At the end of another decade this is the fifth year of the Bath Flash Fiction Award.Thank you very much to everyone who has submitted to our Awards over the years. It has been a wonderful experience reading so much exceptional flash fiction. In 2020, despite everything, even more writers from around the world entered the 2020 Awards. In total, there were 4235 entries from 49 different countries and people tell us we have been part of putting flash fiction on the map. Which is a lovely thing to hear.
In recent weeks, our fifth anthology, Return to Factory Settings. has been arriving in many different countries. And we hope all 136 contributors, writers who were longlisted, shortlisted or placed in the three Awards will have received their copies. We love the fact that writers new to flash fiction are published in the anthology as well as those who have been published before. The brilliant cover, designed by Ad HocFiction, was inspired by a story within the anthology by UK writer J A Keogh, who explained that it was last year’s Bath Flash Anthology that got him started on writing flash fiction. We think that’s a great circle to complete.
This year, the judges were Santino Prinzi from the UK, Mary-Jane Holmes who is based in the UK and the USA and Nod Ghosh from New Zealand. We’re very thankful to them for the hard work and comments on the listed and winning stories.
You can buy all five anthologies, pictured in the gallery here, from adhocfiction.com
It’s also been the fourth year of the Novella-in-flash Award, a form that has been taken on enthusiastically by many writers during this time. In 2020, Michael Loveday, who has immersed himself in the form was our judge for the second year and we thank him very much for his enthusiasm and committment to this genre. Ad Hoc Fiction published seven brilliant novellas from the Award; the winner, two runners-up and four novellas which were specially commended. We’ve interviews with all these authors and it’s very interesting to read how they went about writing the stories. There’s so much variety within the novella in flash. It was great to receive cover images from the authors themselves and also artwork by artists Jeanette Sheppard and Janice Leagra. And you can see the covers of all the books, again available from adhocfiction in the gallery below.
Our final thanks go to Ad Hoc Fiction, for brilliantly producing so many of our books in the last half of 2020, after the first months of lockdown delayed everything. As well as the books from the Awards Ad Hoc Fiction also published a This Alone Could Save Us, a fantastic collection by one of our Award judges, Santino Prinzi and a Going Short, a guide book on writing flash fiction from one of last year’s judge’s Nancy Stohlman.
We’re looking forward to another great year of flash. And are in awe of what writers can create, even in such difficult times. Happy New Year to all.
Jude
Founder Bath Flash Fiction Award
December 31st, 2020
