News

Tania Hershman
February 2016 Judge’s Report

BathFlash First, to say: choosing the winners was difficult! Going from longlist to shortlist was a matter of what grabbed me on first read, whether it was the story, the freshness of the language, the structure, or something unique and surprising that I’d never seen before. But the next stage is when I got tough, because I was actively looking for reasons not to pick stories. I had to get to my top 5 from 20. This is when a judge gets ruthless. A story has to give something back on a second read – and a third read! Any even slight laziness in language – an overused phrase bordering on cliche, a typo – and that made it far more likely that I would discard that story. Also, if the premise was great, an intriguing idea, but the follow-through and the ending just didn’t do it for me, that landed the story in my No pile.
Read in Full

Ingrid Jendrzejewski
February 2016 First Prize

Roll and Curl

by Ingrid Jendrzejewski

It’s a small town, so when a call comes through from Amber Groves for Mrs. Philips, you know it can mean only one thing: either her husband or her sister has passed.

“She’s under the dryer,” you say and pop your gum. You think you’ve made your point but end up having to add, “Well, you can come on down and talk to her yourself, or you can wait until I’m finished with her wash and set. We’re in the middle of things here.”

You put the phone down and look over at Mrs. Philips. She’s under the hood dryer reading a magazine, lost in her plastic gown. She’s shaking a little and at first you think she’s crying, but then you see she’s laughing. She has some lipstick on her front teeth.

When her timer dings, you remove the hood and check her hair. The gel has set, so you wheel her to your station and take out the rollers. You run your pick through what’s left of her hair, teasing enough to make some volume, then combing the rest over the top to create the shape she likes. You form her bangs into curls by hand.

Then, you get out the hairspray. Mrs. Philips smiles, squeezes her eyes shut and lifts her chin. “This part always feels like spring rain,” she says as you begin to spray.

You carry on for nearly three minutes; you carry on until you’ve used up the whole bottle. You spray until her hair is as hard as a combat helmet, until that smile is fixed on her face like a shield. Then you give her some tissues. You tell her they’re for her teeth.

About the Author

Ingrid Jendrzejewski studied creative writing and English literature at the University of Evansville before going on to study physics at the University of Cambridge. Her fiction has appeared in The Conium Review, Inktears, Wyvern Lit, Vine Leaves, Flash Frontier, The Liars’ League NYC, and Williwaw: An Anthology of the Marvellous among others. Last year, she won Gigantic Sequins’ Flash Non-fiction Contest, Rochdale’s Literaure & Ideas Festival Bite-sized Enlightenment Flash Fiction Contest and the A Room of Her Own Foundation’s Orlando Prize for Flash Fiction. Links to her work can be found at www.ingridj.com and she occasionally tweets @LunchOnTuesday.

Al Kratz
February 2016 Second Prize

You Have So Many More Choices Than Fight Or Flight

by Al Kratz

When you encounter a bear in the woods, lock arms with a friend. Make yourselves appear stronger. Transform into a collective self. When they ask how little girls like you survived the bear, shrug your unlocked shoulders and agree: isn’t it a wonder?

Just in case, hang out with stronger people. Maybe that guy from your co-ed softball team with the tattoo on his neck. It might feel counter-intuitive, but don’t confuse the number of fights you will witness with the number of fights you will be in. Just don’t fall in love with the tattoo man.

When you fall in love with the tattoo man, and your mother whispers to everyone that her son-in-law is in jail over a little fireworks thing, tell her, Mom, it wasn’t firecrackers—he’s in prison for making bombs. You’re neither fighting your mother nor fleeing the truth—you’re standing your ground.

When you encounter a carpenter bee in the woods, be still. The male has no stinger. It’s safe to call his bluff. The female only stings when provoked. As she flies around your head, repeat to yourself: she’s not really a bee, she’s not really a bee, she’s not really a bee.

When you lose your wedding ring in the woods, let it be. This is the universe singing for you. Listen to all she has to say. You don’t have to fight or run from the universe. You have so many more choices than that.

When you divorce the tattoo man, testify how so many things aren’t even worth fighting for. It’s not fight or flight if you don’t care who you’re getting away from or where you’re going to. You’ve seen birds. Sometimes flying is just for the sake of flying.

About the Author

Al Kratz lives with his girlfriend in Indianola, Iowa where he is working on a short story collection. He is a reader for Wyvern Lit and writes fiction reviews for Alternating Current. He won the 2013 British Fantasy Society Flash Fiction contest and has had work in Literary Orphans, Third Point Press, Spelk, Red Savina Review, and others.

Blogs at alkratz.blogspot.com and tweets @silverbackedG.

Clodagh O’Brien
February 2016 Third Prize

Billy

by Clodagh O’Brien

Billy knows when it’s time to get up. He doesn’t need a clock or a watch or a radio. Billy just knows.

Billy takes Weetabix from the shelf and drops two biscuits in cold milk. He stands in front of the microwave and pretends the light inside is lightning.

Billy yells goodbye to his mother and cycles to school. He has tied strings to the spokes, so when he goes fast it’s as if he has tails.

Billy sits in the front row in class. It means he can see everything on the board without squinting and gets to taste chalk dust.

Billy eats lunch at the end of the playground. He shares his sandwich with a squirrel that lives in the triangle of a tree.

Billy cycles home the long way so he can ride over all the bumps. He stays in the middle of the road even if a car beeps.

Billy measures out spaghetti and puts it in water with salt and oil. He stands above it until the bubbles come.

Billy goes upstairs to eat. He feeds his mother with a teaspoon and tries not to get Dolmio on the duvet.

Billy washes the dishes with bleach because there’s no washing up liquid. He leaves them to dry the way his mother taught him.

Billy does his homework on the coffee table with a wonky leg. He writes slowly so the pencil doesn’t jiggle and he has to start again.

Billy sits cross-legged in front of the television and looks at himself. His nose is getting bigger and his hair longer.

Billy puts on his pyjamas and makes sure his mother takes her pills. He kneels in bed and makes a steeple of his hands. Billy tells God he hates him and goes to sleep.

About the Author

Clodagh O'Brien Clodagh O’Brien writes flash fiction, short stories and the occasional poem. Based in Dublin, she has been published in Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, Litro, Literary Orphans, Thrice Fiction, Visual Verse amongst others. Her flash fiction was highly commended at the Dromineer Literary Festival and shortlisted for the Allingham Arts Festival. She loves writing in bed, and realises there are too many books to read before she dies. You can find her blog at: www.clodaghobrien.com and tweets @wordcurio.

Peter Blair
February 2016 Commended

Shadowtrain

by Peter Blair

I am off-kilter, coasting perpendicular to the upright, ninety degrees in the shade. Everything is grey. The seatbacks are headstones; the antimacassars are embroidered with dates of lovers I’ve never had. A melancholy love song, crooned in a voice I almost recognize, loops over the tannoy. As we curve into the mountains, I lose sight of the river and do not know if we have crossed the frontier. Patting myself down for travel documents, I find a stub that bears no seat or carriage number, date or time, departure point or destination. Each page of the passport plucked from the breast pocket of my shirt is blank. I will not know how to explain myself to the ticket inspector and border guard, whose languages I may not speak. I have no currency for a bribe. I stow myself in the luggage rack, but am in plain sight, my buttocks bulging through the elasticated mesh. As I try to squirm free, my feet become entangled and cannot be extricated. I will have to throw myself on the mercy of the officials, as an innocent abroad. The low-fi love lyric is an earworm burrowing into my head: something about an interventionist God. Across pastures and ravines, the shadowtrain lengthens and shortens, rises and falls. I am off-kilter. Everything is grey.

About the Author

Peter Blair lectures in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Chester, where he leads the MA Modern and Contemporary Fiction and teaches on the MA Creative Writing: Writing and Publishing Fiction. He is co-editor of Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine (www.chester.ac.uk/flash.magazine) and co-director of the International Flash Fiction Association (www.chester.ac.uk/flash.fiction). His stories and poems have been runners-up in the Bridport Prize and the Fish Prize. His critical publications include essays, reviews, and interviews on South African literature and on flash fiction, including the ‘Flash Fiction’ article in the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook 2016 (Bloomsbury).

February 2016 Award Short List

Second Bath Flash Fiction Award Short List
Fiction Title	Author
And The Sea Rolls On	Emily Devane
Backroads	Michael Wheaton
Billy	Clodagh O’Brien
First catch your hare	Sharon Telfer
Five Months	Charmaine Wilkerson
Heart of Oak, Body of a Man	Kerry Hood
If We Could Dig To China	Amber Lee Dodd
My father, who ate a tree	KM Elkes
One two three, two two three	Jilna Shukla
Roll and Curl	Ingrid Jendrzejewski
Shadowtrain	Peter Blair
Teacher	Keeley Mansfield
The Gift	Jeanette Lowe
The love I feel in my belly	Joanna Matthews
The Old Man and his Wife	Rupert Dastur
Thinking about Jessica	Scott Wilson
Waking The House Of Feathers	Kerry Hood
What he said about the war	Samuel Dodson
Words is words is words	Tess Adams
You Have So Many More Choices than Fight or Flight	Al Kratz

BathFlash

February 2016 Award Long List

With huge thanks to every writer who entered our Award from all around the world.

Second Bath Flash Fiction Award Long List
Fiction Title	Author
All The Time In The World	Emily Devane
And The Sea Rolls On	Emily Devane
Are You Afraid Of The Dark?	Sarah-Clare Conlon
A widow with a bowl of wine and lipstick coming off	Nasim Marie Jafry
Backroads	Michael Wheaton
Billy	Clodagh O’Brien
Caterpillars	June Prunty
Cheese Sandwich	Emma Feasey
Claudia is in Love	Liz Cookman
Collecting Stones	Patrick Holloway
Empty	Bunmi Ogunsiji
First catch your hare	Sharon Telfer
Five Months	Charmaine Wilkerson
Guillotine	Matthew Fiorentino
Heart of Oak, Body of a Man	Kerry Hood
He Became Mr Maracas	Ruth Tamiatto
How To Find Contentment	Kit de Waal
I climb into a book	Shih-Li Kow
If We Could Dig To China	Amber Lee Dodd
Imminent	Ruth Tamiatto
Kong	Melissa Manning
Leo’s Song	Sherry Morris
Lorca’s Little Bird	Trisha Hanifin
Midnight in London	Jason Jackson
Mom Woke Us One Night	D.R.D. Bruton
My father, who ate a tree	KM Elkes
Natural Selection	Gayle Letherby
Nocturnal	Alex Reece Abbott
Not Crying Now	Sara Crowley
One two three, two two three	Jilna Shukla
Perhaps Rain, Later	Alex Coulton
Roderick Takes Control	Calum Normand
Roll and Curl	Ingrid Jendrzejewski
Shadowtrain	Peter Blair
Sniff The Rain	Nick Black
Static	Caitlin Stobie
Teacher	Keeley Mansfield
The Gift	Jeanette Lowe
The Last Taxi of the Year	Sarah Wallis
The love I feel in my belly	Joanna Matthews
The Motherbone	Jessica Franken
The Old Man and his Wife	Rupert Dastur
Thinking about Jessica	Scott Wilson
Unfaithful To The Land	Kit de Waal
Waking The House Of Feathers	Kerry Hood
What he said about the war	Samuel Dodson
When the In-laws Visit	Susan Kaberry
Words is words is words	Tess Adams
Worth the Having	Deb Tomkins
You Have So Many More Choices than Fight or Flight	Al Kratz

BathFlash

Guest Interview: Michelle Elvy

Michelle Elvy

Michelle Elvy is a writer, editor and manuscript assessor based in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands. Her poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction and reviews have been published in numerous print and online journals. She lives on her 43’ sailboat with her husband and two daughters and is presently exploring the waters of East Africa. She edits at Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction and Blue Five Notebook and is Assistant Editor, International, of the Best Small Fictions series, by Queens Ferry Press.
www.michelleelvy.com

Bath Flash Fiction Hot Spots

The Almost Annual Report

Bath Flash Fiction Award was set up the beginning of February 2015. By October 2015, we’d received 1000 entries, longlisted, shortlisted, judged – courtesy of Annemarie Neary, published and paid our winners. In the meantime, April 2015 saw us create and launch Ad Hoc Fiction.

By the time our second award closes on February 14th 2016, we’ll be 1 year and 3 days old. Across our Bath Flash Fiction and Ad Hoc Fiction sites we’ll have had around 172000 page views, 46000 unique visitors and 7000+ fictions submitted.

For those crunching numbers and getting jittery about the chances of winning Bath Flash, don’t worry. Because it’s free, easy to enter and publishes weekly, the vast majority of submissions go to Ad Hoc Fiction. When the four month submission window closes on Bath Flash, we’re guessing the award will have seen somewhere between 200 and 400 entries. Happily, as with our first run, writers continue to support us with their work from around the world – thank you.

With longlist readers and our judge Tania Hershman primed and ready to roll, all we need to complete our first year is your finest creations in 300 words or less. And remember, all submissions will be considered for publication in our forthcoming anthology.

New Year Updates

BathFlash Thank you to everyone who contributed to the three Charity Editions of our micro fiction project Ad Hoc Fiction. Your donations made £47, we topped it up to £50, and sent it to We Stand Together, this year’s Guardian and Observer newspapers’ charity appeal in support of refugees.

We’re going to continue trialling an optional £1 contribution to Ad Hoc Fiction until the Summer. With all the takings going to each weekly winner, our thinking is simple: The more people contribute, the bigger the prize. We won’t be taking a penny. To date, winners have been receiving around £10 along with their usual free entry to Bath Flash Fiction Award. Which brings us rather neatly on to…

This weekend, there will be just four weeks left until we close Bath Flash Fiction Award on February 14th. Why not enter now before the rush and save money by sending in two entries for £15 or three for £18? Our judge, Tania Hershman is selecting from a 50 long short list.

And don’t forget our other project coming later this year – a print and digital anthology of flash fictions selected from our Award entrants.