I’m dellighted to announce the results of the mini writing contest from the online flash fiction day on 11th January. Thank you to everyone who entered. Stories were prompted by this painting, A 1944 Pastoral: Land Girls Pruning at East Malling by Evelyn Mary Dunbar (1906–1960) and a few suggestions from me (Jude) to create some funny flssh. Some people stayed close to the picture, some introduced women in other scenarios. I agree with our judge, Diane SImmons, that those who didn’t win should send their stories elsewhere for a chance of publication. So many excellent stories submitted. Many thanks again to Diane,,our resident online festival competition judge and co-director of National Flash Fiction Day, UK for choosing this selection. Here are her comments:

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the entries to the competition. It made a wonderful change to read so many humorous stories. Some of the flashes made me laugh out loud and any that did automatically went into my shortlist pile. There were also several well written stories that I really enjoyed where the humour element of the challenge seemed to be forgotten, which was a shame – I’m sure that these stories would do well if submitted elsewhere.

First Prize:The Shape of a Winner

by Laurie Swinarton

Minutes ago, Cora Lambert held up broken arms, like surrender flags, and announced she can’t represent Bishop’s Hollow in the semi-finals of the Great British Topiary Shape Off and Daphne Tingle – member of the gardening club, bridge team captain and occasional shoplifter – can taste being Cora’s replacement. In the pebbledash village hall, under the flicker and buzz of fluorescent lights, she waits for the mayor to ask her. She downs a bottle of Corona then flays a grape and eats the innards. Grape skins are left behind like broken butterflies.

Daphne never set out to seriously hurt anyone. But she doesn’t want to be a loser. Decades ago, the girls in her PE class nicknamed her Deadweight Daffy. You know the type of girls. The ones with arms the size of oars, legs as swift as Shetland ponies. The ones who pinned athletic ribbons to their cardigans and stole cigar flavoured kisses from the men who worked at the carnival.

Now Cora’s announcement has created a hullabaloo. The mayor scratches her neck until it looks like she has a hickey. She whispers something to her bug-eyed husband. His eyebrows form exclamation marks then settle back down.

Daphne picks at a cuticle, thinks of her secateurs, imagines her hands snug in their worn, leather garden gloves, feels the weight of her shears as they twirl through a box hedge and transform it into an upward spiral before shaping it into the word WINNER. Her face almost bursts open, her body nearly extends itself like a climbing clematis seeking summer’s light. She’s no deadweight.

The mayor, who has IBS and too much paperwork, has a face that is sharp like a triangle. She taps her fingers on top of the microphone and, as dust rises, she declares the town will withdraw from the competition as there have been “accusations.”

And, for one second, Daphne closes her eyes and sees Cora Lambert’s tripod ladder folding in on itself like origami paper or a pair of collapsing binoculars. Her stomach turns sour; spicy fear pricks at her throat. She rifles through her tote bag: looks for Dramamine, an antacid, an escape. Instead pulls out glasses, an emery board … and a handful of steel bolts. Christ! She shoves everything back into the bag, pushes it away like it’s on fire. Her face blooms like a red azalea and she blows on her scorched hands.

Bio:Laurie Swinarton is a part-time writer and full-time tea addict who finds contentment buried in a book with a cup of lapsang souchong tea steeping nearby and Bach playing in the background. When not doing that, she can be found yelling out her window at loud cars. You can find her on Bluesky @laurieiswriting or on Twitter @LaurieSwin21

Diane Simmons’ comments
This flash about skulduggery in the Great British Topiary Shape Off competition made me smile from the first line, then laugh out loud at the phrase, ‘The mayor, who has IBS and too much paperwork…’ – a phrase that made the woman who was washing my hair at the hairdressers laugh too! I also loved the casual mention of Daphne Tingle’s shoplifting.

Runner up; A Pleasant Afternoon Spent Birding in Kent

by Erin Bondo
– after Evelyn Dunbar’s A 1944 Pastoral: Land Girls Pruning at East Malling

The orchard thrums with their varied pips and trills, with birds that’ve flocked here from all over. Loudest is the green woodpecker – there, with the red cap – her high-pitched tsiu-tsiu-tsiu-tsiu puncturing the thin winter air as she yaffles away at a joke only another Scouser would get. And that dunnock from Dorset – the wee plain thing, there on the right? – she’ll be warbling on again about some perceived slight: someone’s nicked her armband, someone’s nicked her hair brush, someone’s nicked her rations; somehow, someone’s always nicked her rations. And now that’s her chirping accusations at the shy West Country wren – it-was-you, Doreen, it-was-you!
Meanwhile, watch the magpie, a way up that tallest ladder. She’s a primper and a preener, sleek black hair in a high shine and pleasantly plump, all those extra butter rations no doubt. She’s trying to catch a glimpse of the Italian sparrows working the neighbouring land, she’ll make beady eyes at them on the way in from the fields, eyes that say meet me behind the garden shed at midnight – what Mr Magpie doesn’t know and all that.
And the yellow wagtail – there, on the left – she’s a plucky one, always chitter-chattering about her grand London debut once the males migrate back from the continent. Tonight in the dormitory she’ll put on a show for us, puff out her chest and waggle that tail like she’s Betty Grable in ‘Moon Over Miami’ until even the gloomy little stone-curlew cracks a smile – she’s gone a bit funny since that telegram arrived last week, the poor lamb.
But until the bell rings for tea here we’ll stay, churr-ing and chiff-chaff-ing away, making the best of this drab plumage, waiting for the day we can soar.

Bio: Erin Bondo grew up in rural Ontario, Canada on the unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Anishinabek and now lives in Scotland. She has been longlisted for the Welkin Mini prize and this is her first published flash piece. Find her on Bluesky @erinbondo.com

Diane’s comments

This was a clever and creative interpretation of the prompt that made me smile throughout and as soon as I’d finished reading, I went back to reread it. I particularly enjoyed the language in this flash.

Runner up;The Deadwood Stage

by Chris Cottom

The director doesn’t take to Terri, calls her a troublemaker, a Trotskyite. We call her the best thing to happen to collective bargaining since the Tolpuddle Martyrs.

We imagine our awayday will be some ‘outcome-focused’ bonding in a boutique hotel, playing with giant Lego, a facilitator yelling ‘One more minute!’ like a demented gameshow host. Instead, we’re mini-bussed to one of the director’s other businesses, an orchard outside Evesham, for a ‘pruning immersion experience’.

Terri’s eyes are fierce. ‘It’s a metaphor for redundancy. Deadwood. Geddit?’

‘Nah,’ I say. ‘You’re pulling my wire.’

‘Wanna bet? It’ll be Lean Team on the left, P45s on the right.’

The pressure starts in the ‘Briefing Zone’, ie shed, with not enough wellies and raincoats. ‘Listen,’ Terri shouts. ‘It’s obvious they want us fighting like barn cats. Stand firm, girls! Remember your grannies telling you about Greenham.’

We troop out through the mud, we chop and lop, we bundle and burn.

‘Be brutal with any branches rubbing together,’ the instructor says. ‘Keep the healthiest, the one in the best position.’

Terri nudges me. ‘Told you. And he’s no farmhand. Management consultant, more like. Look at his fingernails.’

When we break for lunch – pasty and apple turnover – the director’s Tesla is charging outside the juicing parlour.

‘He’ll be inside, practising his squeezing-the-pips speech,’ Terri says.

People say Terri’s a toughie, lives in a throuple, loves to arm-wrestle. We say she should tell the director where to shove his awayday.

She takes my loppers, whips out a nailfile, sharpens them gleaming. I expect the Tesla cable’s first for the chop, but Terri yanks off her headscarf and barges into the juicing parlour, calling the rest of us to follow.

The director is Alan Sugar without the charm. ‘Come to negotiate, Little Miss Red?’

Terri stands silent, arms crossed, loppers aloft.

‘I’ll lay it on the table,’ he says. ‘Redundancies for half the firm. Or everyone goes on zero-hours contracts.’

Terri kicks the table over. ‘There’s a third way, shithead! Employee ownership.’

‘No chance!’

Terri jabs the loppers into his crotch. ‘One move and these beauties bite.’

We form our community interest company that afternoon. The ex-director calls Terri a thug, a terrorist. We call her our saviour, our chief executive.

***Bio: Chris Cottom lives near Macclesfield, UK. He has work published or forthcoming in 50-Word Stories, 100 Word Story, Eastern Iowa Review, Flash 500, Flash Frontier, Free Flash Fiction, NFFD NZ, NFFD UK, Oxford Flash Fiction, Oyster River Pages, Roi Fainéant, The Lascaux Review, The Phare, and others. In the early 1970s he lived next door to JRR Tolkien.
@chris_cottom1,@chriscottom.bsky.social, chriscottom.wixsite.com

Diane’s Comments
This was an engaging flash, with an original take on the prompt. I loved the idea of a ‘pruning immersion experience’ and laughed out loud at the line, ‘The director is Alan Sugar without the charm.’

Thanks to everyone who entered the November 30th online Flash Fiction Festival Day contest. Jude provided three picture prompts of optical illusions to choose from. Writers were asked to write stories in three paragraphs with the paragraphs linked using the figure/ground components of the pictures. One of the winning writers used the well-known young woman/old woman picture shown here and two used a picture of astronauts/moon (linked here, but not shown, because of copyright issues).

Congratulations to the winners, Cheryl Markosky, first prize and runners-up Laura Besley and Gill 0’Halloran. Their stories are published below.Thank you also to writer and NFFD Co-Director Diane Simmons, our resident on-line FFF judge, for selecting the winning stories and writing comments.

Diane said this about the entries:
“Jude provided three photographs of optical illusions: a dog/man in the woods; an old lady/young lady, and one with a skull/astronauts and moon/earth. She asked writers to choose one of the prompts and to write a triptych. It was interesting reading the variety of entries, with the astronaut/moon prompt by far the most popular. There were several stories vying for a place and I spent quite a while trying to decide on my final three.” Read in Full

We’re delighted to announce the winners of the Great Festival Flash Off Day which took place on October 26th. For the ‘Signature’ challenge, Jude set the prompt and asked people to consider the painting shown here to spark off ideas and also to recall bad or good haircuts they might have had. In addition, we looked at some great story examples. Thank you to Writer and Co-Director of National Flash Fiction Day, UK, Diane Simmons, who has judged many of the festival competitions. She says: “Thank you to everyone who sent in haircut stories. I really enjoyed reading them and had a good chuckle when I took some printed out stories to the hairdressers to read while my hair was being dyed. It took me a few minutes to realise that the hairdressers was a very appropriate judging place! It was an unusual theme which generated a wide variety of stories, with several stories vying for a prize.” Diane’s also made specific comments on the winners below. Read in Full

Big congratulations, Suzanne Greene, winner of the 2024 Pokrass Prize prompted by the photograph by Louella Lester, above. As well as here, ‘Something Like a Promise’ will also be published in the violet coloured Flash Fiction Festival Anthology, the final book of the rainbow series of festival anthologies, later this year. You can find out more about Meg Pokrass’s prompt and read her general comments about the submissions here. Meg’s comments about Suzanne’s piece are at the end of the story.

Suzanne Greene

Something Like A Promise

Lawrence and Emerald Pilcher miss their city friends so badly they invite them upstate for an orgy. It’s a great success. Okay, there isn’t much actual sex, but they’ve been partying with the same set since the 1960s and they’re used to disappointing each other. The important thing is they’re all envious of the Pilchers’ retirement idyll. ‘Oh, my heart!’ cries Buffy Blennerhassett. ‘All this beautiful wood!’

Lawrence describes the family who previously lived in the sprawling clapboard house. The father deserted them to become a resident Hermit for a tycoon with an English-style country estate in San Antonio. Then the mother turned into a statue on the kitchen floor and the children – all named after the kids on ‘The Waltons’ – had to feed her SlimFast from a watering can to keep her alive. Lies of course, but Lawrence enjoys testing his friends.

Next morning he sits scowling in the kitchen as the friends emerge, grublike, from bedrooms and sofas. Away from the metal pulse of the city they seem greyish, unthrilling. Buffy bounds in and kisses Lawrence on his bald patch. He jumps up and goes out back. He and Emerald have been planning to show their friends the path through the woods to the lake, but too bad. He hasn’t taken to nature as much as he thought he would after reading the blurb on his copy of ‘Walden’ but at least today the birdsong doesn’t scrape his nerves, and when he emerges from the trees the haze of sun on the lake offers something like a promise.

Lawrence walks to the end of the small fishing jetty and stares down into the sullen brown eye of the lake. He wonders how it feels to drown.

An ambulance siren pierces his thoughts. He starts to run towards the house, then asks himself why. Who’s the ambulance for? Buffy? Chuck? Jim? Any of them? No huge tragedy. Not at their age. It could be Emerald, of course. What would he do without her? Move away from here, for one thing. To the coast, maybe. They’d understand each other, him and the restless soul of the sea. For a while anyway. He slows right down. Poor Emerald. Maybe he’ll make more of an effort with her. Maybe he’ll clean up the house, trim back that darned creeper, let the light in. Maybe he’ll let the creeper flourish, swallow him whole.

Meg’s Comments:
“Something Like a Promise” is a story of a stale marriage unsuccessfully revived by an orgiastic reunion of old friends. The story is so perfectly strange, unpredictable, and original I reread it a number of times for the sheer pleasure of reading. Though slightly less haunted than the other entries, the author’s wildly original writing charmed me deeply as it is both darkly funny and masterfully told.

S.A. Greene writes short fiction in Derbyshire. Her work has appeared in lovely places including Janus Lit., trampset, Maudlin House, Flash Flood, Free Flash Fiction, The Phare, Ellipsis, and Mslexia. A lot of her stories have tables in them. Usually kitchen tables, but also dining-room and picnic. One story featured a blue sponge (as well as a dining-table) and it made the Wigleaf Top 50 longlist in 2022. She’s a Resident Facilitator at The Flash Cabin, and tweets at @SAGreene1.

This photograph by Louella Lester was on of the prompts for the Pokrass prize. Find out more about Meg’s promptand her general comments about the winners here. Her comments about Anika’s piece are at the end of the story

Anika Carpenter

The Best Friend I Ever Had

Read in Full

The photograph by Louella Lester was the main prompt for the competition Find out more details about the prompt and Meg’s general comments here. Meg’s comments about Susan’s piece are at the end of the story.

Susan Wigmore

LORCA THOUGHT THE DEAD IN SPAIN ARE MORE ALIVE THAN ANYWHERE ELSE; HE DIDN’T KNOW MY SISTER

Three people have died in our house, my dead sister tells me when she moves back home. But she’s the most tragic. Italics spike her voice now as if I’ve grown stupid in her absence. Granted, the couple who died together in the back-room bed win hands down for romance, but they were old and died last century so don’t count. She says this while scrutinising the height chart in pencil marks made by our mother on the kitchen wall. She’s lost none of her competitiveness: hers stop at 4′ 10″. Sometimes we play Scrabble and I let her win because she’s prettier when she doesn’t sulk. This is one thing I’ve learned. Another is not to talk of smartening up the place, which sends her into a tizz and we have to batch bake to calm her down. But she’s not afraid of the dark any more. In fact, lights are such a bone of contention you’d think hers was a lone crusade to save the world, all the fuss she makes when I leave one on. She’s right at home with on-demand though and watches David Attenborough all night on iPlayer in the greyish glow of the screen. I lie awake in milky-blue moonlight and listen to the hills moan. In the morning, I find her slumped on the sofa. The teeth grinding is new. And her favourite film now is ‘The Amityville Horror’, which she watches by candlelight (for atmosphere, stupid). When I say she’s too young, she just snorts and tells me to get a life. She practises hiding sometimes even though she’s a dab hand already. Visitors are rare but one day a neighbour turned up as the plumber arrived; it was all I could do to cope with raffle tickets and dripping taps let alone a dead sister so I told her to make herself scarce. Now she ups and disappears for days just to make a point and I never know when she’s coming back. She gets shirty when I ask where she’s been and reckons I can’t have my cake and eat it. She says she’s cool with the whole death thing really, but I don’t believe her. Yesterday I found her trying on my bras, pushing up the buds of her breasts as if they’d fill the cups. I think she was crying.

Meg’s Comments
“LORCA THOUGHT THE DEAD IN SPAIN ARE MORE ALIVE THAN ANYWHERE ELSE; HE DIDN’T KNOW MY SISTER” is a darkly surreal ghost story about the dynamics of a sibling relationship which, even after death, refuses to change or heal. This is story of a very deliberate kind of haunting and the author’s work with emotional observation about sibling connections won me over.

Susan’s writing has been published, placed or listed by Reflex Fiction, Oxford Flash Fiction, the Fish Short Story Prize, Mslexia, Retreat West, the Cambridge Flash Fiction Prize and The Daily Telegraph Short Story Competition. She won inclusion in the first Fractured Lit Anthology chosen by Kathy Fish, the Fish Flash Prize 2023 and the Globe Soup Short Memoir 2022. A flash non-fiction piece was shortlisted for the 2022 QuietManDave Prize. She is delighted her novella-in-flash was longlisted for the Bath Award 2024.

The photograph by Louella Lester was the main prompt for the competition Find out more details about the prompt and Meg’s general comments here. Meg’s comments about Philippa’s piece are at the end of the story.

Philippa Bowe

The House that Harold Built

Harold returned from the war with a star-shaped medal and only one eye. The house sighed with pleasure when he opened the door. But the next morning half the façade had disappeared beneath an army of ivy. Harold chopped and hacked but every morning it was back, greying boards shuttered in green.

Harold had built the house one board at a time. Built it from lumberyard offcuts and factory floor nails, stubborn determination and sheer love of it. Didn’t stop till it reached four floors. Plenty of room for kids, eh? brother Frank ribbed him. Harold knew there would never be kids, the right girl, for him. His nine younger siblings had produced enough to keep the world turning, he reckoned.

Harold made the house with lots of windows to let in the light and a big door to let in the nieces and nephews. Little Peggy was his favourite. She curled at his feet reading stories of odd creatures, a magical alternate universe. They made him chuckle and crept into his dreams at night. Peggy was the one he missed most when he left for the trenches.

Harold had left more than his eye in the Marne. The children’s laughter and shrieks set off his gloom and he banished them, even Peggy. He sat alone with the lamplight dimmed, letting the shadows in. Corners of the house crumbled with a whisper. He paid nephew Tommy to bring him his groceries. Tommy complained to his mum about the clanking weight of all the bottles of whisky.

Harold found he preferred the company of ghosts, their voices less strident than the living. He wanted to hear Jake cracking jokes, Jonno telling him about the riverbanks of his youth. Even Sergeant Major Harrington roaring at them. But most of all Albert. He listened to all their voices, aching for Albert, as the house creaked and groaned. He watched the fireflies dancing and glittering and didn’t feel the tears slide from his one eye into the empty glass.

Harold was still sitting when Peggy found him, glass in hand, single eye closed for good. The next day the house collapsed into a jagged-edged pile. After the funeral Peggy sat in the ruins reading her stories, waiting for dusk. When the fireflies came she sighed with relief. As they blazed and flittered over the pile, Harold’s chuckle rose off the pages of her book.

Meg’s Comments

In “The House that Harold Built” present and past merge as we’re thrust into a tragic story of a war veteran and shown is deepest loves and ruined dreams. The effect is surprisingly novelistic. Hard to accomplish with such a small word count.

Philippa Bowe is a flash fiction writer, poet and translator. Her work has been published online and in print, including by Ghost City Press, Reflex Fiction, Bath Flash Fiction and Spark2Flame. She is writing a flash novella, lives on a southern French hill and has become addicted to big vistas.

Many congratulations to James Montgomery from the UK who won first prize and runners-up, Jen Rowe from the UK and Dawn Miller from Canada. Jude set the prompt and the challenge was to write a multi-layered story in 400 words or under including some dialogue and reported speech. There was an excellent range of stories and thank you to all who entered and to writer and NFFD director, Diane Simmons, for judging and commenting. The painting,Eislaufkunst, 1929 is by Dörte Clara Wolff (1907-1996), known as Dodo, who was a German-born artist, illustrator, and costume designer. She studied at the prestigious Berlin Academy of Art. For another writing opportunity, The Pokrass Prize is open for anyone booked on this year’s in person flash fiction festival. Booking here

Diane’s comments and the winners’ stories are posted below, together with the writers’ bios Read in Full

Thrills! The sixth volume from the Flash fiction Festivals UK has now been posted to contributors. Hopefully the books will arrive soon! When they do, we’d love to see a picture of one in your location on social media. The anthology is available to buy directly from Ad Hoc Fiction and Amazon.

Within this book, there are over seventy stories from festival presenters. participants, winners from the January 2023 online Flash Fiction Festival and winners from the Pokrass Prize. There is also a section of Haibun. Five writers were inspired by the Haibun workshop led to Roberta Beary and Lew Watts. Many other stories were inspired by othere workshops at the festival.

Thank you very much to writer and co-director of National Flash Fiction Day, UK< Diane Simmons, for helping me to compile the anthology, something she has done for the past six years and to John at Ad Hoc Fiction for donating his time to produce another lovely looking anthology. Thanks also to Karen Jones, James Montgomery and Fiona J Mackintosh for their quotes about the festival on the back cover. We love the Indigo colour. Next year we complete the rainbow series of books with violet. But after that I daresay we will go with a pure white anthology, then maybe platinum and gold... We're looking forward to the Flash Fiction Festival weekend on 12-14th July in Bristol. Booking will be open this month and we have lots of really interesting workshops and panels = lined up plus readings, book launches, Karaoke and general fun and chats. Hope you can come! Jude, January 2023