We received 954 entries for our 28th Award from the following countries:

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malta, Mauritius, Netherlands, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States

Thanks again to everyone who entered. Our initial readers had an astonishing variety of flash fictions of up to 300 words to sift through. Thanks so much to them doing a great job. It was again very tough to select 50 for the longlist from so many excellent stories, to send to our judge, Matt Kendrick. Very big thanks to him for all his work in choosing the shortlist and winners, writing a great report and towards the end of the competition offering really helpful threads of writing advice which I posted on this website. They are really worth a look along with the other writing tips in the judge’s interview we did with him.

Although the shortlist includes writers from several different countries, the winners this time alllive in the U.K — fantastic stories! First prize goes to Bristol based writer, Kathryn Aldridge—Morris,with her story Visiting Lenin’s Tomb, the second prize winning story, There You Are is by Alys Hobbs, the third prize winning story ‘There are times when we talk without talking‘, is by Samantha Kent. Hannah Retallick was highly commended for her story ‘He Owed Me‘ and Gemma Church was highly commended for ‘GODETIAS’. As well as being published on this website, the stories will be published in our 2024 anthology.

We will be looking through the titles of stories listed in our three awards this year, to choose a title for the 2024 anthology (our ninth one). I love the covers created by John at Ad Hoc Fiction. You can buy them all at the AdHocFiction.com bookshop or from Amazon. They are: To Carry Her Home; The Lobsters Run Free; Things Left and Found At The Side of the Road; With One Eye On the Cows; Restore to Factory Settings; Snow Crow; Dandelion Years; and The Weather Where You Are.
All the longlisted writers who accept publication receive a free paperback copy of the anthology posted worldwide.

The 29th Award, open tomorrow, 1st November 2024, will be judged by prose and poetry writer and writing teacher, Sarah Freligh from the US and will close in February 2025. Interview with Sarah coming soon.

Jude Higgins
BFFA founder, October 31st 2024