20 February 2018

The 2018 National Flash Fiction Day Competition is open!


The 2018 National Flash Fiction Day 
competition is open!



This year, we introduce three categories for submissions: 

Adult (19+)
First Prize: $1000
Second Prize: $400
Third Prize: $100
Judges: Tracey Slaughter and Sue Wootton
Youth (18 and under)
First Prize: $200
Second Prize: $100
Third Prize: $50
Judges: Tim Jones and Patrick Pink

Te reo Māori Prize
Adult
$250
Youth
$100
Judge: Vaughan Rapatahana
Details at the NFFD site -- send your best 300-word stories by April 30!

Good luck to all!

11 February 2018

"Shortcuts: Track 1" Novella Anthology Gets Good Review From Simon Petrie


In 2015, Paper Road Press published my novella Landfall, and it was subsequently collected into the speculative fiction novella anthology Shortcuts: Track 1, edited by Marie Hodgkinson, which contains these six novellas from New Zealand authors:



Tim Jones explores desperation and betrayal on New Zealand’s shores in his climate refugee novella, Landfall.
AC Buchanan tells a story of creatures and people displaced in time and space in Bree’s Dinosaur.
Grant Stone’s tale of jealous muses and musical prodigy: The Last.
Lee Murray and Piper Mejia’s sci-fi adventure Mika throws the reader into an odyssey through a dystopic USA.
A husband with a secret in IK Paterson-Harkness’ Pocket Wife.
Grief, ghosts, and atoms: Octavia Cade explores Ernest Rutherford's discoveries of loss in The Ghost of Matter.

Shortcuts was well reviewed at the time, but it's always a pleasure to see another good, thoughtful review, so I was very pleased when my writer friend P.S. Cottier drew my attention to this review of Shortcuts by Simon Petrie:

https://simonpetrie.wordpress.com/2018/01/07/book-review-shortcuts-track-1-edited-by-marie-hodgkinson/
Here's what Simon had to say about Landfall:

‘Landfall’, by Tim Jones, is a well-realised climate-dystopia piece that posits a future New Zealand with a ruthless, militarised ‘solution’ to the climate refugee problem. Nasimul, the apparent sole survivor of the deliberate NZ Navy sinking of an overloaded Bangladeshi river ferry off the coast of Auckland, must swim for his life in order to reach shore. Once he makes terra firma, fate decrees that his life depends on the actions of disaffected young Home Guard reservist Donna. This is a gritty, chilling, uncomfortable piece somewhat in the spirit of Greg Egan’s ‘Lost Continent’.

Thanks, Simon!

- Buy Shortcuts: Track 1
- Buy Landfall