The Art of Attention: How to use everyday observations to write powerful flash fiction with Gillian O’Shaughnessy

Tiny stories draw power from specific detail and keen observation. In this fun and generative workshop, you’ll learn how to pay close attention to the world and draw on your own memories and experiences to create vivid and emotionally powerful flash fiction. You’ll learn how to make paying attention part of your writing practice and transform the personal into the fictional. Suitable for novice and experienced writers.

Presenter bio:

Gillian O’Shaughnessy is the author of Salt City Runaway, 50 tiny stories featuring a cast of unforgettable Western Australian girls who delight and disrupt. She spent 25 years as a journalist and broadcaster with the ABC, curated Writers Weekend for Perth Festival and has judged the prestigious Australian Stella Prize. Her flash fiction has won or placed in over a dozen competitions and features in the international Best Small Fictions in 2023, 2024 and 2025. She is an editor for the US Flash Fiction journal, SmokeLong Quarterly.