An Apple At The End of the Tunnel

I received wonderful news today. Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough (ACBC) Council are going ahead with their award-winning Food and Cider Festival in September 2020 (within guidelines and with social distancing, of course) and have asked us if we still wanted to be part of the programme with Flash Fiction in the Orchard. Réamonn and I were quick to say, “Yes!”

It’s going to be so great to see everyone again and to be standing at the mic (note to self – antiseptic wipes for the mic) reading to a live audience rather than on Zoom. Of course, we all know by now that nothing can be written in stone nor taken for granted, but hopefully, hopefully, we’ll be able to have a wonderful evening of companionship and storytelling soon.

So here’s what’s happening…

ACBC Council are giving us a larger venue – a barn in Long Meadow Farm. It will be heated but dress up warm! (Remember the first Flash Fiction in the Orchard? The heater was so loud we had to turn it off to hear the readers, but we didn’t mind really because the setting was so adorably quaint! )

The next Flash Fiction in the Orchard is on 24th September 2020 from 8.30pm – 10.30pm.

The deadline for submissions is one month before the date of the event, so in this case the deadline is 24th August 2020.

Please email your 200 – 750 word submission within the body of your email (no attachments please) to: [email protected] with “Flash Fiction in the Orchard 2020 Submission” in the subject line.

Réamonn Ó Ciaráin, author of Laoch na Laochra: Scéal Chúchulainn, and Chúchulainn: Ulster’s Greatest Hero, will help curate the submissions. 

It is free to enter, but please only submit one piece of work.

  • You must be available to read at the event on the evening of 24th September 2020.
  • If you are not selected for your chosen date we reserve the right to invite you to read your submission at a subsequent Flash Fiction night.

Entries are encouraged from:

  • Experienced writers
  • Authors who can extract a short section from their books
  • Irish Language writers
  • Ulster Scots writers
  • New writers
  • Poets whose poetry reads like prose

We don’t mind if you submit work that has been submitted elsewhere or that has already been published. Authors are welcome to bring copies of their books to sell.

We’re delighted to be able to offer the selected readers a small fee to read this time – we feel it is important that we pay writers for their work and especially now when so many have had sources of revenue cut off.

And by sweet coincidence, today, I ate the very first of the apples from my Beauty of Bath apple tree. They drop when they are ripe. Even though I know they are an early season variety, I was surprised that they tasted so good. My Mum talked me into getting this variety,and I’m glad I followed her advice – as per usual she was right!

My Beauty of Bath Apples

To see the type of thing we choose for our Flash Fiction events have a look at our Journal – The Bramley. Both Volume 1 and Volume 2 are available on Amazon. If you leave a review, we’d really appreciate that.

And in other news… the release of Book 2 in the Rejuvenation Trilogy is close approaching. If you haven’t yet read Rejuvenation Book 1 you can grab a copy here or through The Secret Bookshelf in Carrickfergus or in No Alibis in Belfast. Also, coming soon to a speaker near you is the audiobook for Rejuvenation Book 1… I’ll update with details as I get them.

I’ll leave you with some reviews of Rejuvenation Book 1 to whet your appetite…

Byddi Lee