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.
In parallel with the online flash fiction festival day, Susmita, who as well as being a Creative Writing Lecturer at Winchester University, is also the Lead Facilitator for ArtfulScribe Mayflower Young Writers, led an hour long workshop for the young writers, eleven to fourteen years of age. One of our festival team members, Alison Woodhouse, dropped in to this session to talk a little bit more about flash fiction and to offer a prompt for their own competition, which she is judging. Thanks very much to her. The winner of this contest will also win a mug. Design to be decided. Results out soon.
We’re also delighted that both Susmita and Alison are running workshops for us at the in-person festival this July.
March Winners and comments
Rosaleen Lynch, from the UK, is the winner with her story. ‘Chaw’. She was also a winner in the previous series of Flash Fiction Festival Days, The Great Festival Flash Off and was one of the three winner of winners for one of the categories of challenges set during this series.
Rosaleen is an Irish youth and community worker and writer in the East End of London with words in lovely places, like Craft, Smokelong Quarterly, Jellyfish Review, EllipsisZine, Mslexia, Litro Magazine, Fish Publishing and Flash Fiction Festival Anthology Four, shortlisted by the Bath Short Story Award and the Bridport Prize, a winner of the HISSAC Flash Fiction Competition and the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize. She can be found on Twitter @quotes_52 and 52Quotes.blogspot.com.
Susmita comments:
I loved how ‘Chaw’ is so successful technically as a hermit crab flash – set up like dictionary word entries and also is an acrostic piece. The theme is very moving, the imagery striking and the story made me think about the characters: the father and the narrator for a long time after I’d finished reading it. It’s put together in a very clever way but also is full of powerful emotion.
The Runner up is Mandira Pattnaik from India, with her story,’Top Flying Adnice for New Fliers’ Mandira Pattnaik writes flashfiction and essays. She contributes regular columns for Trampset and Reckon Review and edits for Vestal Review. Her work can be found in mandirapattnaik.com
Susmita comments:
” I loved the subtext and the message for couples in a new relationship and how the Airline Safety Message is used as the form to show the relationship between the two main characters in the story. Again, the subtext here is so cleverly done, I loved the way the lives of the two characters unravelled in the story and some of the instructions made me smile.”
If you are booked to come on the Flash Fiction Festival Weekend 8th -10th July, you can enter ‘The Pokrass Prize,’ with the chance of winning £50 plus publication in our next anthology. Results for that contest, prompt set and judged by Meg Pokrass, will be announced during the festival weekend.
