With the intense heat here in the UK and elsewhere, it might be too hot to write or think about writing. But you can still buy discounted entries, save paypal receipts and submit by the deadline of October 9th. One reduced cost entry is £7.50 and two entries are £12.00.

For this, the 22nd round, we are very happy to have award winning writer, teacher and editor, Emily Devane judging our Award. Emily who writes longer short fiction, as well as flash fiction, recently won second prize in the Bath Short Story Award and you will be able to read her story in the 2022 Bath Short Story Anthology, out at the end of the year. Read her interview with us here for writing advice and tips.

And we also very pleased that Emily is offering an hour long workshop on Saturday October 8th, the day before our October deadline and the first of our new trio of online festival days. The Great Festival Flash-Off, Series Two. Bookings open for those days shortly. A chance to get last minute ideas and do final tweaks and polishes to any story you might want to submit. More details will be posted at flashfictionfestival.com shortly. You could use any of the photographs here for initial story inspiration too. For example, who is taking the path through the harvested field and why has the hotair balloon landed near the tiny thatched house? Is the ancient oak of any significance to the story?

Results will be announced for the October Award by the end of October. All the fifty longlisted stories are offered publication. And our seventh Bath Flash Fiction Award Anthology, containing stories from all three of the 2022 will be published by the end of the year. There are already some great stories from the first two awards. And after the October announcement it is an exciting time adding the final stories and deciding the title and the cover for the book. We always nominate our prize winners for Best Small Fictions, Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes and the title story, Snow Crow, from the 2021 anthology, by Doug Ramspeck was selected for Best Small Fictions 2022 this year.