15th Award Round-Up

We didn’t know if writers would be inclined to enter the Award during the last months. But current circumstances, due to Covid-19, didn’t prevent entries pouring in from around the world all through the time the contest was open and particularly during the last weeks of the Award. Plenty of writers received their Last Minute Club badges on the final day, green this time, and overall we received more entries than ever. 1411 in total. The following 35 countries were represented:

Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic,
Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel,
Italy, Lesotho, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria,
Norway, Philippines, Portugal, Qatar, Singapore, South Africa, Spain,
Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, United
Kingdom, United States

We thank our busy team of readers for our 15th Award and big thanks also to our judge, Mary-Jane Holmes for working to the tight schedule between the end of the Award in mid June and the announcements now at the end of June. Do read her excellent judge’s report with general comments and detailed remarks on the winning pieces all linked here, This June, first prize and £1000 goes to to Fiona Perry from New Zealand, second prize and £300 to Hannah Storm from the UK, Third prize and £100 to Sam Payne from the UK, and £30 each to the two commended writers, Emily Harrison and Stephanie Carty, also from the UK. All marvellous flash fictions and yet again, great examples of the variety within the short=short form.

We agree with Mary Jane’s assessment that the longlist is of a very high standard and we’re so happy that most writers on the list have agreed to be published in our fifth anthology which will be published by Ad Hoc Fiction in November or December this year. As ever, we appreciated the huge variety of great entries. We enjoyed the creativity of writers, the many angles on important subjects and themes, the wit, the poignancy and the variety of styles. Thank you to everyone who entered our 15th Award and we hope that you will do so again and give us more wonderful fictional experiences. Our 16th Award, judged by Nod Ghosh from New Zealand, is open July 1st for entries. and will close on Sunday 11th October.

Jude Higgins
BFFA Founder
June 2020.

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