"These stories by Fiona J. Mackintosh are miniature masterpieces, resonating far beyond the pages they inhabit. Mackintosh's pen is assured, her vision clear-eyed yet compassionate. Like the paintings of Edward Hopper, The Yet Unknowing World invites us all to peer into the dark, quiet corners of human yearning and to connect with the flawed, aching beauty of our own hearts." ~Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life: Collected Works from 2003-2018"The Yet Unknowing World delights in bringing the reader on gorgeous, rippling voyages to Tahiti, Scotland, Greece, and beyond. In this collection, Fiona J. Mackintosh blindsides the reader, over and over, with the beauty of her imagination. We think we are one place and, suddenly, we're lifted from the mundanity of care homes and supermarkets into a glorious elsewhere. Some of the journeys in these stories end poignantly, but many more culminate in joy. Simply stunning."~Nuala O'Connor, author of Birdie"This is the world seen differently by an exceptionally gifted writer. These are stories hell-bent on over-stepping their boundaries, and many take on added significance from the stories that surround them. It is these unexpected links that make reading this collection such an exhilarating experience. There is an astonishing historical imagination at play as the writer takes us beyond the canvas with great insight and sensitivity. The writing is so artful it will carry you off on its own wings." ~Annemarie Neary, author of Siren and The Orphans"The Yet Unknowing World is a debut flash collection of restrained poignancy and beauty. Mackintosh's economy of language, stunning sensory detail, and gift for simple, declarative narration beam the reader directly into every moment. Each story is wildly delicious, erotically mysterious, and fiercely compelling. We are in the hands of a word-painter whose mastery of character, image, and language suspends our disbelief with every brushstroke. There are emotional tapestries woven into every story, whether historical, futuristic, contemporary, or ekphrastic. Mackintosh's stories read like lyrical celebrations of being alive."~Meg Pokrass, author of The Loss Detector, series co-editor, Best Microfiction"These stories flash like lightning over the ocean, a wine bottle in the moonlight, a blade at high noon. You will be dazzled by the breadth of subject, the brevity of wit, and the depth of feeling. Mackintosh masters the form and takes you round the world."~Keith Donohue, New York Times bestselling author of The Stolen Child

The Yet Unknowing World

Literature & Fiction

Mackintosh, Fiona

Literary

Ad Hoc Fiction

Bath Short Story Award Anthology 2020

Allen, Elizabeth

Powell, Dan

Booth, Robin

Brown, L.M.

Hoffmann, Marissa

Telfer, Sharon

Munasing, Samanthi

Gibbin, Stephen

Bothwick, Justine

Coffey, Kate

Restore to Factory Settings: Bath Flash Fiction Volume Five (Bath Flash Fiction Award)

Dalcher, Christina

Storm, Hannah

Kaneen, Jan

Zambrano, Tara Isabel

Payne, Sam

Perry, Fiona

Robinson, Johanna

Cowdroy, Simon

The House on the Corner (Novella-in-Flash)

Woodhouse, Alison

When it’s Not Called Making Love (Novella-in-Flash)

Jones, Karen

For all its small scale, Echoes in a Hollow Space has the heft and reach of a saga. It traces the lives of two women of different generations, both damaged but neither fragile, and the bond that develops between them. The story is anchored in place and time, interweaving natural imagery with narrative. Though it offers no easy solutions, it is grounded in hope. 
~Jenny Woodhouse, Creative Writing Group Leader, U3A, Bath 
I thoroughly enjoyed Echoes in a Hollow Space. In her debut novella-in-flash, Ruth Skrine has created engaging characters and a compelling narrative. After finishing the novella, I frequently found myself thinking about the complex characters of Evie and Annabel, finding myself missing them both. 
~Diane Simmons, author of An Inheritance V.Press (2020)

Echoes in a Hollow Space (Novella-in-Flash)

Skrine, Ruth

In The Evolution of Birds, Sara Hills demonstrates her mastery of the short form as well as her deep understanding of the human condition. More than once I found myself holding my breath while reading these short, sharp miracles of narrative. These tiny stories, some no longer than half a page, glitter darkly, expose truths with precision and guts. Wild and raw and compellingly electric, Hills’s stories and the characters who inhabit them, will sear themselves into your heart and brain. Hills is an inimitable talent. 
~ Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life: Collected Works from 2002-2018\nSara Hills’ The Evolution of Birds bursts with addictive, kinetic prose crafted by a writer with a confident vision and the precision of a surgeon. Each of these narratives proves that fully imagined characters can evolve on a single page. Hills plumbs the depths and the horrors of family, religion, and the sinister moments of youth. This is the flash narrative at its finest. 
~ Christopher Allen, editor of SmokeLong QuarterlyThe Evolution of Birds is an extraordinary debut. In a series of riveting stories, Sara Hills immerses us deeply into the often precarious lives of girls and women — children, very young women and mothers. Hills’ style is intimate, we’re close up to life-changing experiences. Her exact, startling images sear through to truths hard to tell. There is humour too and an inventive use of form. A must-read collection. 
~ Jude Higgins, author of The Chemist’s House\nThere is a space where your breath catches in anticipation or fear or joy. Sara Hills finds that place with her debut flash fiction collection. Drawing readers in with each story, her words catch breath and life and death and grief. On each page, she serves up new images and descriptions that dig into souls, emotional and heart-rending. Each story nestles in and doesn’t let go – from mommy tigers to knitting a better mother, the relationships between life and words, the expected and the surreal create instantly-recognizable Sara Hills prose. Evocative and evolved, each story challenges the flash form and ideas with breath-catching storytelling. Hills’ chapbook could easily have been titled The Evolution of Flash. 
~ Amy Barnes, author of Mother Figures\nSara Hills is a writer of extraordinary skill. For some time, I’ve considered her to be one of my favourite flash writers and her debut collection The Evolution of Birds confirms my view. This beautifully-crafted collection should not be missed. 
~ Diane Simmons, author of Finding a Way

The Evolution of Birds (Flash Fiction)

Hills, Sara

The Listening Project (Novella-in-Flash)

McGrane, Ali

After her father is jailed for murder, a young girl is re-housed with her mother in a crumbling resort. There are terrors here: tides and quick-sands, also a strange boy who wanders the marsh. But when the girl meets an elderly beachcomber who has known heartaches of his own, she senses that her fortunes could turn like the tide. The tide that rushes in faster than a horse, bringing life – and sometimes taking it… 
‘This collection stands out for the rhythmic storytelling and the variety the reader encounters in these small fictions – told in fragments, in lists, in long breathless sentences, in repetitions, in sharp and believable dialogue. There is great care here, and yet the stories spill from the page seamlessly… A superbly designed set of stories, from beginning to end.’ 
~ Michelle Elvy, Judge, 2021 Bath Novella-in-Flash Award. 
‘Season of Bright Sorrow is a little miracle. David Swann takes a boarding house, a boy, and a bay; a girl and her mum; a scattering of glimpses and gaps; and he gives you nothing less than the universe. There’s warmth and wisdom, here. Heartbreak, profundity, and humour. And beautiful drawings, too, by Sam Hubbard. It’s a short book, and it’s absolutely full to the brim with love.’ 
~ Edward Hogan, author of The Electric (John Murray, 2020). 
‘Season of Bright Sorrow is by turns dark and foreboding, life affirming and hopeful. Each flash fiction is unique and haunting, and together they reveal our human urge for connection and certainty. Swann’s characters possess you instantly and we cannot help but enter fully into each strange and beautiful life.’ 
~ Karen Stevens, author of Writing a First Novel (Palgrave, 2014). 
‘In a series of poetically precise and illuminating flashes, this novella explores how one girl, Lana, begins to learn how to live in a world full of loss. David Swann finds a specific language for a specific landscape, and, in doing so, connects with universal themes of grief and hope. It’s beautiful. And it’s funny, too.’ 
~ Bethan Roberts, author of My Policeman (Vintage, 2012). 
‘Dave Swann’s portrayal of childhood brims over with wisdom, warmth and wonder. The coastal settings are so achingly desolate, the characterisations so astute, idiosyncratic and compassionate throughout. Season of Bright Sorrow feels note-perfect and yet it’s full of wildness and wilderness. There is an unforgettable magic at work.’ 
~ Michael Loveday, author of Three Men on the Edge (V Press, 2018).

Season of Bright Sorrow

Swann, David

A highly addictive read! I picked up Things I Can’t Tell Amma just for a taster first, and then I finished it in two reading bursts. It’s a moving novella-in-flash about the compromises a young woman has to make in order to survive and fit in a new country — but also, how she never forgets what truly matters and where she comes from. 
~ Sophie van Llewyn, author of Bottled Goods. 
There are many things that 22-year-old Deepa can’t tell her mother back in India now that she’s studying in Arizona. There are things she can’t tell the unfriendly librarian, or her shady professor, or her Indian would-be suitor, or the typist who sells her a typewriter, or prospective employers, but she’d like to tell her neighbor Theo how she feels about him. You’ll fall in love with Deepa as her story unfolds in these fifteen finely wrought flash. Warm, funny, and endearing, Sudha Balagopal’s Things I Can’t Tell Amma is a brilliant novella-in-flash, by a writer at the top of her form. 
~ Jacqueline Doyle, author of The Missing Girl. 
Told from the perspective of Deepa, a young woman who arrives as a stranger in a new country, Things I Can’t Tell Amma is an inventive novella-in-flash that explores how one navigates strange cultural norms and a yearning to belong. Even as this narrator tries to move on from her mother’s expectations, she finds her new life bewildering, adventurous, and full of heartbreak and love. Balagopal is a virtuoso of expressing the minutiae of things. A trapped quail finds its nest, the missing letter of a typewriter, the notes of a jingle from the 1980s, a limp doll hangs from a rearview mirror. This sensational novella is a gift you will want to unwrap again and again. 
~ Dan Crawley, author of Straight Down the Road and The Wind, It Swirls 
In this affecting novella in flash, a young woman leaves India to study in America. Balagopal expertly captures the tug between yearning for the familiar and wanting to find one’s place in a new world. In one flash, “The Missing I” Deepa buys a used typewriter for her term papers, only to find a broken key. When she complains, the vendor says: “Just write the damned ‘I’ in.” A clever metaphor for Deepa’s journey. The ambiguous ending left me hoping Deepa finds a way to “build a bridge across oceans.” 
~ Damhnait Monaghan, author of The Neverlands, best novella 2020 Saboteur Awards.

Things I Can’t Tell Amma (Novella-in-Flash)

Balagopal, Sudha

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