, showing a quill superimposed on a green circle with a white border against a light blue background. the green circle has "NFFD" in white lettering superimposed upon it.

My congratulations to all the longlisted, shortlisted, and winning entrants, and my thanks to the judges, and to the organisers, who do an enormous amount of work each year to make this competition a national – and international – success!

Borges in Spain, Extreme Weather Events, Interviews, JAAM 27, and Summer Flings

Borges in Spain

My brief review of Jorge Luis Borges’ Selected Poems has been reprinted in the Spanish/English online literary magazine Yareah.com, in their fifth issue, which focuses on the intriguing and apt combination of Borges and the Kabbalah.

This is the third issue of Yareah I have seen, and they are always interesting. Yareah is keen for more contributors, and if you do contribute, you get a rather nice online profile on their site – so, if you are intrigued, check them out.

Extreme Weather Events Reviewed

Mike Crowl has posted a review of my first short fiction collection, Extreme Weather Events, on his blog. Mike chose EWE as the book to take with him on a recent visit to hospital – as you’ll see from his blog post, I did suggest that EWE wasn’t the ideal post-op book, being quite dark and all, but he got a fair bit out of it all the same.

Author Interviews: 2008 revisited, and my first interview for 2009

Within the next week or so, I’ll be posting an interview with New Zealand author Sue Emms on my blog. I will be aiming to run roughly one per month this year, assuming enough willing victims fall into my net. In case you haven’t seen them, or are feeling nostalgic, I ran interviews in 2008 with the following authors:

Helen Lowe
Harvey Molloy
Helen Rickerby
Jeanne Bernhardt
Tania Hershman
Lee and Nogi Aholima

JAAM 27 Reminder

A wee reminder that submissions for Issue 27 of JAAM magazine, edited by Ingrid Horrocks, close at the end of March.

Things I’ve Been Enjoying Lately

A carefree late-summer selection …