We love the results of the June Award coming a couple of weeks before the Flash Fiction Festival where so many flash fiction fans gather to celebrate the short-short form. For this round we received 984 entries from the following 35 countries:
Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Latvia, Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States.
Thank you again to everyone for entering. It is such a thrill to read so many diverse stories. Again, we supplied our fun virtual Last Minute Club badge for the final day entrants. But of course we appreciate everyone who enters at anytime during the four months of the competition.
Thank you too for the reading team who read throughout the four months and live and breathe flash fictions in the last busy few weeks of the competition, for taking on the hard job of filtering through so many great pieces in a short time span to reach a varied and wonderful longlist of stories to send to our judge Michelle Elvy. Mostly everyone listed has written back to say they would like to be published and we are looking forward to seeing them all together in print along with stories from the other two rounds.
Michelle has written a great report and comments on all the winning stories and our big thanks to her too for completing the task of short listing and choosing the five winners in a short time span. Just three weeks from the end of the Award to the results announcements today. This time round we have writers from the UK and the US.
Sara Hills an American writer based in the UK, who won also second prize with her story Failure to Thrive in June 2023 and was highly commended in Feburary 2021 with Always Down a Dirt Road I am Walking and in October 2022 with A Beachcombers Guide to Desert Grief, now wins first prize with another brilliant story, A Cock Among the Bathers Emily Rinkema from the US wins second prize with ‘Driving my Seven-Year Old Nephew to Visit His Mother at Rehab’, Catherine Ogston from the UK wins third prize with ‘On Friday Nights in May I Sit Quietly with a Friend’, Ronald Jones from the UK is highly commended with ‘The Bee’, and RJ Dwyer from the UK is highly commended with ‘Prognois’. All marvellously inventive stories with so much conveyed in 300 words or under.
Our next Award, the 28th one, begins on July 1st and ends, Sunday October 6th. The judge this time round is Matt Kendrick, UK based writer, editor and writing tutor.
To remind everyone, The Last Minute Club, for intrepid flash fictioneers is only open on the final day. Anyone entering on Sunday 2nd June will receive a (virtual) Last Minute Club badge. Everyone loves badges don’t they? Our mini-competition to guess the colour of the badge is open on X and Facebook today, Saturday 1st June Feb. The first person to guess the colour (or colour combination of the new badge will receive The Weather Where You Are the 2023 Bath Flash Fiction Anthology (or another BFFA anthology of choice) We often give prizes to two people for near guesses. You won’t know the colour until first thing on Sunday morning. 
I am so excited that Clearly Defined Clouds my collection of flash fictions is open for pre-orders, at a 25% discount, from 
Jude Higgins has been writing flash fiction since 2013. Her flash fiction pamphlet, The Chemist’s House was published by V.Press in 2017 and her stories have been published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies and have won, been placed or shortlisted in many contests. She has fictions included in the 2019 and 2020 lists of Best Flash Fictions of UK and Ireland, has been long listed for the Wigleaf, nominated for Best Small Fictions, a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Two of her stories have been selected for different volumes of Best Microfictions. She founded the Bath Flash Fiction Award in 2015, co-runs the Bath Short Story Award, directs Flash Fiction Festivals, UK, the short fiction press, Ad Hoc Fiction and runs reading events and offers flash fiction workshops online. 
Julianna Holland 2016 with 
Molia Dumbleton in 2018 with 
When Sudha Balagopal describes food, you get hungry. When she describes sadness, you feel tears in your own heart. And so it is with Nose Ornaments, this finely crafted family saga of Lakshmi, and her daughter, Savi, and Savi’s daughter, Mini. Spanning years and geographies and cultures, we see how each woman lives in her particular time. So much changes in terms of men and marriage and work life. It’s a testament to how women adapt and blossom. But even more than that, it is the exquisite detail of Balagopal’s writing which is so precise and sensory, you may very well feel that you are not just reading this beautiful story, but living it as well.
A reporter who sees her as nothing but a meal ticket
Stephanie won third prize in June 2019 with her story 
Michael Fitzgerald from Bath was commended in June 2016 for his story, 
Alison Powell from Somerset was commended in October 2020 for her story 
Chloe Banks from Devon was commended in October, 2021 with her story I
Kathryn Aldridge Morris from Bristol was commended in February 2022 with her story 
Hoc Fiction. (A Family of Great Falls is sold out on Ad Hoc Fiction bookshop) 
Read Debra’s third prize winning story in February 2022