The three novellas-in-flash from the 2024 BFFA Award will be published soon by our small press, Ad Hoc Fiction. You can look forward to excellent and very different takes on the form by winner, Sarah Freligh and runners-up Sudha Balagopal and Jo Withers. Find out a little more about them on John Brantingham’s judge’s report.Jude is judging the BFFA 2025 Novella in Flash Award. It will be open for entries in July 2024 and will close at the end of September 2024.
In the meantime,here are some links to and descriptions of other NIFS recently out from two different publishers, so you can see the variety within the form if you want to try your hand at writing one. You can also read the array of novellas in flash published in previous years by Ad Hoc Fiction Read in Full
Jude Higgins is a writer, writing tutor and events organiser and has stories published or forthcoming in the New Flash Fiction Review, Flash Frontier, FlashBack Fiction, The Blue Fifth Review, The Nottingham Review,Pidgeon Holes, Moonpark Review, Splonk, Fictive Dream, the Fish Prize Anthology, National Flash Fiction Day anthologies and Flash: The International Short Short Story Magazine among other places. She has won or been placed in many flash fiction contests and was shortlisted in the Bridport Flash Fiction Prize in 2017, 2018 and 2023. Her debutflash fiction pamphlet The Chemist’s House was published by V.Press in 2017. Her micro fictions have been included in the 2019 and 2020 lists of Best Flash Fictions of UK and Ireland and she has been nominated for Best Small Fictions 2020, Best Microfictions, 2023, a Pushcart Prize, 2020 and Best of the Net, 2022. Her story ‘Codes To Live By’ was selected for Best Micro Fictions and was longlisted for Wigleaf in 2022. Her story ‘Spinning’ is published in Best Microfiction 2024. She founded Bath Flash Fiction Award in 2015, directs Ad Hoc Fiction, the short-short fiction press, co-runs The Bath Short Story Award, founded and directs the 
Read Jude’s spring equinox interview with first-prize winner Mairead Robinson to find out, among other very interesting things about her writing, how she wrote her stunning winning flash 
We’re delighted to have Michelle Elvy back to judge the single flash fiction award again in the year that she is also judging the Fish Flash Fiction prize. Michelle judged our Novella-in-flash award in 2021 and 2022 and she first judged BFFA in June, 2016, when she selected Sharon Telfer as the first prize winner, for Sharon’s amazing historical 
Pilar García Claramonte wishes that she had discovered the joy of creative writing much earlier in life. Now retired, she spends her time between the Kent coast, Oxford and the Basque Country, where she was born, trying to make up for lost time, aided and abetted by some great teachers and writing buddies. She was also
Judging for the Bath Flash Fiction has been an absolute treat, but it’s also been quite stressful! I’ve enjoyed reading all the stories, and I didn’t mind reading them multiple times. I actually enjoyed all my train travels these past couple of weeks because I carried these flash fiction pieces with me and they kept me company wherever I went. But it was stressful to choose the three winners and the two highly commended. I had no problem choosing some of them, but with a couple of them, I really, really had to ponder about which one would make it. 
As usual, there was a flood of stories near the end and a lot of writers picked up the Last Minute Club Badge on the final day, February 5th. Someone said it was the colour of a Cadbury’s Caramac bar. Tasty!
The weather where we were at the launch of BFFA Volume eight was stormy, but the party in St James Wine Vaults, Bath, where we launched both anthologies was wonderful. Seventeen people came to read. We heard winning, shortlisted and longlisted stories from The Weather Where You Are by 
Sara HIlls, Mairead Robinson, James Ellis, Mark Barlex, Kathryn Eldridge-Morris, Nick Havergal, Lotty Talbutt, Alison Woodhouse and Sophie Hampton