First, we’d like to welcome our new judge, Tania Hershman. Regular contributors will notice that we’ve made a few other changes. In brief, here they are, and why we’ve made them.
We now have a closing date.
Many of you told us that you prefer to have a time scale to plan out your competition submissions through out the year, so we’ve introduced closing dates. Our intention is to keep the flash rolling by running three awards per year, each Award lasting four months. To encourage early submission to each Award – and hopefully avoid a last-minute closing date rush – submission fees are reduced for the first two months of each Award.
Membership is being phased out.
During our last Award, around 67% of submissions were made as single standard entries. When entrants signed for membership, the overwhelming majority made two or three entries in one go, then immediately cancelled their membership. This time, we’ve simplified the process by creating single payment options able to accommodate reduced rate multiple entries. For those of you holding valid membership from our last Award, don’t worry. You can still submit via your member page until the end of your current member term.
We intend to go into print.
This is perhaps our most exciting development. Our founder, Jude Higgins, has been part of producing the Bath Short Story Award Anthology, and is bringing that experience to bear on creating our very own Bath Flash Fiction Award Anthology to be published in both digital and print forms. Consequently, all entries to the Bath Flash Fiction Award will now be considered for print publication. More news on that later in 2016.
