SmokeLong Quarterly

In 2024 SmokeLong hosted our second SmokeLong Workshop Prize competition. Our workshop participants reported almost 300 publications to us before November 1, 2024. In 2025, we’ll be featuring one writer each week from The SmokeLong Workshop Prize long list. It’s an excellent series of interviews, each grappling with questions about workshopping, giving and receiving feedback, and the publication process. If you are a previous or current SmokeLong workshop participant and you have ultimately published something you began in a SmokeLong workshop, remember to enter The SmokeLong Workshop Prize competition. This free-to-enter competition is on our Submittable page.

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An Interview with Sara Hills —  “A Cock Among the Bathers” (winner, Bath Flash Fiction Award, June 2024) and “Lil Fucker” published in Fractured Lit

 

What do you remember about the workshop where you wrote these stories? What was the prompt or writing task that led to them?

‘A Cock Among the Bathers’ came from a SmokeLong Fitness sprint challenge set by Christopher Allen in March 2023. The prompt was to write a messy first draft; the instructions said something like ‘go wild, nuts and more nuts, but do it in 400 words and use 3rd person future tense’. As you can see from the story title, I took the prompt a bit literally. I had so much fun drafting this one.

There’s a lot to love about SmokeLong Fitness, but these sprint challenges are undoubtedly one of my favorite parts. Not only do they provide challenging constraints and a reward for the winner and runners-up, but they encourage a writer to let go and embrace the chaos and joy of creating something imperfect and unexpected in a very short time frame. I think we had about three days to write and submit our messy first drafts, but I procrastinated until the day of the deadline and ended up drafting most of the story in the car driving to and from Cézanne’s Bathers exhibit at the Tate Modern.

‘Lil Fucker’ came from a SmokeLong Fitness sprint challenge set by Christopher Allen back in October 2022, which involved quickly writing a 300-word story draft that included a random assortment of words, including gob, basin, wall, grazing, etc. Through free-writing with these words, the color pink kept reappearing and I was reminded of my years living in Utah under a polluted pink sky during weather phenomena known as winter inversions. What happens under that sky in this story is a world that could only be created by the unexpected collision of these random prompt words, for which I will remain forever grateful as it’s one of my favorite stories I’ve written thus far.

Peer-review feedback is always full of surprises. In general, what kind of feedback do you find helpful? What kind of feedback do you find less helpful?

When evaluating first drafts, the best kind of feedback I could ask for takes in the work as a whole and tries to understand what I’m trying to achieve. It answers the questions: Does it make sense? What parts are emotionally impactful? What parts are unnecessary or missing? Once in a while an astute reader will suggest something radical like a POV change that unlocks my story in a new or unexpected way, and that’s always a gift and fun to think about.

Less helpful to me in the first draft stage are line edits (especially to the voice of the piece), suggestions to remove swathes of text without reason or suggestions to change nothing at all. I don’t see these kinds of comments very often, but when I do, I want to know why. My goal is to always keep improving and learning, so understanding the reason behind the feedback feels imperative. That said, I don’t always follow the advice I’m given.

To how many places did you send these stories? Can you tell us a little about their journeys to publication?

I was thrilled when the story that eventually became ‘A Cock Among the Bathers’ won the sprint challenge in SmokeLong Fitness and received senior editor feedback. I spent some time trying to find a way to apply this feedback while still keeping the energy and rhythm of the original draft, but I couldn’t quite make it work. Thankfully, instead of sending it out, I left it to sit for over a year while I contemplated what to do with it.

When the summer 2024 Bath Flash Fiction Award deadline approached, I remembered that I still had this story sitting in my drafts folder. I dusted it off and realized I could easily cut 100 words while keeping the urgency and madness that I loved about the original draft. I didn’t for one second think it would get picked up on its first outing, let alone win the Bath Flash Fiction Award. I’m still pinching myself.

To my delight, ’Lil Fucker’ was a runner-up in a SmokeLong Fitness sprint challenge and received useful feedback from senior editor Shasta Grant. I revamped the story using feedback from Shasta and a private critique group, growing the story by about 200 words and giving it a title change. It was subsequently shortlisted in The Smokey, SmokeLong’s flash fiction contest, and I was heartened to discover, per the rejection email, that it came very close to being chosen as a finalist.

I sat on this draft for months after that, deliberating on edits. I sent it out to only a couple of places before editor Tommy Dean enthusiastically accepted it for publication at Fractured Lit and nominated it for an award. Fractured was a perfect home for it, and I was so grateful. More recently it was republished by Audrey Niven at The Propelling Pencil in a special issue showcasing stories that had been shortlisted in competitions as a way to highlight only shortlisting in a competition as a success of craft rather than a badge of discouragement.

What is your advice to someone considering taking part in a peer-review workshop?

First of all, you can’t go wrong with SmokeLong Fitness. It’s a generous community of writers and editors and well worth joining. When giving feedback, be kind and polite but also honest. Don’t forget to say what’s working and what you like about a draft as well as asking questions about any elements that may need more attention. And say why. If feedback ever seems to push your buttons, let it sit and come back to it another day or another week. Oftentimes there’s a gem of advice in there that you weren’t able to see at first glance. Most of all, have fun with the prompts and don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. If you come into a workshop with a growth mindset, you’ll get way more out of it and the proof will show in your stories.

Read  “A Cock Among the Bathers” (winner, Bath Flash Fiction Award, June 2024) and “Lil Fucker” published in Fractured Lit.

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Sara Hills is the author of The Evolution of Birds, winner of the 2022 Saboteur Award for best short story collection. Her work has won several competitions including SmokeLong Quarterly’s Grand Micro Contest, the Bath Flash Fiction Award, and QuietManDave’s flash nonfiction prize. Her stories have been selected for The Best Small Fictions and Wigleaf’s Top 50, as well as widely published in magazines and anthologies, such as Fractured Lit, Cease Cows, Flash Frog, X-Ray Lit and elsewhere. Originally from the Sonoran Desert, Sara lives in Warwickshire, UK. Find her online at sarahillswrites.com.