A.J. Walker

writerer

Equinox: The Flashdogs Phoenix

On Thursday there came a bolt from the blue. It came in the form of a single Tweet from one of the old Flash Dogs glitterati. It heralded the phoenix like rebirth of the Flash Dogs coming soon to the blissfully unaware.

For those uninitiated into the less than secretive—whilst not exactly pervasive—societal group known as The Flash Dogs met online (largely through Twitter, back when that worked well) and all enjoyed writing flash fiction. Oftentimes these were in weekly online contests including the fabulous
Angry Hourglass and Flash Friday Fiction.

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Jeez. So many familiar names from those earlier Flash Dog days.

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Beautiful cover for the first Flash Dogs Anthology

Each week many of the writers became regulars in one or more of the challenges and we kept seeing the same name. We were a natural group of like minded individuals (in terms of enjoying the challenges, not like minded in any other stretch of our odd imaginations) and most of us used Twitter to communicate back then and we almost naturally became the Flash Dogs. Some bright spark suggested we got together in between the covers (no, not like that) and the first Flash Dog anthology was born. Yes, an actual paperback book. Then there was another, then another. There was the Flashdog Anthology Volume One, then Volume Two: Solstice Light, and Solstice Dark (so a bit confusingly Volume Two comprised two volumes in itself), and next up was—surprise, surpriseVolume Three: ‘Time’ (there was just one). The anthologies were published between 2014 and 2016. You can even find them on Goodreads if you wish to check them out.

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Yours truly showing off Flash Dogs Volume Two (Dark) on my Kindle (in the Vaults in Bishop's Castle)

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Even took it out to the Pyramid Stage at Glasto


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'Time' the Third Volume of the Flash Dogs back catalogue

Most of the online challenges the Dogs were most commonly involved with disappeared over time. They seem not to have been replaced like for like; at least I’ve not seen them. And many of the Flash Dogs disappeared too into the ether due to their missing sustenance. But one Tweet last week seems to suggest there may be a rebirth coming soon:

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I for one find the resurrection intriguing and exciting. Incidentally, I work at a brewery in Liverpool (Neptune) and we have a beer called ‘Equinox’ too. It's surely destiny.
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