Author Archives: Jude

The Great Festival Flash Off – May results!

Congratulations to writers Slawka G Scarso, Adele Rickerby and Patience Mackarness who won the Signature, Technical and Showstopper challenges set by our May judge-duo, Helen Rye and K. M. Elkes. And a big thank you to everyone who entered. The judges said they were delighted with the standard of entries. We thank them very much for providing highly inventive prompts and a lot of fun.

Each writer wins one anthology of their choice, from those published by Ad HocFiction; a Flash Fiction Festival tote bag; a free entry to Bath Flash Fiction Award, and two free sessions on Jude Higgins’ Tuesday flash class that takes place weekly 1.30-3.30 pm BST. In addition, all the writers will be offered publication in the Flash Fiction Festival Anthology and their stories will be entered into the Winner of Winners £50 cash prize (for each challenge) to be judged and announced in late September. Read in Full

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The Great Festival Flash-Off: April Results!

photo by Annie Spratt, Unsplash

We’re delighted to announce the winners of the April Great Festival Flash-Off Writing Challenges set by and judged by April’s judge-duo, Karen Jones and Tim Craig. Tim and Karen set some great challenges all with a musical theme and we had a substantial amount of entries in each category for them to choose from. Thank you everyone for entering. And celebration cake for all for giving the challenges a go! Our next challenges on May 29th festival day will be set by K M Elkes and Helen Rye. Read in Full

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More on the 4th Flash Festival Anthology

Three books, red, orange and yello with Flash Fiction Festival written on the coverWe making a rainbow of Festival Anthology books! The first three contain stories prompted by workshops at the face-to-face festivals in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Red, orange and yellow covers, pictured here. We had to cancel our festival in 2020 and our plans for another anthology but we’re publishing the fourth anthology, sponsored by Ad Hoc Fiction later this year. And it will be green, the next colour in the order of the rainbow. Read in Full

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Hermit-Crab Hangouts

picture of a red crab in the yellow shell of another creature

picture by David Clode, Unsplash

A Hermit crab, lives in the empty shells of other sea creatures. A hermit crab flash fiction story finds a home in the form of some other kind of prose. Recipes are used quite commonly to create fictions. For example, stories about relationships, romance, break ups. Just think of those recipe verbs, fold, mix, sprinkle, whisk, bake, simmer, stew, beat…

We’re running The Great Festival Cup Cake Contest through May, June, July and August for a Hermit-crab style 150 word max micro in the form of a cup-cake recipe. £5.00 an entry with half the proceeds (minus paypal charges) going to the winner and half to the Huntington’s Disease Association charity. Book bundle donated by Ad Hoc Fiction for the runner up. Closing date 31st August. Diane Simmons, one of our festival directors, who was also a judge for the flash-off challenges on the first festival day in March, is judging this competition.

Woman with chin length greay hair smiling. Sparkly necklace.

Jude Higgins

Our other Flash Festival Director, Jude Higgins is now running a FREE hour-long hermit-crab hangout every Thursday 5.00 pm – 6.00 pm BST, Beginning Thursday 6th May for those who want to try out their hermit-crab recipe flash fictions. We’ll cover ideas for light and fluffy, dense, funny, sweet, salty, surreal, speculative, dark and historical cup cake micros using a variety of cup-cake recipes. We’ll also try out other styles of hermit-crab shells, which could be combined with a recipe. For eg. a multiple-choice recipe story or other types of instructions and lists. Bring your ideas and your recipes. Contact Jude {at} flashfictionfestival {dot} com for a recurring zoom link. Hope to see you there for some flashy fun!

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The Great Festival Cupcake Contest

abhishek-hajare on unsplash

The whole Great Festival Flash-Off six day series was inspired by the Great British Bake Off and writer, teacher and editor, Nancy Stohlman’s fun definition of flash fiction; in her interview with April Bradley in Smokelong Literary. There, Nancy said flash was the cupcake of literature
On each of six days there are three writing challenges set by our different wonderful Flash-Off judge duos, but for those who can’t make the festival days for whatever reasons, we also have The Great Festival Cupcake Contest open to all. Read in Full

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Our First Flash-Off Winners!

Photo by tuva-mathilde-loland, Unsplash

Diane Simmons and Robert Barrett were our Great Festival Flash-Off judges on the first festival day, March 27th. They set three writing challenges: The Signature Challenge which Diane judged, The Technical Challenge which Robert judged and The Showstopper which they judged jointly. Writers had one week to complete their stories and we had a substantial amount of entries for each category. Thanks so much to everyone who gave it a go. And thank you very much to our judges for their great prompts and for taking on their own challenge of cloning Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith from The Great British Bake Off (which inspired the three writing tasks). Many congratulations to the winners! Virtual celebratory cake and fireworks for all!
Read in Full

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Great Festival Flash Off Anthology!

Great news for all Festival Flashers! Ad Hoc Fiction, our award winning short-short press will be publishing an anthology of flash fictions from the Great Festival Flash Off. It will be available to buy from the adhocfiction bookshop and on Amazon worldwide in kindle and paperback. And as with all our competition anthologies, all contributors will receive a free copy of the book, posted worldwide.

To be included:

  • the winning and short listed stories from the three Flash Off challenges each month, selected by the wonderful monthly judge-duos;
  • stories submitted that were started by participants in any of the workshops on the six festival days;
  • the winners and shortlisted from the ‘Cupcake’ micro contest.

The ‘Cupcake micro’ contest is undergoing an exciting re-vamp currently and more details will be posted about that shortly.

This anthology will join three others from our face-to-face festivals. Jude is pictured in festive attire with them here.

Do book to be in with a chance of winning a prize and being published in our anthology.

If cost is a barrier to participating in any of the days, contact us. We have some free places for each month of the series.

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The Great Festival Flash Off

Instead of a face-to-face festival, this year, we give you The Great Festival Flash Off!
Six days of festive fun and flash hosted by festival director, Jude Higgins, on Zoom.

£30 a day, 11.00 am GMT to 8.00 pm GMT

Saturdays: March 27th; April 24th; May 29th; June 26th; July 31st; August 28th.
All details and booking open now via PayPal at flashfictionfestival.com
Read in Full

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Flash Fiction Festival Micro Contest, winner and runners up!

photograph by Royston Hunt www.earthnotes.co.uk

Thank you to everyone from around the world who entered our Festival Micro competition. The challenge was to write a 150 word micro fiction prompted by the photograph above, ‘Prickly Chairs’ taken by photographer Royston Hunt.

We received 111 entries. Our judges, Festival Directors Diane Simmons and Jude Higgins, found out a lot of new information about cacti and there were so many inventive stories. We really enjoyed reading them this week, eventually whittling down our choices to the following brilliant micros:

Winner:

  • ‘Eye, Aye, I’, by Kathryn Clark.
    Kathryn wins ‘The Arizona Collection’ a set of 12 notelets of gardens in Arizona, including two cards of the prompt photograph, generously donated by Royston Hunt and her micro is now published on his website alongside the photograph. She also wins a copy of one of the three Flash Fiction Festival Anthologies.
Runners up, in alphabetical order:

  • ‘Green Gardens’, by Amy Barnes.
  • ‘A Brief History of My Family’s Recent Encounters with Cacti/Cactuses’, by Francis McCrickard.
  • ‘Survival Skills’, by Lucy Zhang.

    • All runners up win a copy of one of the three Flash Fiction Festival Anthologies.

    Congratulations to all! And thank you to everyone who entered.

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    Festival Micro Contest Open Now!

    At each of the Flash Fiction Festivals (2017, 2018 and 2019) we’ve run a festival-long micro contest. This year, because the Festival was cancelled, it’s online and free for all flash enthusiasts whether you have been to the festival or not. Open for entries now and closing on Thursday 18th June at midnight BST. .

    Your challenge Write a micro 150 words maximum prompted by the images in the photograph of the cacti garden in Arizona below.

    The Rules: A previously unpublished piece pasted into the body of an email (no attachments) sent to
    jude at flashfictionfestival dot com Up to 150 words. Subject line ‘Festival Micro’. No communication with the judge about the story. No author names on the stories, no stories accepted after the deadline of midnight BST, 18th June.

    Your judge: Jude Higgins, Festival Director, pictured above holding the three festival anthologies.

    The Prizes:
    The first prize winner will receive ‘The Arizona Garden Collection’ a box of 12 beautiful notelets (including a card of the image reproduced here) generously donated by photographer Royston Hunt and the winning micro published on his blog to accompany the picture.(Check out his website to see this collection and all the cards he has for sale). In addition s the winner will receive one copy of any of the three flash fiction festival anthologies published by Ad Hoc Fiction

    Two runners up will receive one copy of any of the three festival anthologies.

    Results announced on Saturday morning, 20th June.
    (Other festival events you might be interested in include Summer Solstice Stories, a workshop with Jude 20th June.
    Flash Fiction Festival Friday, 19th June. Readings from festival presenters
    Novella-in-Flash readings with authors from Ad Hoc Fiction, V, Press and Truth Serum Press, Sunday 21st June).

    photograph by Royston Hunt www.earthnotes.co.uk

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