We’re thrilled to announce that the winning novellas-in-flash from the 2026 Novella in Flash Award are now published on Amazon worldwide in paperback.
Winner: Unhoused by Victora Melekian from the USA
Runners-up. The Hilltop Hour by Joanna Campbell from the UK
and How to Get There From Here by Beth Sherman.
We love the covers, all from fabulous images/designs supplied by the authors.
Read Jude’s judge’s report and more about the authors here and more about the novellas below:
Paperback copies of these new novellas will be available at the flashfictionfestival.com bookshop and at other events organised by Bath Flash Fiction and Ad Hoc Fiction. If you are not attending the festival and would like to buy one of these fantastic novellas, the book titles link to Adhocfiction.com and Amazon in many different countries. One click sends you straight to the correct page!
Winner: Unhoused by Victoria Melekian
“Devastating and wise, Unhoused chronicles terminal illness, grief, and dark family secrets—but also human strength and the miraculous joy of community care. Each snip of prose is a quiet heartbreak. I am shattered again and again. But in the connections and in the space between these carefully observed and emotionally resonant stories, a greater tale of resilience and hope emerges. I kept thinking as I read that this is what a novella-in-flash is meant to do.
—Allison Wyss, author of Splendid Anatomies
“This is what I love most about flash—the way it keeps unfolding inside you long after you’ve finished reading. Unhoused, Victoria Melekian’s stunning novella-in-flash, does exactly that. I closed the book with hope for these characters—and for all of us—and a deeper sense of our shared humanity. This book is a beautiful entry point for new readers of the form, and a gift to those who already cherish it.”
—Judy Reeves, author of A Writer’s Book of Days
Runner-up: How to Get There from Here by Beth Sherman
“Swimming in swirling waters of dementia, this story chronicles things we lose, from car keys to memories of fireflies, and things we try to hold onto, from our sense of self to our sense of safety. Beth Sherman explores daughter-mother experiences in novella-in-flash moments, sometimes harrowing, sometimes comical. How to Get There from Here navigates these waters with a deft hand, and demonstrates how the deepest nurturing happens in the quiet spaces between.”
– Michelle Elvy, author of The Other Side of Better
With clear language that shifts easily between everyday moments and more lyrical passages, Sherman writes with honesty and restraint, making the emotional weight feel real without being overwhelming. This is a moving, accessible portrait of memory, loss, and the fragile bonds that remain even as so much slips away. A book you won’t want to miss.
– Francine Witte, Pushcart winning author of Radio Water
Beautifully crafted in luminous prose and fully grounded in its coastal location, How to Get There from Here is an unflinching yet tender story of how Lauren must now parent her mother.
– Jupiter Jones, author of The Hyena’s Daughter
Runner-up: The Hilltop Hour by Joanna Campbell
“This novella-in-flash tells the story of Cassie and Susan, both of whom contracted polio during one of the last outbreaks in the UK in the 1970s. Joanna shows how Cassie, a young girl of eleven at the time, and Susan, a newly qualified teacher, manage the experience of being in an iron-lung and learn to breathe again. After they leave hospital, we follow their different journeys as they slowly manage without the ventilator and each make a new life. This engrossing novella is striking in many ways, not least in how vividly it portrays life inside an iron lung and how frightening and painful it is to breathe unaided.”
— Jude Higgins, judge of the 2026 Bath Novella-in-Flash Award
And keep an eye open for more book posts: The delayed 2025 Bath Flash Fiction Award Anthology Vol Ten will be on the adhocfiction.com site very soon as will the delayed 2025 Flash Fiction Festival Anthology Vol Eight.
