News

Read BFFA second prize winners: 2015-2022

We recently published a list of and links to all our first prize winners from our thrice-yearly Awards, categorising them into themes. With one week to go until the deadline of October 9th for our 22nd Award, judged by Emily Devane, I’ve now listed second prize winners from the Awards, 2015-2022. Judges often say it is hard to order the top stories, there is only a hair’s breadth of difference between them. These flashfictions, 300 words or under, are all brilliant. I was struck by how many authors used unusual structures for their stories, which added to their impact, in an unforced way. Again, the same sort of themes as those in the first prize winning stories are present. I have categorised them loosely, as before into Women’s Lives, Relationships, World and Life Issues and Childhood and there could be several cross references. Thanks to all the judges for their great comments. I have linked to those as well as to the stories. Read in Full

Best of the Net Nominations

Nomination season begins again! We always nominate our prize winning pieces for Awards and with the Best of The Net opportunity we’re eligible to submit two stories
This year we’re delighted to nominate the two first prize winning stories from the 2022 Awards announced so far. ‘A Roadmap of Womanhood by Louise Mangos, selected by judge Karen Jones in our February Award and ‘Sequelae’ by Rachel Blake, selected in June by Tommy Dean. Best wishes for both of them!

And here’s a quote from the submissions page for ‘Best of the Net’, describing the enterprise, which has been offering opportunities to writers and artists since 2006.

The Best of the Net is an awards-based anthology designed to grant a platform to a diverse and growing collection of writers and publishers who are building an online literary landscape that seeks to break free of traditional publishing. This space has been created to bring greater respect to the continually expanding world of exceptional digital publishing.

The Best of the Net Anthology began in 2006, a project created by Sundress Publications (with special thanks to founding editor Erin Elizabeth Smith), to gather communities of online literary magazines, journals, and individuals that do the work of creating our digital literary landscape. We believe this effort is integral in decentering the literary canon as well as promoting and amplifying voices that are imperative to good literature, responsible culture, and the understanding of today’s social climate. We cherish these writers and publishers and hold digital publishing in high regards as a medium that creates access to a greater array of voices than the traditional publishing climate has allowed.

Q & A with Rachel Blake, 1st prize winner in our June 2022 Award

It’s just over two weeks until our 22nd Award closes on Sunday October 9th. And here’s a Q & A with Rachel Blake our first prize winner, from the 21st Award. Rachel won with her story ‘Sequelae’. She talks about how she wrote this powerfully impactful piece, which was selected by judge, Tommy Dean, and we have reproduced his comments below, just before her answers to the questions. It’s worth a read of both if you want to look over your own pieces again and submit to the next Award which is judged by Emily Devane. There’s lots of interesting things to think about in Tommy’s comments and the interview with Rachel. At the end she’s offered a visual prompt to inspire you to write a story in the time that is left before the deadline. Read in Full

21 first prize winning stories from BFFA

Our 22nd Award ends on Sunday, 9th October. And at the end of October, we will announce the winners. I thought it would be interesting to gather all the 21 previous winners together to look at themes. The winners were selected each round, from a longlist of 50, by 21 different judges. Although the stories could be categorised in many ways, I have settled on four themes: Grief and loss; Women’s Lives; Issues from Contemporary Life and Historical. Many could cross-reference between these themes. There are links to each story. And you can gain further insights into these brilliant and varied flash fictions by reading the judges’ reports and my interviews with the authors. The stories are (or will be) included in our year-end antholgies available from adhocfiction.com
In further posts, this week and next, I’ll also be looking at themes from our second and third and commended writers in all 21 of the Awards since 2016. Read in Full

Ad Hoc Fiction Book News

Our award-winning short short fiction press,Ad Hoc Fiction is publishing eleven more books in 2022. This year, as in 2021, we were able to offer publication to the authors of all the shortlisted novellas-in-flash selected by our judge Michelle Elvy, from the 2022 Bath Novella in Flash Award. Two have already been published, Lessons at the Water’s Edge, the first prize winning NIF by Caroline Greene and All Their Favourite Stories,, the commended NIF by Slawka G Scarso. You can buy both these books directly from Ad Hoc Fiction or in paperback from Amazon.

The other eight novellas by Award runners up, K. S. Dyal from the US and David Swann from the UK; highly commended authors Christopher Drew and Jupiter Jones; commended authors Kristen Loesch from the US and the other shortlisted writers: Finnian Burnett from Canada; Jeanette Lowe from the UK and Sheree Shatsky from the US will be out in the next couple of months. We’re really looking forward to seeing all of them in print. Such wonderful and varied reads. All fabulous

Other books forthcoming from Ad Hoc Fiction this autumn are three anthologies: the Bath Short Story Anthology, 2022 (from their yearly international Award); the fifth Flash Fiction Festival Anthology, and the seventh Bath Flash Fiction Anthology (containing stories from the three Bath Flash Fiction awards in 2022).

Next year, Ad Hoc Fiction has one or two books awaiting confirmation and several books in the pipeline: four guide/workbooks on writing flashfiction and other short forms and an anthology containing short form pieces about chronic illness. More details on all of these will be available soon. As usual, Ad Hoc Fiction will publish the compeition and festival anthologies and the three winners of the 2023 Novella in flash Award (judged in 2023 by John Brantingham).

NB. Although in previous years, Ad Hoc Fiction has been able to offer publication to the shortlisted novellas-in-flash as well as the top three, as an added bonus to the Award, this year, due to rising costs, Ad Hoc will only be publishing the top three novellas in flash, as advertised.

If you want to enter the 2023 Novella in Flash Award, do read the excellent interview with judge, John Brantingham as well as the marvellous guide book on the form by Michael Loveday. Closing date mid-January, 2023.

Short stories versus flash fiction – a thread from Electra Rhodes

The other day we spotted an excellent thread on short stories versus flash fiction on Twitter from wonderful writer, writing tutor and amazing all-rounder, Electra Rhodes who is teaching an hour-long workshop on Writing Wild Words, at the first of the new series of online flash fiction festival days on Saturday October 8th, the day before our 22nd Award closes at midnight GMT Sunday October 9th. Electra was going to teach this workshop at our face to face festival in July before she had to cancel due to Covid. So we’re delighted to be able to offer it again, online.

Electra’s thoughts below (thank you very much to her for agreeing to share them here) are a follow up to a recent thread she wrote on her Twitter feed on what to consider when submitting to a prose competition or magazine. That thread was picked up by Writing ie, who have added it to their resources. https://www.writing.ie/resources/submitting-to-writing-competitions-a-thread-by-electra-rhodes/

Electra noted the Twitter thread on submitting raised some questions on what might be possible differences between a short story & a flash fiction. There’s plenty to unravel and think about in this second thread. And it’s another great resource for writers.

In introducing the new thread, she says: here’s a highly opinionated thread, written hot & posted cool.

Quick caveat – I’m claiming no literary authority/nor stating rules – I’m suggesting these are trends (for good or ill) that vary across the English speaking world! E.G. I *think* more U.K. comps/mags include short short under flash than in the US. Can’t speak to other languages.

1. Word length- for some comps/mags/folk a flash is any story under 1000 words. That ‘general consensus’ seems to have been ‘agreed’ early on. A flash is a short short story. Hard to write a good one. 1000 words (or lower max count). Done deal.

Yes! But! Things have changed (for some people/comps/mags). It seems length is only 1 of the distinguishing aspects. Now, there are 9 other elements that factor – form, plot, the role of the title, compression, language, *feel*, ‘landing’, imagery/metaphor, & experimentation.

2. Form – for some comps/mags/folk an invite to submit flash positively encourages an unusual shape or form – hermit crab, fractured narrative, meander, single sentence, dialogue only, & so on. There is still a narrative or ‘story’, but it doesn’t read like a short short.

3. Plot – something happens, there’s a shift of some kind but it;s not a (Western) arc with a beginning, middle and end, in this context, a flash is still a story, but a short short story isn’t (necessarily, in this context) a flash. Distinguishes a flash from prose poetry too.

4. The role of the title – long story short? It does lots of the heavy lifting for the piece – it’ll be an invitation, or the setting, the stakes, the shotgun that gets fired in the piece, or the crucial character – if your word count is tight the title needs to work real hard.

5. Compression – under 1000 words or 400 or less everything is compressed – the emotion, the tension (& its release), the # of characters, the # of plot ‘events’, the word choice, the use of dialogue esp. to show not tell, coming in late & leaving early. Basically, it’s intense.

6. Language – feels tight, bright & right. Verbs work harder so that adverbs can be cut. Anything not advancing the story/developing character is out. Rhythm, repetition, balance, & musicality at a word/sentence level matter. All the word choices feel purposeful & full of intent.

7. The Feel – it’s the afterimage from a nightdark photograph using just a flashbulb. Or the smell of petrichor after a storm. Or the memory arising from a particular song or taste. It’s distinct, has an instantaneous effect, & we’ll have different words for how it makes us feel.

Quick caveat – lots of flash bears reading multiple times for the full impact. But, I think the workings of a strong piece get you from the go. This isn’t to say short shorts won’t do the same, but they deliberately use different story ‘mechanics’ to score the same goals.

8. The Landing – the piece might not come to an ending, or a resolution, or a happy ever after, but it will ‘land’. The landing might mirror the opener /echo it. It might twist. It might pull one thread so tight the whole piece thrums. The landing feels both unforced and earned.

9.The use of imagery & metaphor – lots of good writing, long and short makes use of both, but both imagery & metaphor work extra hard in flash – to convey layers of meaning, to explore & reveal depth, and to stitch a piece together so that it is more than the sum of its parts.

10. Experimentation – because it’s so short, flash lends itself to experimentation that might be harder to sustain in a longer piece or which perhaps don’t suit a short short story – language, repetition, ‘borrowed’ form, layout, intensity, POV/tense (e.g. 2nd person future) etc.

Electra also asked for additional thouhts from others. Do read her orginal thread on her twitter account to find another thread in response, from Matt Kendrick and here are a couple of interesting extras from writers Fiona McCay and Tommy Dean.

Fiona McCay says: “For me, flash has to make so much use of white space – the wider arc of story that’s off the page, but there, between the lines. It’s something I’m always looking for when reading for a competition (and always trying to get into my own flash).”

Tommy Dean says: “I would also argue that flash demands that the reader make inferences and judgments b/c flash eschews exposition and explanation as much as possible.”

Early bird discounts end today.

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.

Flashy News

We’ve been having a rest since the flash fiction festival Bath Flash Fiction sponsors, in Bristol in July , and thanks again to all who came. it was so wonderful to meet people face to face after a three year break. And there were so many inspirational flash fiction workshops and readings. You can see photographs gathered from Twitter and elsewhere here on the festival blog

Despite a lull in activities Jude’s been organising a trio of online flash fiction festival days to carry on festive fun in the autumn and the winter.
Dates: Saturday October 8th, Saturday November 19th and Saturday January 7th from 11.00 to 6.30 pm each day. . The usual mixture of workshops/talks/book launches/readings/ mini contests. The first day on October 8th features a 90 min workshop with Kathy Fish on writing ghost stories, a 60 min workshop with Electra Rhodes on Writing Words of Wild Wonder and a 60 min workshop with our 22nd Award Judge, Emily Devane (subject announced soon) £30 for everything. This online day comes the day before our deadline for the £1460 prize fund Bath Flash Fiction October Award. So it’s your chance to get last minute ideas. More details and booking for all three days open soon.

We also have a date for the next face to face Flash Fiction Festival. 14th-16th July, 2023 again in Trinity College, Bristol. Bath Flash Fiction and Ad Hoc Fiction are happy to sponsor this again! Hope you can come.

And to remind you the Earlybird discounts for the October Award end this Sunday, 14th August. Buy one entry for £7.50 or two for £12.00. Save your paypal receipts if you haven’t got a story ready yet and send by October 9th. Results out at the end of October. And our year-end anthology containing winning, shortlisted and longlisted stories from all three of the 2022 Awards will be published by Ad Hoc Fiction in late November/December.

In other news, you can look forward to a whole bunch of sparkling new novellas in flash from the 2022 Novella in Flash Award to be published by our small press Ad Hoc Fiction. The winner, Lessons At The Water’s Edge, (recently chosen as one of six indybooks of the month selected by Martin Chilton for the Independent Newspaper!) by Caroline Green was launched at the Festival as was one of the commended novellas, All Their Favourite Stories‘ by Slawka G Scarso. Both marvellous reads. And both available worldwide in paperback from Amazon and directly from Ad Hoc Fiction.

Our 2023 NIF award is open now too, and do read the really interesting interview with our 2023 judge John Brantingham which will also inspire you to write something along with the new guide on the subject, Unlocking the Novella in Flash by Michael Loveday.

More updates soon!

Q & A with Emily Devane, 22nd Award, Judge

Smokelong Quarterly

Best Microfictions Anthology

New Flash Fiction Review, Lost Balloon, Ellipsis, New Flash Fiction Review, Janus, Ambit

FlashBack Fiction.

@DevaneEmily

@WordsMoor.

Q & A

You have been very successful in writing both flash fiction and longer short stories. Among many other successes, you won the Bath Flash Fiction Award, judged by Kathy Fish in 2017 and third prize in the 2021 Smokelong Quarterly Grand Micro Competition. You were shortlisted in the Bath Short Story Award in 2021 This year, you were one of four writers shortlisted for the prestigious Mogford Short Story Prize. Do you find your flash fiction and short story writing, is very different in approach?

That’s a great question. Instinctively, I’ve come to know if an idea is better suited to the flash or short story form. I tend to write a first draft, or sometimes notes, and then take a long, hard look at what’s in front of me. There’s a balance to be struck between clarity and depth. For some stories, distilling them down to one intense moment is the best way to tell them –anything else feels like padding. But while I’m all for efficiency in storytelling, there are times when a story is crying out for more space in which to breathe. Perhaps it would be better told in a sequence of scenes, or maybe there are several layers to explore, and a shorter version just isn’t doing the job.

One thing I have noticed about your writing, which makes it very powerful in its resonance is that you include great sensory details. Is that something you always payattention to carefully in your writing?

Thank you. In truth, I’ve always been keenly aware of my senses – sensory details are woven into the fabric of my memories. For me, including them in my writing feels quite natural, I don’t have to think too much about the process. But those details serve a purpose, too.Something that transformed my writing was being taught, early on, to consider the reader’s experience. Writing is all about getting the reader to feel something. The right details can seta tone, create tension, establish character and even suggest narrative – I’ve talked before about how, in flash, description can do ‘double duty’. That said, those details need to be the right details

If sensory details seem forced, or confusing, then they don’t work. They need to feel right for the story. Describing a character’s toes pressing through wet, gritty sand, or the rough bark of a tree, or the high screech of a kettle, or the particular metallic smell of a coin,brings the reader into the story – he or she has to dig into their own sensory memory bank,and with that comes a whole raft of emotions, all of which add depth to the reading experience. These details are like emotional hot keys. With them, we can make the reader feel fear, disgust, warmth, compassion. When editing a story, I’m mindful of how it works on different sensory levels, from the rhythm of the sentences to the images, sensations, smells and tastes it evokes.

You teach flash fiction and short story writing online and in person for Moor Words and Comma Press. Can you tell us a little more about this enterprise and what you have coming up soon?

Teaching is in my bones – I love it! Over the last few years, I’ve taught workshops and courses for various organisations, including Comma Press, London Writers’ Café, Retreat West and Word Factory. I trained as a teacher, and there’s nothing quite like the buzz of being in the classroom – though, admittedly, story acceptances are hard to beat. I set up Moor Words and started teaching local classes in Ilkley before the pandemic. When lockdown began, I was midway through a short fiction course and had to quickly adapt to online teaching. It was a steep learning curve!

I’m especially grateful to Farhana Shaikh of Dahlia Press. Back in 2021, she invited me to deliver a masterclass on her A Brief Pause programme, along with a wonderful group of teachers and writers. Through the excellent training she provided, I discovered that online learning can be warm, engaging, fun and inclusive. For many, online workshops have opened up new possibilities: writers in varied time zones can participate asynchronously, and those unable to travel can tune in from home. It’s not perfect, because not everyone has online access, but it’s a step in the right direction. During lockdown, especially, those regular human interactions became so important.

I have lots going on at the moment. I’m currently teaching a 6-month short story course in Leeds for Comma Press. It’s great to be teaching in person again. I’ll be co-leading a workshop with Sharon Telfer at the Flash Fiction Festival. I also co-host Word Factory’s Strike! Short Story Club, and I recently set up a monthly social writing group at Ilkley’s Grove Bookshop, where I work part time. I’m taking a few weeks over the summer to focus on my own writing projects, but I have new online workshops and courses brewing for the autumn,so keep an eye out for those.

What do you like about teaching flash fiction in particular?

There are very many astonishingly good flash fictions we can read these days, published online and in print. Which flash fiction stories have made a strong impact on you recently?

The Girls Are Pretty Crocodiles,

‘The Mouthfeel of Another Accent

RRS Discovery’

‘My Americanah’ by Vincent Anioke

You are also an editor for Flashback Fiction, an online magazine that publishes historical flash fiction. And with Sharon Telfer, you are running a workshop at the 2022 Flash Fiction Festival.What have you learned about writing historical pieces from being an editor of the magazine?

This is not a story about my grandfather

Any tips for writers who might be considering writing a flash of 300 words or under for our Award?

June 2022 Award Round Up

Australia, Austria, Barbados, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jersey, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam.

As usual, the last few weeks and the last weekend in particular saw a great flood of submissions. And we appreciate everyone who entered at any time during the contest and the final day writers who received a (virtual) Last Minute Club badge (this time in pink and silver pastel party colours). we hold a guess-the-colour-of-the-badge contest on Twitter the day before the badge is revealed. One person guessed the right shade of pink, and the other, chose a silvery grey. So they both received a book anthology prize.

Snow Crow

Tommy Dean

Do read his report

This time, four different countries were represented among the winners. Many congratulations to all authors. Their stories are linked to their names here. The first prize winner Rachel Blake from the US wrote ‘Sequelae’, second prize winner Madeline Bryne from Australia wrote ‘Between’, third prize winner Abigail Williams from the UK wrote ‘Don’t mistake me for your crabapple’, Sudha Balagopal from the US wrote ‘On our daughter’s wedding day’ and Olwen Wilson from Canada wrote ‘The Shape of the Situation in Apartment 23C on a Sunday in September.‘

Our next award opens on July 1st and is judged by Emily Devane from the UK who, among other awards, won the Bath Flash Fiction Award in February, 2017..Our interview with her will be on the website tomorrow. The 22nd Award closes on Sunday 9th October. We’re looking forward to reading more wonderful stories. We love flash fiction!

Jude Higgins
June 2022