Autumn Pop-Up Issue – Prompted Stories

Following the launch of each of our issues, we cajole one or more of the contributors into a mini interview with the Trash Cat.
Here they will reveal some writing wisdom and tell you what trash critter they identify with most. Important stuff like that.

Today, we have Ian Johnson. You can read his delectable, amusing piece, Frisson Interruptus HERE – inspired by the prompts: On a Sleeper Train, Insomniac, Seeds.
A repeat bin offender, you can also read Ian’s story In the Fullness of Time and he has a short story in our upcoming print anthology.

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Q: What piece of writing advice/ crafting rule would you trash?

A: I wrestle with ‘write what you know’. With full respect to lived experience and avoiding damaging stereotypes, it feels incredibly limiting if the fuel of that compulsion we all have to create miniature worlds is purely our own context and identity. I think with caveats of ‘do your research’ and be respectful, ‘what you know’ should be a starter and come across in the voice of a piece, but write whatever you want – all fiction should be at least partly speculative (surely?!).

Q: Which writers and magazines do you go to to find treasure to read?

A: Naturally, Trash Cat Lit! This has really been my jumping off point to one incredibly supportive Editor, and many incredible writers whose work I’ve sought out – honourable mentions to Mike Piero, Dan Weaver, Gill O’Halloran, Mairead Fagan… all very different, but all nailing the Kurt Vonnegut ethos of both telling interesting stories and telling them well.

Q: What trash animal do you most identify with?

A: I most identify with a slow racehorse because I cross the line eventually.

Q: When your writing mojo is trashed, how do you recharge?

A: As an unstoppable moron, writing something else – different genre, prompts, audiences etc. But reading too, and hoping for some creative osmosis that way – I start way more books than I finish, generally because a word or a theme or a piece of dialogue has unstuck something I was struggling with in my heaving draft folder.

Q: If you could offer three tips to writing short treasures, what would they be?

A:
1. Get in and out as quickly as possible;

2. Try not to overegg the pudding with adjectives, adverbs, synonyms that slow the pace and test the reader’s patience;

3. Use submission windows/competitions as redrafting opportunities rather than a constant hungry walrus to throw the same bucket of fish at, and act on feedback wherever you get it.

Q: What is one thing, if spotted in a crowded charity shop/thrift store, you would just have to buy

A: I can’t resist buying fridge magnets from tourist haunts to stick my children’s certificates up, as evidence of where they’re going and where we’ve been.

Ian Johnson is an emerging writer from North East England, hung up on generational trauma, malaises of the heart, and crises of triviality. He is currently working with Trash Cat Lit, Black Glass Pages, and Apricot Press, and will soon be querying his debut novel – a ‘town and gown’ crime thriller. His words appear in Trash Cat Lit, Product, Blood + Honey, and Free Flash Fiction. He is a 2026 ‘Best of the Net’ nominee.
@10kandalatte (X) @youcanandyouwill (Bluesky)