Welcome to the fifth and final of our series of interviews with this year’s National Flash Fiction Day Anthology Editors and Microfiction Competition Judges! Submissions for the Anthology and Microfiction Competition are open until 15 February 2026.
This week, Diane Simmons chats with Emily Devane, one of this year’s Microfiction Competition judges, about various topics inlcuding desert islands, favourite fiction, and her advice to new flash writers….
DS: Thank you for agreeing to be a Microfiction Competition judge. With flashes of a hundred words or under, the title can do a great deal of work for the writer. Are there any other tips you can give someone who perhaps has never written such a short flash before?
ED: I love how versatile microfiction can be. I’d suggest reading past winners on the NFFD website to get an idea of what’s possible. Micro suggests smallness of story, but I’ve seen everything from stories about a glancing moment to stories that convey a whole life. In many ways, it’s like a puzzle. It’s wise to use words precisely and let them do double duty – so a descriptive word might be chosen because it also creates character, or sets a particular tone, or hints at layers beneath the surface. I’m also a fan of particularity and playfulness. Those are the stories that stay in my mind long after reading.
DS: As well as being a writer, you are a teacher and book seller. It must be wonderful to meet some of your favourite authors in the bookshop you work in (The Grove bookshop in Ilkley). If you could choose one author (alive or dead) to have as a guest in the bookshop, who would it be? And what would you choose to ask them?
ED: Oh my goodness, that’s a brilliant – yet fiendish! – question. We have had so many wonderful events during my time at the shop. It would be my dream to interview Colm Toibin. His novel Brooklyn is a book I have read and re-read. It’s so simple, and yet it settles so deep. His recently published short story, A Long Winter, is a masterclass in short fiction and the power of place. But what to ask him? I met him once and my brain turned to mush in the book signing queue. If I could keep it together, maybe: How do you make a seemingly simple seem feel so emotionally significant to the reader? I’d also love to know if Eilish Lacey will ever be truly happy. She’s consistently inconsistent, which makes her a frustrating, and yet infinitely fascinating, character.
DS: When did you first start writing flash? Was there a particular author or flash that inspired you to write your first piece?
ED: I first tried my hand at flash fiction around 10 years ago, when I entered a local ekphrastic flash fiction competition through Haringey Literature Live (now Writing Room), and won first prize – coffee and cake in a local café. I was over the moon! I soon became obsessed. The first flash piece that blew my mind was Ingrid Jendrjewski’s Roll and Curl. It’s exceptional. There’s such control in that piece, and it makes the emotion pop out all the more. The story is about a hairdresser tending to a client who, she discovers, is about to get some bad news. The care shown in that moment is so beautiful. I’d been writing flash before that point, but that’s when something clicked about exactly what flash could do.
DS: You get invited on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. What book would you choose to take with you? Tradition dictates you can also take the Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare.
ED: I’ve already mentioned Brooklyn, which would be a strong contender, but I think it would have to be The Great Gatsby, so I could get lost in that decadent world of parties, flashy cars and silk ties. F Scott Fitzgerald’s sentences read like poetry, and his characters are brilliantly idiosyncratic. I’d certainly need some escapism on my desert island, and it’s another book that I return to over and over again. I know you didn’t ask, but my luxury item would be a stash of notebooks and pens. For a writer, not having the means to write would be unimaginably difficult.
DS: Is there any part of the writing process that you find particularly difficult?
ED: Yes, I struggle with planning. When writing feels like a chore, it shows in the writing. I need to keep things spontaneous and enjoyable, to feel my way towards the story’s ending. One of the things I love about short fiction is that it’s possible to just dive in and play, and just see where a story goes. I don’t think novels are so forgiving of that approach. George Saunders talks about writing as if being guided by an imaginary compass. I love the idea of building a story through feel and intuition.
Emily Devane is a writer, editor, teacher and bookseller living in Ilkley, West Yorkshire. Her short fiction has been widely published in journals and anthologies, including Ambit, Smokelong Quarterly, The Lonely Crowd and Best Microfictions. She has won a Word Factory Apprenticeship, a Northern Writers’ Award, and the Bath Flash Fiction Award. As well as teaching, you can find her at The Grove Bookshop in Ilkley, where she runs a writing group, a regular spoken word night, and a busy programme of author events.