Thank you everyone for entering out 24th Award. Those who entered early, those who submitted in the middle months and those who entered on the final day and received our sophisticated purple and orange Last Minute Club badge, pictured here. A couple of people won prizes for guessing one colour each, the day before the badge went live. It was another exciting round with 1089 entries steadily arriving (almost the same number as in June, last year) from the following countries:
Australia, Austria, Barbados, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jersey, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam.
Thanks as alwayys to our reading team, big flash fiction lovers, who, from a vast array of marvellous flash fictions of 300 words or under, selected a wide variety of stories for the longlist of fifty. And we are very grateful to our judge Tim Craig for his exacting work of selecting the short list of twenty and the winners. Read his very interesting and generous comments on the whole process and on the winning pieces. Thank you Tim!
This June, the first prize goes to William Davidson from the UK with his brilliant flash fiction ‘Remembered Yellow’. William won our inaugural award in 2016 with ‘Radio Alarm’ another great story and we’re so excited has won another first prize, seven years later. He is the second writer to win our Awards twice (the other writer is Sharon Telfer in 2020 and 2016.).
Second prize, for her exceptional story, ‘Failure to Thrive’ goes to Sara Hills, an American writer living in the UK, who has been placed twice before and long or shortlisted on many occasions. We’re also delighted that, by co-incidence, Sara is judging our 25h Award which opens July 1st and ends in October.
Third prize goes to Noemi Sheiring-Olah, from Hungary, for ‘To All the Copies of Us’ another maarvellous and moving flash fiction. Noemi has been successful in other major contests recently and we’re thrilled she has won a place in our Award.
James Montgomery won Highly Commended for his one sentence marvel, ‘Diamonds in the Earth’. He said on Twitter, he had been working on this story for about three years and had never been listed before. So it’s a lovely thing that his persistence has paid off.
Pilar Garcia Claramonte also won highly commended for’My Daughter the Wolf Therian’ a fabulous story with many layers and with such an intriguing title.
Huge congratulations to everyone You can read Tim’s comments on all these stories in his report. I have linked the titles of each story to the winners’ page on this website too and they will be published in our year-end anthology.
Our next contest, judged by Sara Hills, opens tomorrow 1st July and ends in October. We look forward to reading your stories.
Noémi Scheiring-Oláh grew up in a small flat at the edge of a Hungarian town. She’s now a nomad in a small world. Her writing has appeared/forthcoming in Passages North, SmokeLong Quarterly, The Molotov Cocktail, New Flash Fiction Review, Bath Flash Fiction Anthology, Maudlin House, Ellipsis Zine, Janus Literary, and elsewhere, and has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and The Pushcart Prize. Noémi is a fan of cats and underdogs. She’s also a Writers’ HQ member. Tweets: @itssonoemi Virtual home: noemiwrites.com
James Montgomery’s stories appear in Reflex Fiction, Maudlin House, Gone Lawn, and elsewhere. He won the Best Micro Fiction Prize at the 2021 Retreat West Awards and is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. Find him at 
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. 
We’re delighted that pre-orders are now open at a 25% discount on the books, at our small press, 
All these books are fantastic reads and it’s fascinating to see how the authors have used the novella-in-flash form in different ways to tell their stories. Find out more about them from the brief synopses on the covers and from 
As well as the writing, we love the striking covers of these novellas.