A piece of flash fiction of mine, Sweet Memory, has been highly commended in the Spread the Word City of Stories competition. As part of the prize it's included in a book (image below), which collects together flash fiction from all of the winning and commended writers. Last year's book really impressed me, so it's a great privilege to be included this year.

City of Stories is an initiative run by Spread the Word in partnership with the Association of London's Chief Librarians. There were creative writing workshops in libraries all over the city, and participants could enter a piece of writing up to 500 words into the competition. As well as having my story included in the book, I got to attend an event at Croydon Library to read with other successful writers.

Sweet Memory is a short story about bees and the unreliable nature of memory. There's a challenge in writing to a tight word count and still conveying everything you want to get across. Reading the book of successful pieces of writing is to dip into a multiverse of realities, each stirred by the touch of a writer with a unique approach.

You can read about the winners and other highly commended writers on the Spread the Word website.