BackStory: Five Questions with Ellen Goldstein Author of Marie Curie’s Kitchen What inspired you to write this “Marie Curie’s Kitchen”? I read Barbara Goldsmith’s Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie (UK / US), and was struck by the…
Marie Curie’s Kitchen
Marie Curie’s Kitchen by Ellen Goldstein One pane of sunlight is all that is kept warm on the stove now that your father is gone, his bones light-shattered beneath a Paris carriage. After a while you stop trying to cook;…
BackStory: Five Questions with Amy Barnes
BackStory: Five Questions with Amy Barnes Author of The Garden Statue What inspired you to write ‘The Garden Statue’? I read an article on 18th century monks that lived in gardens as precursors to garden gnomes. But there was more…
2018 Microfiction Competition: World War I
FlashBack Fiction is holding a microfiction competition to commemorate the centenary of the end of World War I. We are looking for flash, prose poetry and hybrid work of up to 100 words (excluding title) on the theme of WW1.…
The Garden Statue
The Garden Statue by Amy Barnes The lady of the house pays me not to move. It isn’t enough for her to have garden statues made of stone. To have a genteel party, there must be living statues. There are…
BackStory: Five Questions with Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon
BackStory: Five Questions with Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon Author of Gutted What inspired you to write ‘Gutted’? I was involved our local Workers’ Educational Association’s ‘Turbulent Times Project’ which looked at the decade after the end of the World War…
Gutted
Gutted by Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon The telegram came one cold Friday in September, and within minutes Stella knocked on the door of my Ladies’ Boarding House. ‘Rachel,’ she said. ‘Wor lad. He’s missing. Missing in action.’ ‘My poor hinny,’ I said. She collapsed into my arms,…
BackStory: Five Questions with Olivia Fitzsimons
BackStory: Five Questions with Olivia Fitzsimons Author of Shoes in the Wall What inspired you to write ‘Shoes in the Wall’? I renovated a cottage from 1920s a few years ago and my dad mentioned that there might be shoes…
Shoes in the Wall
Shoes in the Wall by Olivia Fitzsimons They took his shoes, they slipped them from his feet and placed them in the wall, beside the lintel of the door. They cut the wattle away as I lay drowned in my bed,…
BackStory: Five Questions with Kate Finegan
BackStory: Five Questions with Kate Finegan Author of The Fire She Feels What inspired you to write ‘The Fire She Feels’? The line from Hamilton (which is basically my brain’s soundtrack) where Angelica says, “It’s Ben Franklin with the key…