Winner, Young Writers’ Flash Fiction Contest

As an addition to our March online flash fiction day, Susmita Bhattacharya, who was a judge for the adult contest, and is a facilitator for the Mayflower Young Writers Group in Southampton, hosted a parallel flace-to-face flash fiction workshop for young writers. The young people also had their own writing competition. Flash Fiction team member, Alison Woodhouse, dropped in to their session to talk more about flash and to set a prompt. She asked writers to use an object as the focal point of a piece of flash to tell a story.

Thank you to all who entered. Alison has now chosen the winner! Huge congratulations to Katie Britton, a member of MayFlower Young Writers, @MayflowerYW who used a mirror as her focal point. Katie’s story is based on an actual mirror in her house, and we love that she has sent us her picture posed in front of it. Katie wins a special mug with the flash fiction logo, which has ‘Winner’ and her name written on the back. Read in Full

Winning Stories, March Flash Fiction Festival

Congratulations to the winner, Rosaleen Lynch and the runner-up Mandira Pattnaik.Read more about them and judge Susmita Bhattacharya’s comments here

CHAW
by Rosaleen Lynch

Chaw /tʃɔ:/ (verb.) to chew roughly, (noun.) a wad, like chewing tobacco your Da might spit at you when he comes home drunk; (acronym.) e.g. CHAW;

‘C’ for Courage (n.) from the French ‘coeur‘ for heart, the heart to run away or the heart to stay;

‘H’ for Hope (v.) from the Germanic to trust, rely on, have confidence in or Hope (n.) as in ‘we haven’t got a hope’ or ‘hopeless’ (antonym.) or without feathers;

‘A’ for Admiration (n.) from the old French ‘to wonder at the miracle’, the miracle you’ve lived this long, and you truly wonder at the miracle that your Da’s standing after how much he’s had to drink;

‘W’ for Wisdom (n.) insight, making good judgements e.g. whether to remove the remaining chaw and food from your Da’s mouth as he now lies on the kitchen floor, after trying to convince you all, that beans on toast need decorating with edible flowers, like on some TV cooking show, holding irises from next-door, he swears are edible, and to prove it, stuffs one in his mouth with tobacco and chaws, and when he falls, you look for courage to let him be, to see what’s best for family, hope this time he’ll do the right thing, something you could admire, like change or die, but you’re wise enough to realize, he’ll survive, your Da’s toxicity will win against that of the iris;

Iris /ˈʌɪrɪs/ (n.) Greek for eye pigmentation, the same colour as yours, watching him, waiting, ruminating on whether this is the only trait passed on, if the darkness too will be carried by the genes, like clouds carry rain, like Iris, the messenger of the gods, in The Illiad (the legend of the siege of Troy) the Greek goddess of the rainbow, carries truth.

TOP FLYING ADVICE FOR NEW FLIERS

by Mandira Pattnaik

29 March 2017

1. Fly on Nonstop Non-risk Routings
Most accidents occur during takeoff, climb, descent, and landing phases of flight. Like dating, lovemaking, marriage, and cohabitation. Soniya’s admiration for Rajiv stems from his saying yes on the first date. But both must agree to reduce their exposure to these most accident-prone phases of flight.

2. Choose Larger Aircraft
Obviously. Also, in the unlikely event of a serious accident, Rajiv’s larger hands will be more comforting.

3. Pay Attention to the Preflight Briefing
Although the information seems repetitious, the locations of the closest emergency exits may be different depending on the aircraft that you fly on and seat you are in: says Mum and married sisters. They also provide endless hope.

4. Keep Your Seat Belt Fastened While You are Seated
Wisdom demands a firm anchoring if and when the flight hits unexpected turbulence: says Soniya’s friends.

5. Hazardous Material Banned
By the end of the first year, both new fliers know the list of hazardous materials that are not allowed, but common sense should tell them how handy knives, mirrors, glasses and bottles can be while you’re involved in an argument. Particularly if the coupling is already under strain.

6. Drink During Flight — Maintain Responsibility
Atmosphere in an airliner cabin is pressurized and moderation is a good policy at any altitude. Rajiv (or both) often forgets this. Dirt is dug and flung at each other.

7. Keep Your Wits About You
In the rather likely event of a precautionary emergency evacuation, Soniya isn’t alarmed when Rajiv tells her: Go, get lost. She is prepared to land in the worst possible. All flights are essentially leaps of faith.

The March Great Flash fiction Festival Throwdown Winners!

Thanks very much to novelist, short story, flash fiction writer and writing teacher, Susmita Bhattacharya for judging the contest at the last of our current series of online flash fiction festival days on Saturday March 26th. One of the prizes is a mug featuring part of a painting of irises by Vincent Van Gogh. Susmita discovered that the iris flower, has different meanings. It is seen as a flower representing hope, admiration, faith, wisdom and courage. She asked writers to write a hermit crab style flash incorporating several of these words. Her comments on the winners are below. We’ve posted their stories on another page linked here. And Susmita’s comments on the flash fictions are below.

Prizes are £30 for the winner plus the mug pictured and publication online on this site and in the fifth Flash Fiction Festival Anthology, which will be published by adhocfiction in the late Autumn this year. The runner-up is also offered publication and an anthology from published by aAd Hoc Fiction. Read in Full

Applications open for free places at the Flash Fiction Festival in July

Watercolour of Trinity College by a previous participant

We currently have three donated places of £270 each towards the in-person flash fiction festival 8th to 10th July in Bristol. This sum is for the weekend package of workshops, talks,and readings on Saturday and Sunday but does not cover the cost of the pre-festival workshop on Friday afternoon, meals, accommodation or travel. Read in Full

Flash Fiction Festival Anthology, Volume Four

We’re thrilled that Flash Fiction Festival Volume Four, the anthology of stories from the nine online festival days, March 2021 – January 2022, sponsored by Ad Hoc Fiction, is officially published today, 25th March in the first flush of spring and you can buy it from the Ad Hoc Fiction bookshop and shortly from Amazon in paperback. (ebook will come later). We’re building a rainbow of anthologies from the online and in person flash fiction festivals. And now we have a green colour to add to the red, orange and yellow flash fiction festival anthologies already published. It is so good to publish this green covered anthology now after the haitus due to the pandemic and cancelled in-person flash festivals. There’ll be an opportunity to be published in the Flash Fiction Festival Volume Five if you attend the weekend festival of flash in Bristol this year, 8th to 10th July. We’ll be open for submissions after the festival has finished and it will also included the winners and runners up from the online festival days in February and March this year and Pokrass Prize. which is for all of the in-person festival participants Read in Full

Winners’ Stories, February 26th Flash Festival challenge

These stories were selected by Sage Tyrtle who set the prompt and judged the February ‘Throwdown’ challenge at the online flash fiction festival. We’ve another post to read with her comments and more about Sara Hills and David Lewis who were this month’s winners. Read in Full

Winners of Great FlashFiction Festival Throwdown, February

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Thank you so much to writer, and learning facilitator, Sage Tyrtle who was our writing contest judge for the tenth of our Flash Fiction Festival Days.She set a great prompt based on Van Gogh’s Cafe terrace painting. Thank you also to all the writers who entered. (Please check out Sage’s website, linked above, for more of her workshops inspiring writers with wonderful prompts).

The winner, selected by Sage, is Sara Hills
Sage wrote these comments on ‘Tomorrow at Cafe La Nuit’, Sara’s story. Read in Full

Raffle

At the in-person flash fiction festival, Friday 14th to Sunday 16th July, 2022 in Bristol, UK, we’re selling raffle tickets at £1.00 each, with all proceeds going to The Trussell Trust.

Here is our list of prizes!

Hall and Woodhouse, who have generously supported us at previous festivals, are donating a £200 voucher towards an overnight stay at one of their hotels.

Lots of Books in the Raffle

Co-Festival Director, Diane Simmons is offering her flash fiction collection Finding A Way, and her Novella-in-Flash, An Inheritance.

One of our sponsors, Ad Hoc Fiction, is offering two novella-in-flash book bundles and <

Nancy Stohlman is offering a copy of her incredibly useful flash fiction guide book, ‘Going Short’,published by Ad Hoc Fiction in 2021.

Our sponsor, Bath Flash Fiction Award is offering three free entries to Bath Flash Fiction Award worth £18.00

Two free places at one of the next online Flash Fiction festivals to be scheduled in the Autumn. Dates arranged soon. Worth £30 each for a whole day of flash fiction.

A free year-long membership with the amazing Writer’s HQ
Writers’ HQ is an online creative writing school for ‘badass writers with no time or money’ that offers a huge catalogue of online writing courses, webinars, workshops and resources, along with our flashtastic free weekly Flash Face Off challenge. We also happen to have the very best writing community in town to help you find your literary home and develop your writing with a team of friendly cheerleaders!
Find out more at www.writershq.co.uk or throw us a gif @writers_hq on Twitter.

Anita Carpenter, who runs Flash Cabin is offering a year’s worth of Art & Flash sessions

https://www.flashcabin.com/art-flash

The Propelling Pencil is offering 1 x critique of stories up to 500 words and
1 x voucher redeemable against any upcoming workshop

A voucher for 50% off creative coaching from the Story Road (Audrey Niven)

Pokrass Prize 2024

Winners’ stories posted now!

Meg Pokrass

One of our flash fiction festival founders, acclaimed writer and teacher,Meg Pokrass set a writing challenge for all festival participants and also judged the winners.
Results were announced to great excitment at the Flash Fiction Festival, 2024, 12-14th July, where the happy winners picked up their prizes. Thank you to all the festival partipcants who entered this year. A lot of you!

Meg’s general comments are copied below and her comments on the individual stories are with the stories (linked below)

Meg Comments: This time, pcking only one winner and a few honourable mentions from so many masterful stories felt like being asked to choose between seeing the Northern Lights and a full solar eclipse (both of which I missed this year, but that’s beside the point!). It was exciting and daunting, this job— given the high quality of writing from what are clearly some of the strongest flash writers in the world. Photographer Louella Lester’s startling house photo, with its contrasting shades and implied creepiness, brought out the most perfectly haunted narratives one could have hoped for.

Huge congratulations to the first prize winner, Suzanne Greene, from the UK who wrote the story ‘Something LIke A Promise.’
and three runners-up:
Susan Wigmore who wrote the story ‘LORCA THOUGHT THE DEAD IN SPAIN ARE MORE ALIVE THAN ANYWHERE ELSE; HE DIDN’T KNOW MY SISTER;’
Anika Carpenter who wrote the story : ‘The Best Friend I Ever Had’;
and
Philippa Bowe who wrote the story ‘The House that Harold Built’.

Prizes were £50 for the first prize winner, plus two Ad Hoc Fiction published books, three entries to Bath Flash Fiction Award, publication on this website and also in Flash Fiction Festival Vol 7, out at the end of this year. Two runners up receive a book, 3 BFFA entries and publication.

Here’s the prompt that inspired the winners and the many other excellent stories, which we hope will go on to find good homes.

Write a story about a family who may have lived in this house (photograph by Louella Lester) at one time (or still lives there now). See if you can include shades in the story of light and dark. Try to use one or more of the following prompt words:
glasses, greyish, trick, lamplight, dank, firefly

Pre-fest workshop with Kathy Fish

Kathy Fish

How Did They Do It? Master Moves in Flash Fiction: with Kathy Fish Friday 12th July, 2.00 – 5.00 pm

NB: This workshop is NOT ONLINE. It is an in-person extra to the the main festival workshops. It is also open to those who are not coming to the rest of the weekend. Workshop cost: £50.00 GBP

STOP PRESS (27th April) SOLD OUT. Contact jude (at) flashfictionfestival (dot) com to
to go on a waiting list.

Read, read, read. Read everything – trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. –William Faulkner

Kathy says:
I’m sure we’ve all had the experience of reading an exquisite flash story, one that leaves us deeply moved and in awe of its craftsmanship and artistry, only to ask ourselves, “how on earth did they do it?” This highly interactive and generative three-hour session is aimed at discussing and dissecting some of the very best flash fiction published in the past fifty years. We’ll look especially at style, emotional resonance, subtext, language, character development, voice, and innovation. In the spirit of growing our own art, we’ll tease apart and identify the craft moves of the masters. Then, inspired and energized, we will write to prompts designed to unlock our own unique genius. Expect to come away with newfound appreciation and understanding of what flash fiction can do, along with two fresh drafts you’ll feel good about.

Kathy Fish has published five collections of short fiction, most recently Wild Life: Collected Works from 2003-2018. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, Copper Nickel, Washington Square Review, and numerous other journals, textbooks, and anthologies. Fish’s “Collective Nouns for Humans in the Wild,” was selected for Best American Non-required Reading 2018 and the current edition of The Norton Reader. Her newsletter, The Art of Flash Fiction, provides monthly craft articles and writing prompts and is free to all. Subscribe here: https://artofflashfiction.substack.com.