It’s a pleasure to introduce Stephen Smythe. He has been involved with Speak Easy since it started (at the SIP Club in Stretford) and that’s where we met. The SIP Club closed during the lockdown and Speak Easy then moved online. I was able to take part from my caravan in The Netherlands, along with poets and writers from London and the US and elsewhere.

Stephen Smythe is a Manchester writer who achieved an MA in Creative Writing from Salford University, in 2018. He was shortlisted in the Bridport Prize, Flash Fiction category, in 2017, and was also longlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award, in 2018. He won The Bangor Literary Journal FORTY WORDS Competition, in 2022, and was placed third in the Strands International Flash Fiction Competition, in 2021, for his 1000-word story.

His book of forty x forty word stories published by Red Ceilings Press is due out later this year.

Here are two prize winners to give you a taste…

KLEPTO

Bridget took stuff from her work colleagues after they’d gone home. Pens, post-it pads, sweets, even family photos. People suspected her, but couldn’t prove anything. When the company introduced hot desking, Bridget became confused and sometimes stole from herself.

(Winner of the Bangor Literary Journal FORTY WORDS Competition, 2022)

COLD CALL

‘Wait!’ Dad yelled down the phone.
He put his specs on. ‘That’s better, I can hear you now.’
He listened intently, frowned deeply, then hung up.
‘A conservatory?’ He snorted. ‘Your mother would kill me– if she were alive.’

(Second place in the Bangor Literary Journal FORTY WORDS Competition, 2019)

Links to 1000-word stories

Love Your Neighbour

The Fourth P (weebly.com)

Al Pacino of the Welsh Valleys (weebly.com)

Granny (weebly.com)

Poetry
Sommelier 2020 – Janus Literary