Come to the launch party, hosted by Ad Hoc Fiction director, Jude Higgins on Wednesday 22nd December, 7.30pm – 9.30 pm on Zoom for four of the novellas-in-flash published from our 2021 Award! Published today (9th December 2021), in a beautiful line up, One For the River by Tom 0’Brien a runner up in the Award; and two short-listed novellas, The Listening Project by Ali McGrane and Kipris by Michelle Christophorou. We’ll also be officially launching Small Things by Hannah Sutherland, highly commended in the 2021 Award and published in October.
These are four brilliant novellas in flash, all very different and at the launch the authors will tell us more about them and each read three short pieces from the books.There will be break out chats and a book giveaways at the end of the evening. Hope you can come! Email jude {at} adhocfiction {dot} com for a link. All welcome. In the meantime, have a look at our 2021 judge, Michelle Elvy’s comments on the novellas.
You can buy all of them directly at the online bookshop at Ad Hoc Fiction. On each bookshop page there are also links for buying in paperback from Amazon world wide. And if you want a signed copy, some of our authors are selling them directly. Please DM them on Twitter to ask for a copy or email Jude at the above address for her to pass your details on.
And the last of the ten novellas in flash from the 2021 Award (the fifth yearly Bath Novella in Flash Award) will be published by Ad Hoc Fiction on 18th December. It’s the first prize winner, Season of Bright Sorrow by David Swann. Read more about it here. It is now open for preorder. We hope to launch David’s book in early January.
The 2022 Bath Novella in Flash Award closes on January 14th. Submissions welcome for novellas in flash in between 6000 and 18000 words. Michelle Elvy is judging again and results will be out in April 2022.
We’re thrilled that Season of Bright Sorrow 
The striking cover image was also designed by Sam and shows a prison notebook. Sam and Dave have supplied a ‘Property of the prison’ stamp for us to use to make the book unique before it is posted off to purchasers. Season of Bright Sorrow will also be available on Amazon worldwide at publication, but you won’t get an individualised stamp there!
Karen Jones is a flash and short story writer from Glasgow, Scotland. Her flashes have been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Micro Fiction and The Pushcart Prize, and her story 'Small Mercies' was included in Best Small Fictions 2019 and BIFFY50 2019. In 2021 she won first prize in the Cambridge Flash Fiction Prize, Flash 500, Reflex Fiction and Retreat West Monthly Micro and was short listed for To Hull and Back, Bath Flash Fiction Award, Bath Short Story Award and longlisted for Fractured Lit Flash Fiction Prize. Her work has been published in numerous anthologies and magazines. Her novella-in-flash, 
When Jude asked me to judge the 19th round of the Bath Flash Fiction Award, it got me thinking about why I like writing for competitions. How it helps my creative process, that is, setting aside any distant prospect of prizes and glory (welcome as those are, should they ever come). For me, it’s the disciplines of wordcount and deadline coupled with the challenge that safe won’t cut it. If your story is going to stand out from so very many other excellent, unseen pieces, you need to step out onto the high wire.