The Star of the Room: Flash Fiction and Prose Poetry

A reading of flash fiction and prose poetry, with a discussion and an open mic Join authors Carrie Etter, Karen Jones, Helen McCrory, and Vik Shirley for a reading of flash fiction and prose poetry and a discussion of these exciting forms of 'sudden prose'. There will also be an open mic for flash fiction and prose poetry; bring a single work of under 300 words to read and sign up on the night. Meet the authors Carrie Etter has published five collections of poetry, a chapbook of flash fiction, and numerous essays, articles, and reviews. Her prose poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem, PN Review, Poetry Review, The Westerley, and many other journals and anthologies internationally. She has received funding for her work from Arts Council England and The Society of Authors and is currently working on a memoir. Karen Jones is a flash and short fiction writer from Glasgow. Her story 'Small Mercies' was included in Best Small Fictions 2019. She has won 1st prize in Cambridge Flash, Reflex, Flash 500 and 2nd prize in Fractured Lit’s Micro Fiction Competition. Her first novella-in-flash When It’s Not Called Making Love is published by Ad Hoc Fiction, and her ekphrastic novella-in-flash Burn It All Down is published by Arroyo Seco Press. She is a former editor of the National Flash Fiction Day Anthology. Helen McClory is a writer based in Edinburgh. Aside from The Goldblum Variations, her works include the short story collections On the Edges of Vision and Mayhem & Death, and Bitterhall, a novel. There is a moor and a cold sea in her heart. Vik Shirley is a writer from Bristol living in Edinburgh. Her recent titles include Amorous Electrons (Intergraphia, 2026), Persona Digitalia (Photoworks, 2025) and Some Deer (Broken Sleep, 2024). Her work has appeared in Poetry London, The Rialto, PN Review, Magma and Dreaming Awake: New Contemporary Prose Poetry from the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. Her photo poetry has been exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in Kensington, as well as at Poets House in New York and in Touching/Reading in Malmö. She has a PhD in Dark Humour and the Surreal in Poetry and co-edits Spite Press. In 2026 she was awarded Creative Scotland funding to complete her book of very short fictions, Inside David Lynch's Hair.