IFFA Interviews

Peter Blair and Ashley Chantler interview some of the world’s leading flash-fiction authors.

‘A Pop Star Trapped in the Body of a Flasher’: An Interview with David Gaffney (April 2013). First published in Short Fiction in Theory and Practice, 4.1 (2014), 125–30.

One of the UK’s most popular writers of flash, David Gaffney is author of four collections – Sawn-Off Tales (2006), Aromabingo (2007), The Half-Life of Songs (2010), and More Sawn-Off Tales (2013) – and several short-story collections and novels.

His flashes have appeared in a wide range of anthologies and magazines, including Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine. His collections are reviewed in Flash, 2.1 (2009), 4.2 (2011), and 6.2 (2013). More Sawn-Off Tales was reviewed in Flash, 6.2 (2013).

For more information about Gaffney, visit his website.

‘As if on a magic carpet’: An Interview with Vanessa Gebbie (January 2015). First published in Short Fiction in Theory and Practice, 4.2 (2024; actual pub. date 2015), 233-39.

Vanessa Gebbie is author of four short-story collections: Words from a Glass Bubble (2008), Storm Warning: Echoes of Conflict (2010), and Ed’s Wife and Other Creatures (2015). Nothing to Worry About: Flash Fictions (2018) was edited by Peter and Ashley, published by Flash: The International Short-Short Story Press. Gebbie has also published poetry collections and the novel The Coward’s Tale (2011).

She is author of 51 and a Half: Games and Ideas for Writers with Example Responses (2023) and editor of Short Circuit: A Guide to the Art of the Short Story (2009).

Her flashes and reviews have appeared in Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, 3.2 (2010), 5.1 (2012), 6.1 (2013), and 7.1 (2014). Storm Warning was reviewed in Flash, 4.2 (2011).

For more information about Gebbie, visit her website.