I am so happy to share the cover of my debut collection of flash fiction, which will be published by V press on 24th September and is available to pre order for signed copies via my website now!!
This book brings together stories written over the past three years and the timing is particularly poignant, given the subject matter, as last weekend my sister and I scattered our mum's ashes near Leicester. I have dedicated Family Frames to her and hope she would be proud of it. It's been a long nine months since she died. I last wrote a blog in February, hoping that I, and perhaps all of us, was somehow in the beginning of a transition after the awful winter, but it hasn't felt like that and the summer has in so many ways been a slog. I've been lucky with my teaching, meeting many wonderful writers, and have enjoyed my critiquing, as it's always such a privilege when someone trusts you with their work but my own writing has been hard work: scratchy, unfocused, uncertain and I've had to hold my nerve, believing that these bits and bobs, several notebooks full and many many hours of chewing pencil ends, will in time develop into characters and stories. The process never gets easier!
Maybe now is a better time to start to look forward, even though the summer is drawing to an end and the leaves are already turning. I love September, those new notebooks and to do lists, the back to school busyness. I like the shift in weather, the colder mornings, the low hanging mist, the smell of bonfires and the earlier bedtimes! Out of all the seasons, this is the one that always feels particularly productive; the work may go unseen, happen underground, but next year will benefit from the bedding in and digging deep that we do now.
If you do order the book I'd love to hear what you think about it! There will be celebration cake pictures on the 24th and any pre orders will be dispatched at the beginning of publication week.
Many thanks!
Alison x
