5 Bath Flash Fiction Award Anthologies – the history

We’ve summarised some information about the five anthologies published since the first Bath Flash Fiction Award opened early in 2015.For those who remember, we had a different way of running the competition back then. We didn’t close the inaugural Award until we reached 1000 entries. Ambitous! This took a long time. The inaugural Award announcement was in October, 2015. We hadn’t thought of producing an anthology at that early stage.

We switched to a three times a year Award in 2016 and the first anthology produced by Ad Hoc Fiction, To Carry Her Home containing 145 fictions from the three rounds of the 2016 awards and some stories from 2015, came out in early 2017. Ad Hoc Fiction, published The Lobsters Run Free, an anthology from the three rounds of the 2017 Award at the end of that same year. In 2018, the third anthology. Things Left And Found at the Side of the Road was published, in 2019 The fourth anthology, With One Eye on the Cows and in 2020, Restore to Factory Settings. The title isn’t decided until after the last award but is always chosen from a title among the longlisted stories. And you still have a chance to enter before our last award for 2021 closes on October 10th. As usual,the anthology will be published by Ad Hoc Fiction at the end of the year.

We’ve published around 650 very short fictions in print, so far in these books. The anthologies are such good reads.
The fifty people who are longlisted in each award are offered publication and receive a free copy of the book, posted world wide. We’ve asked people to post pictures of the book in their locations when they arrive and have been sent amazing shots of the books posed with and without their authors. Here’s some starring With One Eye On The Cows.

Before the pandemic, each of the anthologies was launched in Bath and authors travelled a long way to join us with fun nights of readings, cake and celebrations. We often managed a joint launch with authors reading who were published in Flash Fiction Festival Anthologies Last year we had a very successful online launch. The added advantage being that writers from different countries were able to read.

John at Ad Hoc Fiction designs all the covers of the bookd and he works with a story title that inspires him from around 135 in the book. The title stories are usually the ones found at the end of the anthology, when it is published, although in 2018 Things Left and Found At the Side of the Road was the title of a first prize winner story by Jo Gatford from the UK and is the first story in the book. It sparked off ideas for a cover with an image based on the UK Highway Code. The design for the first anthology, To Carry Her Home was inspired by a very moving story by Christopher Allen. The plait design is a reference to the sister’s hair referred to in the story. The Lobsters Run Free was inspired by the story by writer Anna Geary Meyer from Germany. With One Eye on The Cows was inspired by the story of the same name by Annette Edwards Hill from Australia. Q & A with Annette Edwards-Hill, author of ‘With One Eye On The Cows’. Last year’s anthology Restore to Factory Settings was inspired by UK writer, J A Keogh’s story.

The anthologies are available from the Ad Hoc Fiction bookshop and from Amazon. We really looking forward to seeing all the stories from 2021 in print soon.

Jude Higgins
October 2021

Flash Fiction Festival: New Series beginning Oct 30th

One of our goals at Bath Flash Fiction is to promote the reading and writing of flash fiction. In past years, we’ve sponsored, along with Ad Hoc Fiction, the face-to-face flash fiction festivals in Bath and Bristol. This year, our founder, Jude Higgins, organised The Great festival Flash Off, a fun series of festival days running from March 2021 to August 2021. This was a very popular series, with great workshops, talks, readings and contests and because it was online, it was accessible to a world wide audience. The final prize from this first series – The Winner of Winners cash prizes from the festival writing challenges has been announced today. And a festival anthology from the series will be published by Ad Hoc Fiction early next year.

To take us through the winter beginning with a day on October 30th, we’re sponsoring, The Great Festival Throw Down another series of five festival days again with workshops, talks and readings and another contest. It costs only £30 from 11.00 am – 6.30 pm GMT for access to everything and there are several free places for those for whom cost is a barrier on each of the days. The ‘Throw Down’ title refers to the theme of the monthly cash prize flash fiction contest for flashes of emotional resonance, inspired by the judge of the Great British Throw Down a TV pottery contest show where the judge is often moved to tears by people’s efforts. It’s definitely worth looking at the video clips of him here. Each month, the winner receives £30 cash prize and one of the mugs pictured.

On the first day, October 30th as well as the contest, there is a one and half hour workshop on writing the 100 word story with Tommy Dean; Crimnally Short, half an hour on writing flash crime fiction with Tania Hershman; a Hermit Crab Hangout with Jude Higgins focussing on spells and superstitions (for Halloween), Between The Woods and the Water, a nature inspired workshop with Electra Rhodes, yoga stretches for writers with Sudha Balagopal,a talk on compiling their flash fiction collectionsfrom Sara Hills and Alison Woodhouse; themed reading slots from invited festival participants, and chats with friends. Check out all details at the Festival website and hope to see you there!

Double book launch for novellas-in-flash by Tracy Fells and Jupiter Jones

Come to this joint launch on Zoom, hosted by Jude Higgins on Wednesday 15th September 7.30 pm – 9.00 pm BST of two excellent and innovative novellas in flash, Hairy on The Inside by Tracy Fells and TThe Death And Life Of Mrs Parker by Jupiter Jones. At the launch they’ll talk more about their novellas and how they went about writing them and read several stories. There’ll be break out groups, a Q & A and a book giveaway of each of the novellas,
Email Jude at jude{at}adhocfiction{dot}com for a Zoom link.

Both these novellas were short-listed in the 2021 Bath Flash Fiction Novella in Flash Award by judge Michelle Elvy. Read in Full

Interview with Dara Yen Elerath, first prize winner in our 18th Award

This Sunday, 15th August is the last day to buy discounted entries for our 19th Award to be submitted by the deadline of 10th October. To get some inspiration for your own writing, read what poet, prose writer and artist, Dara Yen Elerath has to say about her first prize winning story The Button Wife, selected by K M Elkes in our June Award this year. You can read his comments about the story in his judge’s report. Dara Yen Elerath is also a visual artist, and one of her paintings reproduced here, is used as the cover image on her prize-winning debut poetry collection Dark Braid , which you can buy from Amazon and which she writes about in the interview. Dara also explains her different approaches to writing poetry and flash fiction and has a great writing tip at the end of this interview, part of which I have quoted below. And do look at the vimeo video she made which accompanies her amazing poem from her collection, How And When to Use an Eraser’

…always follow your language and allow the sonic qualities of the words to guide your imagination when you feel stuck or at a loss for how to proceed.

Read in Full

Interview with Michelle Elvy about her hybrid collection, the other side of better

Ad Hoc Fiction, our short short fiction press, published the other side of better, by Michelle Elvy in June this year, exactly two years after publishing her innovative small novel in small forms, the everrumble, launched at the Flash Fiction Festival, held in Bristol in 2019. This new book is equally innovative, traversing the line between prose and poetry. In this interview Michelle tells us more about the book, the book launches which took place in New Zealand in June to co-incide with National Flash Fiction Day, NZ and what New Zealand poet laureate David Eggleton said about it. Michelle also talks about how she arrived at the title and the striking artwork for the cover by New Zealand artist, Jennifer Halli. the other side of better is also available from Nationwide and book shops in New Zealand as well as directly from Ad Hoc Fiction and in August and September Michelle is recording some online readings so we will all be able to hear stories from the collection. We are also delighted that Michelle Elvy, who judged our 2021 Novella-in-Flash Award, is judging the 2022 NIF Award which is open for entries now and closes on January 14th 2022. Read in Full

Triple Novella-in-Flash Launch!

We’re delighted to host a joint launch on Zoom of the three novellas-in-flash by North American writers, recently published or about to be published by by Ad Hoc Fiction Hope you can come on Saturday,14th August, 7.30 pm – 9.00 pm BST to hear about three very different examples of the form and listen to readings from the authors, all successful in the 2021 Bath Flash Fiction, Novella in Flash Award judged by Michelle Elvy.
As well as readings, there will be break-out groups for you to chat with flash fiction friends from around the world and a book giveaway of each of the titles. To get a link for the event, email our host Jude Higgins, representing Ad Hoc Fiction at jude{at}adhocfiction{dot}com. Read in Full

Interview with Sharon Telfer, 19th Award Judge

We’re delighted that writer and editor, Sharon Telfer is going to judge our 19th Bath Flash Fiction Award, which is open July 1st and closes October 9th. Sharon, has some brilliant and encouraging flash fiction writing advice here, as well as news about her forthcoming collection from Reflex Fiction, The Map Waits. Do read the interview and be inspired.

Sharon Telfer lives in East Yorkshire, in the north of England. She won the Bath Flash Fiction Award in June 2016 with ‘Terra Incognita’ and again in February 2020 with ‘Eight Spare Bullets’. She has also won the Reflex Flash Fiction Prize. Her flash has been selected for Best Small Fictions 2021, the 2020 and 2019 ‘BIFFY50’ lists, and Best Microfiction 2019. She was awarded the Word Factory/New Writing North Short Story Apprenticeship in 2018, and placed second in the Bath Short Story Award 2020. She also has a short story in Test Signal, an anthology of contemporary northern writing (Bloomsbury/Dead Ink, 2021). Her debut flash fiction collection, The Map Waits, is published by Reflex Press in 2021. She’s a founding editor of FlashBack Fiction, the online litmag showcasing historical flash. She tweets @sharontelfer and posts terrible photos on Instagram, @sharontelferwriter. Read in Full

Round-Up, 18th Award.

Thank you to everyone who entered our 18th International Flash Fiction Award, the earlybirds, those in the middle period and the last minute writers. We received 1268 entries from 44 different countries:

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mauritius, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Zambia

Read in Full

Judge’s report, 18th Award, by K.M. Elkes

General Comments
Judging a story competition with a high standard of writing is a whole, twist-filled narrative in itself. There are beautiful moments of discovery, difficult decisions, inner wranglings, a love story or two, sadness over loss, and the inevitable questions, mysteries, and ambiguities.

Working your way from longlist to shortlist, you encounter risky, raw stories that promise to leave you changed; love-at-first-sight stories full of confident verve; ones that have an allure through their use of language; quietly persuasive stories, confident in their low-key power; there are stories to admire for their elegance and beauty, and ones that raise a smile with their quirky charm.

After a lot of deliberation, the narrative gathers pace and the climax nears when there are just 10 stories left. You sit with them. Take them on a walk. Gaze at them in silence. Read their words out loud, over and over. You study their deployment of craft – tone and voice, use of narrative tools, the way thematic ideas are conveyed, the pace and flow of the narrative, how well the ending has been earned. You find yourself, in cheesy parlance, asking: ‘is this story the best story it can be?’

Choosing the final group of winning and commended stories is when the tension of the judging narrative reaches its final, feverish pitch. The plot now becomes more complex, stories slide in and out of contention, some disappear then reappear stronger than before, some fade, some remain strong. The pervading tone of this denoument is tough love, and no little admiration, as final decisions are made.

And so, many congratulations to everyone who made it to right to the end of this particular story. Your work deserves it, after the difficult journey it has been on. Congratulations too, to those who missed out on final places – it’s often a case of fine margins. And if you were shortlisted or longlisted, take much strength from that and go again.

Finally, thank you to the whole Bath Flash Fiction Award team for their hard work and dedication and to Jude Higgins for trusting me to be the judge for this incarnation of the Award. Read in Full

Dara Yen Elerath June 2021 First Prize

The Button Wife

by Dara Elerath

The button wife bends her body across the bed, but the cloth husband is not interested in touching her. Instead, he phones the burlap wife. He likes the way her coarse skin brushes against his body. At night, the button wife cries, recalling how her husband used to clutch the dark thread of her hair. She knows the burlap wife’s curls scratch him in the fashion he prefers. The cloth husband has a passion for roughness, but the button wife, woven from cotton, has only been soft and yielding. One evening, she decides to scour the buttons of her eyes with a steel wool; she hopes her husband will love her again. Soon, they are scuffed and cracked. When her husband comes back he looks at her with anger. You have ruined your eyes, he says, how can I look at you now? Later, gazing in a hand mirror, she notes she is no longer beautiful. She lifts a pair of scissors and snips the strings that knot the buttons to her face. Then she can no longer weep; then she can no longer see her husband leave the house each evening. She irons the hem of her dress in darkness. She waits to hear the sound of his car speeding down plastic blacktop. She dreams of the burlap wife’s hair cutting her skin the way it cuts her husband’s. Sometimes, she pricks her arm with a darning needle to feel. The red thread that unspools from her body is long as a dog leash. She wonders then if she is a dog. She hopes the cloth husband will walk her when he returns. She resolves then to wag her tail in greeting. She resolves then to sleep at his feet.

About the Author

Dara Yen Elerath is the author of Dark Braid, which won the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry (BkMk Press). Her first published flash fiction appeared in Tahoma Literary Review and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as The American Poetry Review, AGNI, Boulevard, Plume, Poet Lore, Hunger Mountain, and The Los Angeles Review, among others. She received her MFA in poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts and resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico.