Thanks very much to everyone who entered the 17th Round of Bath Flash Fiction Award. We very much appreciate your support for the Award. We received 1447 entries (almost exactly the same number as in the previous round). It is a great privilege to organise an Award that attracts so many writers from all around the world. Especially in a time of great stress for everyone due to the continuing impact of the pandemic. This time 48 countries were represented.
Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Cyprus,Denmark, Dominica, Egypt, France, Georgia, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan,Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Mexico Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Zambia
As ever, there was the thrill of the last few weeks and the last day with a lot of people getting one of the popular Last Minute Club Badges — this time green, ready for Spring.
Thanks again to our busy team of readers who read all through the submission period when the stories are sent anonymously to them. There were so many very good stories on all topics and themes — heart-felt pieces on loss and recovery from loss, stories about the state of the world, climate change and war, history, the pandemic and the intricacies of relationships with lovers, friends and family. It is not a cliche for us to say that it was hard to choose the final 50 — covering a range of those themes and subject matters — that were sent to our judge, Charmaine Wilkerson for her to select the shortlist and the winners.
We very pleased that many of those 50 longlisted writers have agreed to be published in our 6th anthology, out at the end of 2021. In the longlist, twelve countries were represented — UK, US, Canada, Switzerland, Australia, Nigeria, Singapore, Belgium, Switzerland, Netherlands and New Zealand. Our shortlist of 21 stories, came from authors in 8 different countries — UK, US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands and Nigeria.
Many congratulations to our winners, 1st prize to Geeta Sanker from the UK with her story, ‘Let Them Eat First’, Second Price ‘Car Trouble’, Spartanburg, August 2002‘ by K.S. Lokensgard from the US, third prize ‘Now We See Him’ by Tim Craig from the UK and commended stories — ‘Always Down a Dirt Road, I’m Walking’ by Sara Hills from the UK, and ‘1902’ by Regan Puckett from the US. You can read all these wonderful stories on the winners pages.
Our final big thanks go to our 17th round judge, novelist, flash fiction writer and editor, Charmaine Wilkerson from Italy, for working to our tight schedule and dedicating many hours to reading and re-reading the stories and for her excellent report and comments on all the winners.
The 18th round is open for entries on March 1st and closes in June. The judge this time is writer, K M Elkes from the UK.
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