Our June 2024 Award, judged by writer and editor of Best Small Fictions, Michelle Elvy, ends on Sunday June 2nd, So you have today and three more Sundays until the deadline at midnight BST. And thank you to everyone who has entered their up to 300 words stories so far. There’s a £1460 prize pot and an opportunity for all 50 longlisted to be published in our 2024 anthology.
The judges for our awards very often say that there is a hair’s breadth between the top five stories A while ago, I made a list of all the first and second prize winners from the award and arranged them according to themes. It is very interesting to read the stories and to see what people are writing about. For the final three weeks, I will list the third prize winners and commended since 2015.
Now You See Him by Tim Craig,
Tim’s first win was in June, 2018 with Northern Lights, also included in Bestmicrofictions in 2019, the second time was in February,2021 with ‘Now You See Him’, the title story of his collection, which was longlisted for the prestigious Edge Hill Prize, last year and shortlisted for the International Rubery Award and for the Saboteur Awards. Tim won third prize again in October 2021 with That’s all there is, there aint no more, which is the final story in his collection. In June 2019, Tim was highly commended by judge Christopher Allen with The Falling Silent, which I remember him reading at the 2019 Flash Fiction Festival in Bristol, just after the winners were announced. This story is also included in his collection Tim Craig June 2019 Commended If you haven’t got it, have a read of all four stories and support an author friend by buying the book or reviewing it on Amazon if you already have it. Thank you
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