We’re excited that the much delayed Bath Flash Fiction Award Vol 10 with stories from the three 2025 Bath Flash Fiction Awards is now published by Ad Hoc Fiction. Thank you to all contributors for their patience. The title, How to Fold A World Map is the title of a flash by Tiffany Harris a very moving story, which you can read here as well as in the anthology as it received a highly commended prize in February 2025. We love the image on the cover, an ancient beautifully drawn world map.
Those who accepted publication from the longlist of fifty stories from each round of the competition came from all over the world, and we thought it was a fitting title. Wonderful world-wide fictions folded together in one volume of 133 stories.
We’re launching the 2025 anthology with readings on the Saturday evening at the Flash Fiction Festival, July 17th-19th in Bristol and will hear from some winners, shortlisted and long listed writers. Quite a number of contributors coming to the festival will be able to pick up their free copies there. And we’ll be posting others out. There are still full or day places available at the festival if you want to come last minute. Booking at flashfictonfestival.com
How to Fold a World Map is available to buy on Amazon world wide in paperback. Ad Hoc fiction has provided links straight to purchase in many different countries.
Results of the June 2026 round of the Bath Flash Fiction Award will be out on Tuesday 30th June and many of those long listed have already accepted publication. When the October round is complete, we hope to be back to normal with our publishing schedule and have volume 11 out by the end of this year, or early next.
Winner: 
“Swimming in swirling waters of dementia, this story chronicles things we lose, from car keys to memories of fireflies, and things we try to hold onto, from our sense of self to our sense of safety. Beth Sherman explores daughter-mother experiences in novella-in-flash moments, sometimes harrowing, sometimes comical. How to Get There from Here navigates these waters with a deft hand, and demonstrates how the deepest nurturing happens in the quiet spaces between.”
“This novella-in-flash tells the story of Cassie and Susan, both of whom contracted polio during one of the last outbreaks in the UK in the 1970s. Joanna shows how Cassie, a young girl of eleven at the time, and Susan, a newly qualified teacher, manage the experience of being in an iron-lung and learn to breathe again. After they leave hospital, we follow their different journeys as they slowly manage without the ventilator and each make a new life. This engrossing novella is striking in many ways, not least in how vividly it portrays life inside an iron lung and how frightening and painful it is to breathe unaided.”
It’s just ten days to go until the £1460 prize fund 33rd Award, ends on Sunday June 7th. Thank you to everyone from around the world who has submitted so far. 
It’s just over two weeks to go until the deadline of our June Award on Sunday, 7th June at midnight, BST. Still time to write and refine. 
With just over three weeks left until the deadline for our 33rd Award, on Sunday June 7th, here’s a really interesting interview with Shelley Roche-Jacques who won first prize in the February Award. She talks about how the story came into being and the ways she worked on it, tells us about her other writing and teaching and gives some great advice on writing entries for a competition. Read her first prize winning story linked below. And judge 