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Author Nik Perring – whose short-short story collection Not So Perfect is out now on Roast Books – is putting in a special guest appearance at the Flash Mob Literary Salon, a first for Chorlton Arts Festival. Here he gives us the skinny on this unique spoken word event and explains what the devil micro fiction is...

How did you get involved in the Flash Mob Literary Salon, and what will the night entail?
The night, I hope, will be a fun and informal celebration of the short, short story, and a chance to hear the brilliant stories which have been shortlisted for the Flash Mob Writing Competition. It’ll be great, and I'm looking forward to it very much!

And how did I get involved? Mostly through discovering the fab blogs of Ben and Clare (they’re worth checking out, folks!). It’s nice to see such a positive and welcoming attitude to things like this, because so often literature events can seem a little impenetrable.

It’s not going to be highfalutin, is it? Will we need to wear a cravat?
No, no. Not highfalutin at all. Just fun and informal and about enjoying good stories and yourselves. The cravat, of course, is optional.

Can you explain flash fiction to us? In as few words as possible, if you don’t mind.
Sure! Flash fiction is just another word for very short stories.

We hear you have a new collection coming out soon. Tell us a bit about that.
I do! It’s a collection of 50 short, short stories, co-written with Caroline Smailes and illustrated by Darren Craske, called Freaks!. All the stories are based on superpowers, real or imagined, and it’ll be published by The Friday Project (HarperCollins) in April 2012. It has its own Amazon page now, which kind of makes it feel a little more official.

Will you be seeing any other events or exhibitions at the festival?
At the moment I’m knee-deep in edits for Freaks!, but I’ll certainly be doing my best to get that done so I can get down there – there’s an awful lot on, and all of it looks great. So, yes, I certainly hope I’ll be seeing you there…

Flash Mob Literary Salon takes place on Thursday 26 May at 7.30pm, upstairs at Dulcimer (free).