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52FF
52 flash fiction stories, some everyday, some mythic, some intensely sensuous, some comedic. All rich in language and metaphor. From child soldiers to aged actresses; from shaman to fairground knife thrower; from poisoner to charity giver; bingo callers, hitmen and women, werewolves, toy pandas, lovers, dancers and a recalcitrant apple tree, all are contained within this collection of the shortest form of story telling.
171 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 21, 2011
1 person is currently reading
20 people want to read
About the author
Marc Nash
18 books478 followers1) WORDS – voice
2) WORDS – communing
3) WORDS – emotional intelligence
4) WORDS – identity
5) WORDS – metaphor
6) WORDS – origins
7) WORDS – Origins
viii) WORDS – ideas
9) WORDS – alchemy
10)WORDS – trove
11)WORDS – meaning
12)WORDS – ambiguity
13)WORDS – stricture
14)WORDS – porousness
15)WORDS – vapour trails
16)WORDS – lyricism
17)WORDS – Being
18)WORDS – metastasis
19)WORDS – play
20)WORDS – inoculation against mortality
20 years in the counterculture working at Rough Trade Record Shop, now working in freedom of expression NGO world. I hope my books are more than just the sum of the above. I used to be a playwright, but then started writing more for dancers and physical theatre performers. I like a challenge and I like to move out of my comfort zone. Now I’m a novelist and am writing more ‘voice’ than I ever did as a playwright. Go figure!
My Booktube review site: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmpw...
2) WORDS – communing
3) WORDS – emotional intelligence
4) WORDS – identity
5) WORDS – metaphor
6) WORDS – origins
7) WORDS – Origins
viii) WORDS – ideas
9) WORDS – alchemy
10)WORDS – trove
11)WORDS – meaning
12)WORDS – ambiguity
13)WORDS – stricture
14)WORDS – porousness
15)WORDS – vapour trails
16)WORDS – lyricism
17)WORDS – Being
18)WORDS – metastasis
19)WORDS – play
20)WORDS – inoculation against mortality
20 years in the counterculture working at Rough Trade Record Shop, now working in freedom of expression NGO world. I hope my books are more than just the sum of the above. I used to be a playwright, but then started writing more for dancers and physical theatre performers. I like a challenge and I like to move out of my comfort zone. Now I’m a novelist and am writing more ‘voice’ than I ever did as a playwright. Go figure!
My Booktube review site: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmpw...
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 1, 2012
I have not yet met Marc Nash author of 52FF, but I will have no trouble spotting him when I do as he will be the one with the 1,000 word stare of the flash fictionalist. He will, it being the nature of the beast, either be coming down from nailing his latest ff or prepping to write his next.
Flash fiction seems the perfect genre, if that be what it is, for our times. You have an idea. You nail it. Forget beginning-middle-end, as to plan wld not be flash. We txt n tweet our lives into the real time river of whatever. Your flash fictionalist just grabs the raw juice and adds another 990 words to make it into a chunk of art. Is it a big poem? Nope. Is is a tiny novel? Nope. It's a stretched heartbeat of nowness, about a hundred tweets say. Those of us who can't live by txts n tweets alone, who crave more, but are super impatient and either unwill or incapable of reading a 100,000 novel should find the 1,000 word flash a perfect solution. You can flash read. You can take 1,000 words in a few minutes. You don't have to give up half your day. You don't have to work your way into it. Read. Change tubes. Read another. Move on.
To hold the flash reader's attention the flash fictionalist needs must to be nimble.
Marc Nash's creative intellect is exactly that ~ nimble.
I have so far read 17 of the stories in 52FF and can you assure you of this. Marc Nash is a writer who commands great originality in his choice of subject matter, great wit, great sensitivity and, this above all, great dexterity in his skill with da werds. He loves the the sheer pleasure of being in the creative spectrum in the wordfall. But this embellishment never gets in the way of the story, the mood, or whatever each fiction is about, but adds another reason for enjoying the read. My overall impression was of strong contemporay intelligence in full flow. We can learn from Marc Nash's fictions and perhaps adjust our own lives for the better.
I won't spoil your enjoyment of his stories by revealing any of the subjects but I will give you a couple of exmaples of his wording which caught my eye.
(Contemplating a lover who has left) "A labyrinth of hidden plumbing .. how she must still reside there, little tiny shards and spoors of hair, nails and other off-cuts. .. She persecutes me from within the pipes, blow-darting me to a slow ruin."
(A woman studying the elbow of her sleeping lover) "There you could witness the celluar architecture of the human body in all its intricacy. .. Tiny parallelograms .. The shifting orchestration was simply divine."
(An aged actress in her dressing room) "...her own mind's bulbs popped one by one .. no unseen stage hand in her head to replace the burned out filaments."
I love this sort of writing. I am happy when I find one such passage in 50 pages. But I kept coming across such passages ever few pages in 52FF.
I will return to dip into 52FF. And I know exactly how I will do so. I will come back at moments of disappointment, when I am stuck with something, at moments when I need a lift. Because I know that every third or second offering in 52FF will deliver a jold of some some true nourishment to refresh my jaded palette.
R J Askew
Flash fiction seems the perfect genre, if that be what it is, for our times. You have an idea. You nail it. Forget beginning-middle-end, as to plan wld not be flash. We txt n tweet our lives into the real time river of whatever. Your flash fictionalist just grabs the raw juice and adds another 990 words to make it into a chunk of art. Is it a big poem? Nope. Is is a tiny novel? Nope. It's a stretched heartbeat of nowness, about a hundred tweets say. Those of us who can't live by txts n tweets alone, who crave more, but are super impatient and either unwill or incapable of reading a 100,000 novel should find the 1,000 word flash a perfect solution. You can flash read. You can take 1,000 words in a few minutes. You don't have to give up half your day. You don't have to work your way into it. Read. Change tubes. Read another. Move on.
To hold the flash reader's attention the flash fictionalist needs must to be nimble.
Marc Nash's creative intellect is exactly that ~ nimble.
I have so far read 17 of the stories in 52FF and can you assure you of this. Marc Nash is a writer who commands great originality in his choice of subject matter, great wit, great sensitivity and, this above all, great dexterity in his skill with da werds. He loves the the sheer pleasure of being in the creative spectrum in the wordfall. But this embellishment never gets in the way of the story, the mood, or whatever each fiction is about, but adds another reason for enjoying the read. My overall impression was of strong contemporay intelligence in full flow. We can learn from Marc Nash's fictions and perhaps adjust our own lives for the better.
I won't spoil your enjoyment of his stories by revealing any of the subjects but I will give you a couple of exmaples of his wording which caught my eye.
(Contemplating a lover who has left) "A labyrinth of hidden plumbing .. how she must still reside there, little tiny shards and spoors of hair, nails and other off-cuts. .. She persecutes me from within the pipes, blow-darting me to a slow ruin."
(A woman studying the elbow of her sleeping lover) "There you could witness the celluar architecture of the human body in all its intricacy. .. Tiny parallelograms .. The shifting orchestration was simply divine."
(An aged actress in her dressing room) "...her own mind's bulbs popped one by one .. no unseen stage hand in her head to replace the burned out filaments."
I love this sort of writing. I am happy when I find one such passage in 50 pages. But I kept coming across such passages ever few pages in 52FF.
I will return to dip into 52FF. And I know exactly how I will do so. I will come back at moments of disappointment, when I am stuck with something, at moments when I need a lift. Because I know that every third or second offering in 52FF will deliver a jold of some some true nourishment to refresh my jaded palette.
R J Askew
June 30, 2012
52ff is a collection of fifty-five clever, inventive `flash fiction' short stories: one for every week of the year. Some offer a snapshot of a defining moment in a character's life. Some are experimental. Some use word play or prose poetry. Many explore an instance of transformation. Others show someone, or even some inanimate object, trying understand or describe their place in the world.
Reading these stories is like having a conversation with an interesting stranger you have met by chance. Each story is under a thousand words, detaining you just long enough to entertain you or enlighten you or set you a puzzle, inviting you to look again at things you thought you were familiar with. Whether the author draws on the mundane (the London commute) or the mythological (Atlas, Adam) as source material, the language he uses is always erudite, but the learning is lightly-worn. At the end of the book, Marc Nash explains some of the inspiration for the stories, which in turn may inspire you to write some flash fiction based on particular memories or incidents in your life, if you are so inclined.
The length of the stories makes this the perfect collection to dip into on short journeys or for a quick read before bed. The author suggests reading one story a week but I raced through them and enjoyed them all.
Reading these stories is like having a conversation with an interesting stranger you have met by chance. Each story is under a thousand words, detaining you just long enough to entertain you or enlighten you or set you a puzzle, inviting you to look again at things you thought you were familiar with. Whether the author draws on the mundane (the London commute) or the mythological (Atlas, Adam) as source material, the language he uses is always erudite, but the learning is lightly-worn. At the end of the book, Marc Nash explains some of the inspiration for the stories, which in turn may inspire you to write some flash fiction based on particular memories or incidents in your life, if you are so inclined.
The length of the stories makes this the perfect collection to dip into on short journeys or for a quick read before bed. The author suggests reading one story a week but I raced through them and enjoyed them all.
January 2, 2013
This is a book of 52 Flash Fiction stories by Marc Nash, a man who is obviously fascinated by words. The number 52 invites you to read one a week and although I have read them more quickly than that, I have found that the concentrated nature of the very short stories and also the density of the words, has meant I couldn’t really just read straight through as I would a novel. These stories are nuggets. They are very varied in genre; some funny, some sad, some thought provoking. Some are effectively poems. I enjoy words myself and can almost taste these as I roll them around my mouth.
If I have one problem with the stories it is the author’s tendency to use fragments rather than sentences; phrases with no verb. I find it a useful literary device to increase tension at the height of a fast action piece. Its use all the way through though, was a great distraction. I mentally filled in verbs! Apart from this, the creative use of language here engaged my interest. If you love words, you’ll enjoy this one!
If I have one problem with the stories it is the author’s tendency to use fragments rather than sentences; phrases with no verb. I find it a useful literary device to increase tension at the height of a fast action piece. Its use all the way through though, was a great distraction. I mentally filled in verbs! Apart from this, the creative use of language here engaged my interest. If you love words, you’ll enjoy this one!
February 13, 2013
52 flash fiction stories that keep you wanting more and more Marc Nash knows how to create tension from beginning to end. Can't wait to read the rest of his books!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews