The Menopausal Woman and the Tsunami
by Dawn Tasaka Steffler
The Menopausal Woman is finally visiting her sister in Hawaii when an 8.7 earthquake rattles Russia, and now a goddamned tsunami is heading her way. Meanwhile, in California, her husband is freaking out, which, as newlyweds, would’ve been cute. But at her age, all she wants to do is lie on a swan floatie in her sister’s pool, and balance a third gin martini on her squishy tummy. Also, her sister isn’t worried; she has lived through plenty of tsunami warnings before, all of which led to nothing. But her husband, on the other hand! Texting readings from remote ocean buoys and maps of tsunami inundation zones, to which her sister’s house isn’t even close. Texting: Make sure you girls fill up gas, GPS shows highways = parking lot. Texting: Hello? Why is your phone still at the house?
And now her sister, who had gone inside to pee, is poolside again, waving a cell phone and rolling her eyes, “It’s Eric— ” The Menopausal Woman steers her swan to the edge of the pool. “Shouldn’t you be headed to higher ground?!” her husband says, panicking. Just then, emergency sirens go off in the mountains; the wave is now four hours out; her sister reenters the pool; over the phone, her husband is sobbing.
The Menopausal Woman takes in her surroundings: the bay is calm, the sky empty of clouds, and her sister is floating next to her. If today’s the day, this isn’t a bad way to go. But she can’t tell him that. Instead, she reassures him they’re being careful and gently extricates herself. Meanwhile, her sister, who is also menopausal, drains her glass and says, “Shall we have another?” But she doesn’t wait for an answer; her wet footprints trail into the house.
About the Author
Dawn Tasaka Steffler is an Asian-American writer from Hawaii who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She was a Smokelong Quarterly Emerging Writer Fellow, winner of the 2023 Bath Flash Fiction Award, finalist for the 2025 Lascaux Review Prize in Flash Fiction, and selected for Best Small Fictions 2025, and an Anthology of Rural Stories by Writers of Color, 2025 (EastOver Press). Her stories appear in The Forge, JMWW, Sundog Lit, Fictive Dream, Ghost Parachute, and more. Find her online at dawntasakasteffler.com and on BlueSky, Instagram, and Facebook @dawnsteffler.
31st Award Short List
Huge congratulations to the twenty authors who have made our 31st Award short list
Author names are yet to be announced, so while it is fine to share you are on the short list, please do not identify yourself with your particular fiction at this stage.
Winners will be announced tomorrow, Friday 31st October. Any questions, contact us.
Oct 2025 Long List
Congratulations to all the authors who have made our Award long list and huge thanks to all who entered.
Author names are yet to be announced, so while it is fine to share that you are on the long list, we do ask that you do not identify yourself with your particular fiction at this stage.
Important
We receive many many entries, and occasionally some entries have the same title. We are in the process of sending an offer of publication email to all authors on the long list. Please do not assume you are on the long list unless you have received that publication offer. If in doubt, contact us.
BFFA lists delayed, but not that delayed
Did you enter the October Award this year and are you, like the little tin chap pictured, waiting anxiously for our longlist? Our Judge, Kathryn Aldridge-Morris has now been sent the zip file of fifty stories for our 31st Award and normally, at this poin, we would be announcing the longlist titles on this website.
We are a bit delayed because Jude, who shares the posts has been unwell,so all the announcements will come in a cluster, likely to be in between 27th and 31st October. First longlist, then shortlist a couple of days later, then, by the end of the month, the final results of the top five stories plus judge’s reports. The winning five stories will be posted on the website as usual.
Our ninth annual Novella in Flash Award also ends on October 31st. And we’ll acknowledge everyone who has submitted for it by the end of the month.
Thanks
Guess the colour of the Last Minute Club Badge today!
Our 31st BFFA Award closes at midnight tomorrow, Sunday 5th October. The Last Minute Club opens at midnight tonight for the last day and those entering reeive a virtual badge after they’ve entered .
This will be the 23rd badge we’ve issued (We began the game in 2018). Today’s the day you can guess the colour of the badge for this round and win a prize A book if you live in the UK or a Bath Flash Fiction Award entry if you live in another country. It’s usualy a duo of colours. You can check out the colour combos already taken below in the gallery. If one person guesses one colour correctly, and another the other colour, we issue two prizes. Sometimes people get them both correct.
The guessing game now takes place on our Blue Sky account. So if you are signed up there, why not give it a go? And if you are are entering tomorrow, you will get a badge anyway. We’d love you to share your badge on Blue Sky and that you have entered tomorrow.
We do think everyone who enters deserves a badge really. And thank you everyone who has done so.
Results will be out by the end of October. £1460 in prizes. Judge kathryn Aldridge Morris.
Jude, October 4th 2025.
Flash Fiction Fun in Bath!
I hosted a free evening of flash fiction readings in Bath last Saturay 27th September and here is a picture of those reading/ Writers travelled from many different parts of the UK to be there.
From right to left in the photograph, Kevlin Henney from Brstol, Roz Levens from Dartmoor, Marie Day from Bristol, Letty Butler from Brighton, Tim Collyer (back row) from Chippenham, Diane Simmons (front row) from Bath, Jude Higgins from near Bristol, behind her Sara Hills from near Rugby, next to Jupiter Jones from Wales,Cole Beauchamp at the back from London, Abigail Williams in the front, from Devon, Deborah Tompkins from Bristol benind her and next to Caner Akin from Bristol, Flemming George from Oxfrod and Ken Elkes from Clevedon. (Alison Woodhouse from near Bath also read but isn’t pictured here).
It was fun! Such a variety of fabulous stories, several published in previous Bath Flash Fiction Award anthologies such as the Constancy of Woodpigeons and The Weather Where You Are, Flash Fiction Festival anthologies and a couple of stories forthcoming in the new flash fiction festival anthology (red cover again) which Ad Hoc Fiction sponsors and I have just finished compiling, along with Diane Simmons.
If you want a chance of being published in our 10th anniversary anthology, the latest round of Bath Flash Fiction Award for up to 300 word micros closes this Sunday 5th October. It will be judged by Kathryn Aldridge-Morris. Results out by end of October. £1460 in prizes. Those longlisted are offered publication in the anthology, which should be out at the end this year or early next.
Jude, October 2nd 2025.
Tweak that title!
Thanks to everyone from around the world who has already entered our 31st Award. Deadline this coming Sunday. October 5th.
You may have a tweakable story in your archive that could still flower amazingly like this sunflower and be ready to submit in time. Why not consider changing the title? I found a few stories in my archives recently and realised the titles weren’t right. They added nothing and one of them was too abstract. I’d written one of the stories a couple of years previousy It was easier to see an alternative title after this time. I gave a more mundane title to the other recent story. The orgiinal was too fancy for the subject. For your story, can you write a shorter and simpler title? Or, would a longer one suit the subject better. Could either new title give the story more depth? What is likely to grab a reader’s interest?
It’s interesting to look at the title word count for the Bath Flash winning stories since the inugural contest in 2015.. In February this year, I studied the word count of all the first prize winner titles.
Below is a list of the different word count for the second prize winners. It’s a little different from the first prize winners. The longest list is for two word stories. More of the second prize winning stories have three word titles. There are five stories each for two and five word titles. Have a look through the lists from the first and second prizes. Which titles interest you? Read the stories too, to see how the title fits.
One Word
‘McDonalds’ by Sarah Freligh October 2022
‘Pack’ by Dawn Miller, February 2025
‘Edging’ by Iona Rule, February 2022
‘Between’ by Madeline Bryne June 2022
Two words
‘Butterfly Effect’ by Mairead Robinson, October 2023
‘The Mothers’ by Jo Gatford October 2021
‘Mother Before’ Tara Isobel Zambrono, October 2020
‘Rags,Riches’ by Shelley Woods, June 2016
The Coast by Zahid Gamieldien, October 2018
Three words
‘Failure to Thrive’ by Sara Hills June 2023
‘Walking to Wollongong‘ by Nikki Cruthley Feburary 2023
‘Snow Falling Upwards’ Fiona J Mackintosh, February 2019
‘The Perfect Fall’ by Christopher M Drew, February 2016
‘The Undertakers’ Jolly’ by Conor Houghton, June 2018
‘The Wild West’ by Francis McCrickard October 2019
‘There You Are’ by Alys Hobbs October 2024
‘Strong Like Carp’ by Emma Phillips, JUne 2021
‘The Cool Box’ by Nod Ghosh,June 2017
Four words
‘Psalm (after the animals)’ by Joseph Randall, June 2025
‘The Hierarchy of Substances’ by Catherine Edmunds October 2017
Five words
‘This is how we drown’ by Eileen Merriman 2015
‘Car Trouble, Spartenburg, August 2002’ by K S Dyal, Fenruary 2021
‘The Peculiarity of Space Objects’ by Nicholas Cook, February 2017
‘The Dissolution of Peter NcCaffrey by Simon Cowdroy February 2020
‘When the Rubber Hits the Road’ by Lee Nash, February 2018
Seven Words
All The Things That We Are Not by Jo Withers, February 2024
Nine words
‘The Species of Pangolin Compromise Their Own Order Pholidota’ by Hannah Storm, June 2020
‘A God and his Famous Digging Stick Dug This, by Anita Arlov June 2019
Ten words
You have so many more choices than fight or flight by Al Kratz, Feburary 2016
Twelve words
Driving my Seven Year Old Nephew to Visit His Mother at Rehab by Emily Rinkema, June 2024
Two Weeks to go!
Our 31st Award, judged this time by Kathryn Aldridge-Morris from the UK,closes on Sunday 5th October at midnight GMT. For stories up to 300 words. Prze fund of £1460. 1 entry £9.00, two entries £15.00 and three entries £18. Results out by the end of October. Offer of publication in our tenth anniversary anthology for all 50 longlisted. Thanks very much to all who have entered so far.
For those that haven’t entered, here’s your two-weeks-to-go prompt. It’s the autumn equinox this weekend, and in the UK, there is a glut of apples this year. I have a couple of laden apple trees in my garden. But I was still happy to receive the gift of two huge and perfect apples, from a visiting friend. Who has also made lovely blush-pink juice from some of them.
You will see from the picture that they are proper story-book apples, such a gorgeous red. For the prompt here’s an apple metaphor. Find a beautiful rounded idea or two, your very best ones. Juice them up and make them into sweet and poigannt short fictions. Or make your stories a little tartif you want. But not too tart. This apple is called Katie Delicious. So you could have a character called Katie in your story.
Happy writing!
Jude
The Power of Three
Just three weeks until our 31st Award closes on October 5thl .Thank you to everyone who has entered so far. We’re getting pretty busy.
To remind you, the prize fund is £1460. All 50 longlisted writers are offered publication in our tenth anniversary anthology and a free copy of the anthology will be sent to all contrinutors. Judge is muliti-award winning writer and tutor, Kathyrn Aldridge-Morris. Read my interview with her, (which also mentions her reaently published collection, Cold Toast here
Results are announced on this website by the end of the month and the long and short lists before that.
Here are three tips for you for creating new flashes or revising old ones. Yes, many of you know all these sort of things but every one forgets at least one of them.
1.Consider entering three stories. Readers have different tastes. Entries for three are discounted to £18
2.To make your story standout, go for your 3rd, 13th or even 33rd idea on a theme. So many editors and judges make the point that within competition entries there are many, many stories on familiar themes. You might not even realise how many dozens of stories can be about relationship break ups, dementia, or the end of the world. Many of these are excellent but the best ones add something new and arresting.
3.To add unusual departures in your stories pick three random words from three different pages in a non-fiction book, with the number three included, if you get stuck with your story. This activiy will be your personal version of ‘Word Cricket’, the exercise popularised by well-known writer and teacher, Vanessa Gebbie which she offers each year at the Flash Fiction Festival Bath Flash Fiction sponsors in Bristol in July each year. Vanessa starts off the whole group writing with the same phrase and bowls in random words at intervals which can make strange and wonderful things happen in a story. Often festival participants bravely read their new stories to the whole assembly. It’s extraordinary the drafts people write in a very short time, emboldened by the words and how differently the writers make use of these words.
I am suggesting a non fiction book to pick the words from because they often have a number of interesting words on any page. For eg. I just found up a copy of Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald a book of essays about the natural world and chose disarticulated, qualms and nightjar from three different pages. Including such words could make a potential story about a rocky relationship, for example, go in unexpected directions.
Best wishes everyone. The picture shows a lucky four-leaved clover! Three leaved clovers are far too common of course. So just add one extra extraordinary thing to your story for luck. A great title, a fantastic ending. Something oddly amusing.
Thanks
Jude
September 14th, 2025
4 weeks to go until the deadline of our 31st Award!
Our 31st Award closes 4 weeks today, on October 5th. Our judge is Kathryn Aldridge-Morris, a previous first prize winner of Bath Flash Fiction Award (read her story, selected by the judge of that round, Matt Kendrick here). Double and triple entries are discounted. £1460 in prize money. Results out at the end of October. All fifty longlisted writers are offered publication in our anthology. It’s your last chance this year to be published in our tenth anniversary award anthology and to receive a free copy of the book.
If you want a prompt,read our interview with Alison Powell, first prize winner of the 30th Award (story linked here).
If you want last minute inspiration, on Saturday 27th September and are in or near Bath, Jude’s holding a FREE evening of readings with readings from around 15 flash fiction writers, in St Jame’s Wine Vaults gallery room in Bath, from 7.30 pm to 10.00 pm. Free snacks and raffle with tickets £1.00 each and good prizes of books and other goodies. Proceeds from the raffle are again being donated to Penny Brohn National Cancer Help Centre, based in Bristol. At the in person Flash Fiction Festival, we sponsor, we raised £384 for Penny Brohn and they sent us this lovely thank you certicate to share. Thanks to all who came to the festival and bought tickets and for volunteer Nicold Keller (helped by Cheryl Markosky) for selling them
