Tag Archives: Vanessa Gebbie

Interview with Christina Dalcher First Prize February 2019

You suggested in a recent blog of yours that your first prize winning story ‘Candy Girls’ has quite a history. Can you tell us more about how you came to write this story?

The initial spark came while I was watching Woody Allen’s film ‘Radio Days’. Mia Farrow plays a cigarette girl who goes from rags to riches, and I wanted to write a piece about the lives of these young women who were probably selling more sex than cigars. There’s also a part in the screenplay where one character says, “They don’t take Jews in the Stork Club,” and another responds with, “No Jews, no colored.” Well, now I had to write the story. That line was so powerful; it grabbed on to me and wouldn’t let go.
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Award Round Up
February 2019

Again, we had another thrilling few months at Bath Flash Fiction Award for the eleventh Award with stories pouring in during the last few weeks, Our founder, Jude Higgins, writes flash fiction, and because she enters contests at the last minute herself, last year we thought the last minute crowd might like a (virtual) badge for entering on the last day. The third badge we’ve issued is pictured here and we think writers are collecting them! However, everyone deserves a badge. There were 981 entries this time from the 29 countries listed below and we very much appreciate everyone who took the time to write and enter a flash fiction.
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February 2019 Judge’s Report Vanessa Gebbie

Below, our eleventh Award Judge Vanessa Gebbie’s report, detailing her interesting way of selecting the short list and winners from an anonymised list of flash fictions:

I was sent the long list – fifty carefully crafted flashes representing an impressive range of styles and subjects, a real cornucopia of flash skills. It’s always a huge responsibility, this judging game – and this time, I decided to see if there was any mileage in the Marie Kondo philosophy – could her thinking be applied to help me to remove thirty of them, somehow, leaving me with a short list of twenty.
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Interview with Vanessa Gebbie
Flash Fiction Award Judge
November 2018 – February 2019

Vanessa has won multiple awards for both prose and poetry, including a Bridport Prize and the Troubadour. Her flash publications include Ed’s Wife and Other Creatures (Liquorice Fish Books) and the weird/irreal collection Nothing to Worry About (Flash: The International Short Short Story Press at Chester University) as well as many individual publications online and in print. She is author of three short story collections (with Salt and Cultured Llama), a novel (Bloomsbury), and two poetry publications (Pighog and Cultured Llama). She is also commissioning and contributing editor of Short Circuit, Guide to the Art of the Short Story (Salt). She teaches widely www.vanessagebbie.com.
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