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On the former Twitter, recently, we said our short-short fiction press, Ad Hoc Fiction, had published thirty Novellas-in-Flash since the first NIF award opened in 2017. In fact, Ad Hoc has published an astonishing 45 NIF’s. A huge variety, showcasing this exciting genre. The covers are all displayed in the gallery above.For the first two yearly awards, the three winners were published in three-novella anthologies. We then began to publish the novellas indiviudally and for two consecutive years published the entire short list of ten novellas. In addition, separate from the yearly Awards, Ad Hoc Fiction has published three other novellas in flash. We are a very small team (two of us) so we think this is an achievement to be proud of. Read in Full

David Swann won first prize in our 2021 Novella in Flash Award, judged by Michella Elvy with Season of Bright Sorrow. We are thrilled that this wonderful novella in flash, published by adhocfiction.com and also available on Amazon worldwide, has won Book of the Year 2023 in the Rubery Award. Huge congratulations. It is a wonderful achievment.
It’s a brilliant book and we’ve quoted what the judges said about it below. David won £2000 which he has shared with Sam Hubbard the marvellous illustrator of the novella.

Dave received a plaque from the Rubery Award when he returned from holiday and here he is on his allotment with it and a sunflower.

Read in Full

Thank you everyone for entering out 24th Award. Those who entered early, those who submitted in the middle months and those who entered on the final day and received our sophisticated purple and orange Last Minute Club badge, pictured here. A couple of people won prizes for guessing one colour each, the day before the badge went live. It was another exciting round with 1089 entries steadily arriving (almost the same number as in June, last year) from the following countries:

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.

Thanks as alwayys to our reading team, big flash fiction lovers, who, from a vast array of marvellous flash fictions of 300 words or under, selected a wide variety of stories for the longlist of fifty. And we are very grateful to our judge Tim Craig for his exacting work of selecting the short list of twenty and the winners. Read his very interesting and generous comments on the whole process and on the winning pieces. Thank you Tim!

This June, the first prize goes to William Davidson from the UK with his brilliant flash fiction ‘Remembered Yellow’. William won our inaugural award in 2016 with ‘Radio Alarm’ another great story and we’re so excited has won another first prize, seven years later. He is the second writer to win our Awards twice (the other writer is Sharon Telfer in 2020 and 2016.).

Second prize, for her exceptional story, ‘Failure to Thrive’ goes to Sara Hills, an American writer living in the UK, who has been placed twice before and long or shortlisted on many occasions. We’re also delighted that, by co-incidence, Sara is judging our 25h Award which opens July 1st and ends in October.

Third prize goes to Noemi Sheiring-Olah, from Hungary, for ‘To All the Copies of Us’ another maarvellous and moving flash fiction. Noemi has been successful in other major contests recently and we’re thrilled she has won a place in our Award.

James Montgomery won Highly Commended for his one sentence marvel, ‘Diamonds in the Earth’. He said on Twitter, he had been working on this story for about three years and had never been listed before. So it’s a lovely thing that his persistence has paid off.

Pilar Garcia Claramonte also won highly commended for’My Daughter the Wolf Therian’ a fabulous story with many layers and with such an intriguing title.

Huge congratulations to everyone You can read Tim’s comments on all these stories in his report. I have linked the titles of each story to the winners’ page on this website too and they will be published in our year-end anthology.

Our next contest, judged by Sara Hills, opens tomorrow 1st July and ends in October. We look forward to reading your stories.

Many congratulations to all the twenty authors who made the 24th Award short list, selected by judge, Tim Craig.
Read in Full

Thanks again to all flash fiction writers, for your fantastic support for our Bath Flash Fiction Awards. Our readers are very busy reading your entries for the 24th Award, this time judged by award winning writer from the UK, Tim Craig. Why not have a final read through of my Q & A with him to find out what he likes, if you want to enter before we close tomorrow, Sunday 4th June at midnight, BST.

To remind everyone, The Last Minute Club, for intrepid flash fictioneers is only open on the final day. Anyone entering on Sunday will receive a (virtual) Last Minute Club badge. Everyone loves badges don’t they? We’ve a mini competition beginning now over on Twitter where the first person to guess the colour of the new badge will receive a Bath Flash Fiction anthology. We often give prizes to two people for near guesses. You won’t know the colour until first thing on Sunday morning.

If you enter on Sunday and receive your badge, do share it on Twitter We love that. It makes it such a fun day!

The first badge was introduced in June 2018. And the one you can collect on Sunday will be the sixteenth badge. All the colour combinations are in the gallery. Tip: there are many shades of green here, so it is unlikely to be green!

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Best wishes for all your entries. It’s always wonderful to receive stories from around the world.

Results out by the end of June. So not long to wait. We have a well-honed fast turn-around time.

We’re thrilled that our authors and enterprises are short-listed in FIVE separate categories in the Saboteur Awards 2023. Thank you to everyone who nominated authors published by Ad Hoc Fiction and also selected our other enterprises. Big congratulations to all five Ad Hoc Fiction authors, our small press, Ad Hoc Fiction, our Dandelion Years anthology, and the Flash Fiction Festival! I have listed titles and categories below and there are pictures of evereything you can vote for in the gallery. Very best wishes to all!

Jude’s going along with fingers-crossed to the Award event and announcements on June 24th in Birmingham. And we’d love you to vote in any of the categories you’d like to support. Voting ends midday June 21st. Link to the form below.

https://sabotagereviews.com/2023/05/31/saboteur-awards-round-2-of-voting-now-open/

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Best Short Story Collection short list
Nick Black for his flash fiction collection, Postive and Negative.
Tim Craig for his flash fiction collection Now You See Him

Best Novella short list

Finnian Burnett for their novella in flash, The Clothes Make the Man
Jupiter Jones for her novella in flash Gull Shit Alley and Other Roads to Hell
Slawca G Scarso for her novella in flash, All Their Favourite Stories

Also we’re thrilled that our short fiction press, Ad Hoc Fiction is short-listed in most Innovative Publisher, the Flash Fiction Festival we sponsor is listed in Best Literary Festival (it’s called Bath Flash Festival on the voting form), and Dandelion Years, Bath Flash Fiction, Vol 7 is listed in Best Anthology.

In addition, Judy Darley, who has reviewed many of our Ad Hoc Fiction books is listed in Best Reviewer category.