Yesterday was National Flash Fiction Day, established to celebrate and showcase the shortest of stories. I’m a very big fan of flash fiction: I love the power of a small amount of words to tell a big story. Flash is challenging to write and immensely satisfying to read, but it’s often overlooked as a genre.

Each year, the organisers of NFFD host ‘Flash Flood’, posting a flood of short fiction on their site throughout the whole day; this year’s theme was ‘epiphany’. The flood showcases work from a huge range of writers whose work might otherwise not be seen, which is, I think, a wonderful way of celebrating the form, and leaves a wealth of stories online for readers.

Writers across the country organise regional events for the day, and the organisers publish an anthology. This year’s anthology is And We Pass Through, and is edited by Santino Prinzi and Joanna Campbell. I’m delighted that my own story, Beacons of the Bay, is included, and I’m in the company of some flash writers I admire enormously, including Vanessa Gebbie, Sarah Salway and Joanna Campbell – but these writers are just a small sample of the brilliant writers included, and readers have a lot to look forward to in this book.

I’m a day late in my celebrations, but just as people are important even when it isn’t their birthday, flash is there to be appreciated every day of the year. And if you order the anthology, you can indulge in it whenever you’d like… so I say, do that!