On to Bristol & the Flash Fiction Festival…

This morning as I pack for my flight to London, and onward to Bristol for this weekend’s Flash Fiction Festival at Trinity College, I feel a familiar mixture of excitement and nervousness. I have a pretty busy teaching load for the weekend. I am teaching a three-hour pre-festival session on Friday afternoon: “Embracing Your Inner Wild: Creating Untamed Flash Fiction.” Later, I’ll be reading “Collective Nouns for Humans in the Wild” in a reading of the women presenters. Then on Saturday, I will run a 30 minute “Wake Up Your Creative Brain” session with (hopefully) some inspiring, generative writing prompts open to everyone. Saturday afternoon, I will be teaching “Flash Memoir” and later will take part on a “Flash Around the World” panel discussion (my portion will be on U.S. politically-oriented flash fiction). On Sunday, I’ll teach another session of “Flash Memoir.”

I put a lot of work into my teaching and I love it, but I always have pre-workshop jitters. Maybe a touch of Imposter Syndrome, too. I know I will be surrounded by friendly faces, people I’ve known online for some time and whom I’ve come to like very much. I can’t wait for that!

Oh, also I have a new story coming out probably sometime during my flight, with 7 x 7. It’s a cool collaborative project I was asked to do with artist, Stephanie J. Ryan. It was so fun and challenging and we ended up with a ghost story entitled “Only What Haunts.” Kind of a departure for me! Have a look at their site, there’s lots of wonderful work there by Patty Yumi Cottrell and  Aimee Bender to name just a couple.

Much love. Wish me luck. <3