The writing collective behind the popular Chorlton Arts Festival 2011 Flash Mob short story competition and spoken word evening plus regular performances at Bad Language, Manchester Literature Festival, Oxfam Bookfest, Twestival, Not Part Of and Bad Shoes Festival are back with a new event for Didsbury Arts Festival.

Smut Night takes place on Wednesday 28 September at 8pm at the Northern Lawn Tennis Club on Palatine Road in Didsbury and marks the launch of a brand-new anthology of stories on the theme of love and lust, Quickies: Stories For Adults.

The collection includes pieces by the five FlashTag writers (Sarah-Clare Conlon, Fat Roland, Tom Mason, David Hartley and Benjamin Judge), 10 local authors specially commissioned for the project (including novelist Emma Jane Unsworth, whose debut Hungry, The Stars & Everything has just hit the shelves to critical acclaim), and 15 writers who were successful in the recent open submissions process (including Claire Massey, Sarah Hilary, Adrian Slatcher and Tania Hershman).

The night will feature readings by the contributors, including Bristol Prize-winner and Whalley Ranger Valerie O’Riordan; Didsbury author Socrates Adams, whose debut novel Everything’s Fine is being launched at Manchester Literature Festival in October, and South Manchester-based Chris Killen, author of The Bird Room, described by The Guardian as “darkly comic” and by The Independent as “exciting and perfectly formed”.

There will also be a special headline slot from David Gaffney, the reputed “grandmaster of flash fiction” (Bookmunch) and “one of the foremost writers in the short fiction arena” (The Short Review). He is the lauded author of three flash fiction collections, Sawn-off Tales, Aromabingo and The Half-life Of Songs, plus the novel Never Never, and he will be reading the story he has written especially for Quickies along with some of his other work.

FlashTag writer and organiser Sarah-Clare Conlon says: “I’ve been gagging to run a literary-based Smut Night for ages and this seemed like the ideal opportunity – I think an evening of tongue-in-cheek saucy and romantic stories in the curtain-twitching suburbs will go down a treat!”

See http://flashtagmcr.wordpress.com for more, with updates via Twitter @FlashTagMcr.