Dear all,
We are excited to announce a Save The Date for the 8th Annual ENSFR Conference. The conference will be held at the University of Artois (Northern France) on the 10-12th of June 2026. The title of the conference is: ‘In Different Shapes: the short story and its modes of circulation in magazines and newspapers’.
Keep your eyes peeled for more information and the CFP coming soon.
A series of interviews from Andrea Marzocchi at the University of Surrey. Andrea discusses the short story form with academics, writers, publishers, and anyone who shares a passion for short stories. Previous episodes have included Michael Collins, Tom Conaghan, Michael Basseler and short story author Heuijung Hur. In the latest conversation he talks to Andrew…
Submissions are now open to the Scratch A4 Summer ’25 1000 word short story competition! Come and explore the rich and exhilarating possibilities of the short, short story – the six shortlisted writers reading their stories in the biannual event in Soho, London in June. This year’s judges are: Denise Rose Hansen, editorial…
On November 6, 2025, the ENSFR and PesText – International Literary and Cultural Festival hosted an online workshop on “Flash in Translation: Uncanny Objects”. The event was jointly organised by Robert Smid, Paul Knowles, Ines Gstrein and Ildikó Hepp. Eleven writers from four countries – Hungary, Austria, the United Kingdom and France – were invited…
The Biannual Scratch A4 writing competition has just opened! It’s a superb competition celebrating stories 1000 words long or less – culminating in the Scratch A4 event in Soho on Saturday 6th December. The prestigious judges are: Harriet Armstrong – author of To Rest Our Minds and Bodies; Steven Evans – Literary Agent at The…
Which short-story last made you cry – for good reasons? Good question, because I thought I would be able to answer it easily. I thought about anthologies and collections and favourite writers and came up blank. I reread Jamaica Kincaid’s ‘Blackness’ and remained dry eyed. The short story is my favourite form, and I cry…
The contemporary American short story lives in a context where ‘short’ has tended towards the increasingly economic. Alongside a renewed interest in flash fiction, the 21st century has witnessed an explosion in literary terse forms extending within the web of the digital age, such as twitterature and nano-fiction. Beyond the written form, YouTube launched its…