Seventy-four micro-fictions written by presenters and participants at the first ever literary festival entirely dedicated to flash fiction, held in Bath, June 2017. These short-short stories, 250 words or under, show the wide variety of styles possible in this emerging genre.
Most of the UK’s top flash fiction writers and teachers offered workshops and talks and readings at the Flash Fiction Festival: David Gaffney, Tania Hershman, Calum Kerr, David Swann, Vanessa Gebbie, Kit de Waal, Paul McVeigh, Peter Blair, Ashley Chantler, KM Elkes, Meg Pokrass, Jude Higgins, Christopher Fielden and Michael Loveday. Plus distinguished international guest and leading exponent of the form, Pamela Painter, from the United States.
“It was a wonderful assembly of authors and editors and ‘students’ – though the students already seemed like authors.”—Pamela Painter
“You managed to create a relaxed yet focussed ambiance so that participants could let anxieties fall away, have fun writing and immersing themselves in craft and other skills, soaking up all the varied and sparkling influences that abounded.”—Vanessa Gebbie
“…I had previously come across the genre, viewing it more or less exclusively as something light and whimsical but I had completely under estimated its potential and the discipline involved. It was these latter two aspects that intrigued me…”—Patricia Wallace
“…comments and insights from the workshops showed me how the embryonic idea I started with could be developed and given depth.”—Mary Bevan
A multi-talented creative artist, Catherine is an inspiration in many ways. Here she tells us how being immersed in the culture of former pit villages, and a vintage picture of boys playing outside Elsecar Colliery, prompted her second prize winning story ‘
We were fascinated to read that our first prize winner, Rose McDonagh, is a late night writer and has written almost every day since she was fifteen. Her winning piece was drafted in a community writing group she runs, inspired from one of her own exercises. She says, although it’s not always about getting published, a story gets “half its life from its author and half from being read and understood by other people.” Many writers have commented on the meaning of 
As a boy, I loved a story about a football player whose team had just won the FA Cup at Wembley Stadium. Sitting in the dressing room after the match, the player complained he’d lost a contact lens out on the pitch. One of his team-mates is supposed to have said, ‘Well, this is our lucky day – why don’t we go back out and find it?’ According to the story, they did just that, and found the contact lens within moments!
Rose McDonagh was born in Edinburgh. She has had writing published by BBC Wildlife Magazine, Gutter, SmokeLong Quarterly, Fairfield Review, the Guardian online, The Eildon Tree, Brittle Star, The Nottingham Review and New Writing Scotland. She read at Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2017 as part of their Story Shop programme. She currently works for two Scottish charities.
Catherine Edmunds was educated as a classical musician at Dartington College of Arts, and the National Centre for Orchestral Studies, Goldsmith’s College, London. After twenty years as a professional musician, she re-invented herself as an artist and writer. Her artwork includes book illustrations and TV appearances, and her written works include a poetry collection, four novels and a Holocaust memoir. She has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, four times shortlisted in the Bridport, and has been published in many journals, including The Frogmore Papers, Aesthetica, The Binnacle, Butchers’ Dog, and Ambit.
Matthew Gibson was born and brought up in London, where he lives with his partner and two cats. He studied English literature at university where he developed a love of the short story form. Now, several years later, he has decided to try his hand at his own. This is his first flash fiction win and his first published work.
