SmokeLong Quarterly

Over the next few months, we’ll be introducing our submissions editors so that you, dear writers and readers, might have a clearer idea of who we are, who reads your work first at SmokeLong, and what they love to see in the SmokeLong submissions queue. We are all writers at SmokeLong, so we know that sharing work can be difficult. Our submissions editors are all experienced flash writers and participate in the discussion throughout the editorial process. Your work is assigned to two submissions editors and sent to the senior editors if at least one of the submissions editors votes MAYBE on the submission. At SmokeLong we are always rooting for you.  – Christopher Allen, Publisher

Today, we are grateful to showcase Gillian O’Shaughnessy and her insights into submissions and writing and what brings her joy. Sip these words of wisdom and find inspiration! – Melissa Llanes Brownlee, Senior Submissions Editor

What excites you about a submission?

Possibility. When you find a story in the queue you love, there’s a glorious feeling of connection that doesn’t leave you. That potential is there with every new submission.

What’s something about a submission that makes you want to give it a thumbs-up?

A story that bristles off the page with energy and truth.

When do you read submissions? Do you have a special place?

At my desk in early morning light, if I can. I like to read when I’m fresh.

How do you feel about content warnings?

I don’t generally need them in a published work which has passed through several sets of eyes. In a submissions queue which can throw all sorts of harrowing surprises at you, I appreciate them.

What is your advice for writers submitting to SmokeLong?

Read. Read widely across all forms. Read the journal. Read the submission guidelines. Read Best Small Fictions and the Wigleaf Top 50. When you’re confident your story is the best it can be, read it again before you hit submit. Email it to yourself and read it on your phone.

What do you love about flash? Reading or writing it?

I’m a reader first, a writer second across any genre, flash included. Which is not to say writing flash isn’t important, it’s just that I have to read to write, and I don’t have to write to read. I am constantly finding work that knocks me sideways and at least for a few days, I feel I have to give up writing for a while and absorb all these electric ideas.

What are you reading now – besides SmokeLong submissions?

I am re-reading Yamatji author, Mabel Gibson’s micro memoir, Crybaby, which just won both Best Emerging Writer and Book of the Year in our WA Premier’s Book Awards, the most prestigious in Western Australia. A huge achievement by any measure as it was up against books from all the traditional genres. It’s published by Night Parrot Press, a small local press which specialises in flash and hybrid fiction, it’s brilliant news all round. I’m also reading Jilly Cooper’s Rivals because the TV series is so fun. And Emily Rinkema and Kik Lodge (whose work knocks me sideways).

What are you writing now?

Mostly grant acquittals. I have a stack of drafts I wrote at the Bath Flash Fiction Festival earlier this year waiting for some love.

What brings you joy?

Days with nothing to do but write for fun. Reading. Watching my wire-haired dachshund, Monty spring through a patch of long grass and capeweed. Wine on the back deck in the sun beating my bloke at backgammon. Purple violas.

How did you find your way to flash?

The founding editors of Night Parrot Press, Linda Martin and Laura Keenan introduced me to flash fiction in an online writing group, and it was revelatory, I fell wildly and irrevocably in love. I had written non-fiction for many years as a journalist, and it was the first time I had tried fiction. Well, I did have a crack at writing a Mills and Boon romance novel when I was 20 thinking it would be easy money. Not for the first time in my life, I was incorrect.

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Gillian O’Shaughnessy is a reformed journalist who spent 25 years as a reporter and a broadcaster in news and local radio at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Her flash fiction has been widely anthologised, including in the international Best Small Fictions 23 – 25.  She has won the London Independent Story Prize, the Welkin Prize and the US Fractured Literary Anthology Prize, among others. Gillian has curated Writers Weekend for Perth Festival and judged the prestigious Stella Prize for Australian women and non-binary writers. Her book, Salt City Runaway, features 50 flash and micro fictions of working class girls in Western Australia and is published by Night Parrot Press. She lives and writes on unceded Noongar Boodja in Walyalup/Fremantle with her husband and wildly spoilt dog, Monty.