Tag: birthdays and celebrations as story ideas

Broadcast News, Broadcast Hiccups, and Birthdays

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Image Credits:-
All images from Pixabay/Pexels unless otherwise stated with many created in Book Brush. Book cover images from Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. Screenshots taken by me, Allison Symes.
Hope you had a great weekend. I had a fabulous 60th birthday celebration with family and friends – Lady was exhausted too by the end of it. A huge thank you for all the good wishes which have come in too.

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Good news. I’ve heard from Hannah Kate that her Spring Equinox show on North Manchester FM, which was due to be broadcast on Saturday, will now be broadcast this evening, 24th March 2026 from 7 pm to 9 pm. The link below, I’m told, will still work for this.

Huge congratulations to fellow ACW member, Rosemary Johnson, whose story is on the show, along with my one, Out With The Old.

It is ironic perhaps I’m out later so will almost certainly have to use the wonderful Listen Again feature later this week to hear the stories but do tune in as and when you can. I always love listening to all of the stories on these shows. The range is amazing and, of course, they all have to be flash fiction to fit in with broadcasting requirements.

North Manchester FM: Hannah’s Bookshelf Spring Equinox Special, Saturday 21 March, 2-4pm


Hope your week has got off to a reasonable start. Delighted to have my statement through from the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS). Good result and up on last year so am very pleased. Many thanks to Wendy H Jones for flagging this up. I’ve been a member of ALCS for years as it comes with my Society of Authors membership. Do check them out if you have work out there with an ISBN or ISSN on them. It is a superb way of helping authors.

Don’t forget it won’t be long before my next author newsletter comes out. To sign up for hints, tips, stories and more do head over to my landing page at https://allisonsymescollectedworks.com

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A huge thank you for the many birthday greetings coming my way thanks to my hitting the big 60 today. Much appreciated. I can’t quite believe it either. Had a lovely time yesterday with family and friends. Today is recovery time! (Lady had a ball with her chum, Lily. Lady slept very well last night!).

Writing wise, I’ll be sharing Templates on Chandler’s Ford Today this coming Friday. I use them often and they can help so much with character creation and in helping you to “see” your setting in your own mind even if you don’t share most of that with your readers. I hope the post will be useful.

Am also looking forward to the next meeting of the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group next week.

Hope to get back to drafting short stories for competitions from next weekend.

Unfortunately there were technical issues on Hannah Kate’s show yesterday so the Spring Equinox show did not go out as planned. I understand this will be redone at a later date and I will share further details when I get them. Tech is wonderful when it works! Update:  See above. Programme rescheduled for 24th March 2026.

Delighted my Out With the Old will be broadcast by Hannah Kate on her Spring Equinox show on North Manchester FM today. Many congratulations to all of the featured authors. Flash is wonderful for broadcast and Open Prose Mic Nights precisely because they don’t take too long while retaining the challenge of ensuring listeners are engaged with a gripping story line and characters.

There is a Listen Again feature on the station, which I will be making use of as, when my tale goes out, I will be busy partying with family and friends ahead of my 60th birthday tomorrow. It’s all go. Sadly, things went wrong but the show was rebroadcast on 24th March 2026 instead.

North Manchester FM: Hannah’s Bookshelf Spring Equinox Special, Saturday 21 March, 2-4pm

Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again

My story, Out With The Old, will now be broadcast on Hannah Kate’s Spring Equinox show this evening on North Manchester FM – 24th March. I look forward to listening to it and the other tales in due course.

Flash works well for radio as it doesn’t take long and has immediate impact as does radio itself, of course. I also love taking part in Open Prose Mic Nights when I can especially at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick, because you can get immediate feedback from the audience reaction as to how something went down with them.

Trust me, this is useful, and I’ve used the feedback I’ve had here to hone stories further. I think the tricky bit is getting the mood of the stories right for the occasion. For Swanwick with the five minutes maximum reading time, I like to read something punchy, something funny, something reflective. I think it makes for a good balance of moods and is a great way to showcase what flash can be.

It’s Monday. As ever it’s been hectic. Time to wind down with a flash story then. Hope you like my latest on YouTube – The Blame Game.

Well, just who IS to blame when food goes missing at a party? Find out here.

 

22nd March
I celebrate my 60th birthday today, not quite believing where the time has gone. I’ll be setting some sixty word exercises for the Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction Group next week. Think three short paragraphs and you’re there. It’s a good challenge!

I haven’t come across any competitions for this word count (I have come across 53, 75 etc) but these short pieces are excellent for sharing on your social media and website. They give a good taster of your writing style and make for an excellent “warm up” exercise ahead of longer writing work.

Also birthdays are useful for looking back at times past as well as ahead to the future and good story ideas can come from those thoughts.

Hope your weekend is going well. Busy one here as I am about to celebrate my 60th birthday (22nd March) with friends and family today. Lady will have a fabulous time and be happily shattered later. She loves family get togethers especially as she will meet up with another family dog with whom she gets on very well.

Birthdays and other celebrations can be an excellent idea to write stories about. Who goes to what event? Who doesn’t get invited (there are consequences – think the wicked fairy in Sleeping Beauty here)? What happens at the event itself? Good story ideas there and they can be funny, tragic, dramatic, depending on your characters.


Goodreads Author Blog – Birthdays and Other Celebrations in Books

Birthdays and other celebrations can make a great backdrop in a story. I always think of Bilbo Baggins’ event at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings. Here, it was used as a way for him to “disappear” without anyone seeming to notice. Frodo does, of course, and this sets in motion his own huge quest.

Birthdays can show up what other characters think of the celebrant. The birthday person can also use their event to make a point and that could set other things in motion. The event can also be where a murder or other crime takes place too. Nobody said these things have to be happy events!

Also reaching a certain age can set things in motion as they did for Harry Potter when he reached his eleventh birthday.

Other celebrations would include the ball where Elizabeth Bennet meets Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. It would not be something either of them would see as celebratory at the time but it did have a powerful impact on both of them.

It’s also lovely to see this kind of event in fiction at all because fiction does reflect life and birthdays are very much a part of that.

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