Thank you to everyone who entered our 31st Award judged this time by Kathryn Aldridge-Morris from the UK

We received 1058 stories this time, many of the stories from the UK, the US and Ireland and a substantial number from Australia, Canada and New Zealand and numerous other single entries or more from countries around the world. It is always so exciting to see where the entries come from and to know that flash fiction is thiriving in so many different places.

We issued our usual last minute club badge on the last day (pictured here) and there were, indeed ,a lot of writers who received the badge to celebrate their last minute entries.
Thank you to everyone who entered early or mid way through or nearer the end. We appreciate all of your support for our ventures.

The variety and standard of entries was very high. And our readers (thanks to them again for their dedication to flash fiction and intense reading period) had hard decisions to make to filter down to the final 50 out of so many entries. Sometimes choices were made because there were a lot of very good stories on a similar theme, So we hope these excellent stories that didn’t make our long list will find a home elsewhere.

Everything has been a little delayed this time due to my being in hospital (better now) which is why the long list, short list and winners were announced in quick succession. Thank you to everyone for your patience in waiting. And I hope the winning announcements coming within a few days of each other was not too much of a roller coaster ride.

Kathryn Aldridge-Morris worked very hard to keep to her schedule and we very much appreciate her for her close reading and difficult tasks in selecting the short list of twenty and for choosing the five top stories. All amazing stories, showing the great variety possible in writing flash fiction. You can read her report here

Many congratulations to all our winners:

This time first prize goes to ‘Two Male Nudes’ by Adam Brannigan from Australia
The second Prize, ‘Vagina First’, is by Emily Rinkema from the US, who has won second prize previously with (June 2024). Emily Rinkema June 2024 Second Prize
Third Prize ‘My Husband Watches Henry The Donkey’ is by Debra A Daniel from the US, who has also won third prize previously and also won the Bath Novella in Flash Award earlier this year,

Highly commended writer: Dawn Tasaka Steffler from the US with ‘The Menopausal Woman and the Tsunami’. Dawn won the Bath Flash Fiction Award in Dawn Tasaka Steffler October 2023 First Prize

The 50 writers on the longlist have been sent emails asking if they want to be published in our tenth anniversary anthology. We’re looking forward to publish this at the end of this year or early next and it will contain stories from all three awards this year.

The next award opens on November 1st and closes in early February 2026 and is judged by John Brantingham from the US, who has previously been a judge for the Novella in Flash Award in 2023 and 2024.

We look forward to reading more of your stories

Jude
October 31st 2025