It’s very exciting to announce that Novel Nights is moving into publishing. Fresh Fiction has always been a live event, where writers come to share their work with an audience in the brilliant location of The David Hall.

The very first Fresh Fiction event took place in September 2022. And look at the talented writers appearing at New Blood & Beginnings.

Paul Toolan, Clare Reddaway, Hilary Smith, Angela Huskisson, Estelle Phillips, Mark Blackburn, Mike Manson, Jonathan Evans, Grace Palmer and Liz Delo. Since this photo was taken they have published novels, short story collections, memoirs and continued to hone their craft and delight audiences across the South West.

For that event we hadn’t settled on the format we have now. So we had more writers with longer stories. We soon learned that the audience was keener on shorter sharper stories, and our writers rose to the challenge beautifully.

Scroll on to June 2026 and we decided that our nights of joyous ephemeral pleasure of listening to short stories could be enjoyed again on the page. We wanted to celebrate the skills of the writers, so more people can enjoy their stories.

So, Grace Palmer and Helen Williams have taken on the project. The first anthology covers the period from September 2022 to the end of 2023 and includes the writers who read at Fresh Fiction and wanted to participate.

The anthology will cover these themes from that period.

New Blood & Beginnings, Halloween and Winter Tales in 2022

Love Lost or Found, Halloween, Midsummer Myth or Magic, Time Somerset in 2023

The anthology will represent 26 different authors and 46 stories.

We are working with the talented graphic designer, Simon Parkin from Ethical Graphic Design to produce a cover. We can’t wait to hold this in our hands. We aim to produce it for the October 9th Fresh Fiction event.

There will also be a launch for this event.