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The March Great Flash fiction Festival Throwdown Winners!

Thanks very much to novelist, short story, flash fiction writer and writing teacher, Susmita Bhattacharya for judging the contest at the last of our current series of online flash fiction festival days on Saturday March 26th. One of the prizes is a mug featuring part of a painting of irises by Vincent Van Gogh. Susmita discovered that the iris flower, has different meanings. It is seen as a flower representing hope, admiration, faith, wisdom and courage. She asked writers to write a hermit crab style flash incorporating several of these words. Her comments on the winners are below. We’ve posted their stories on another page linked here. And Susmita’s comments on the flash fictions are below.

Prizes are £30 for the winner plus the mug pictured and publication online on this site and in the fifth Flash Fiction Festival Anthology, which will be published by adhocfiction in the late Autumn this year. The runner-up is also offered publication and an anthology from published by aAd Hoc Fiction. Read in Full

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Applications open for free places at the Flash Fiction Festival in July

Watercolour of Trinity College by a previous participant

We currently have three donated places of £270 each towards the in-person flash fiction festival 8th to 10th July in Bristol. This sum is for the weekend package of workshops, talks,and readings on Saturday and Sunday but does not cover the cost of the pre-festival workshop on Friday afternoon, meals, accommodation or travel. Read in Full

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Flash Fiction Festival Anthology, Volume Four

We’re thrilled that Flash Fiction Festival Volume Four, the anthology of stories from the nine online festival days, March 2021 – January 2022, sponsored by Ad Hoc Fiction, is officially published today, 25th March in the first flush of spring and you can buy it from the Ad Hoc Fiction bookshop and shortly from Amazon in paperback. (ebook will come later). We’re building a rainbow of anthologies from the online and in person flash fiction festivals. And now we have a green colour to add to the red, orange and yellow flash fiction festival anthologies already published. It is so good to publish this green covered anthology now after the haitus due to the pandemic and cancelled in-person flash festivals. There’ll be an opportunity to be published in the Flash Fiction Festival Volume Five if you attend the weekend festival of flash in Bristol this year, 8th to 10th July. We’ll be open for submissions after the festival has finished and it will also included the winners and runners up from the online festival days in February and March this year and Pokrass Prize. which is for all of the in-person festival participants Read in Full

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Winners’ Stories, February 26th Flash Festival challenge


These stories were selected by Sage Tyrtle who set the prompt and judged the February ‘Throwdown’ challenge at the online flash fiction festival. We’ve another post to read with her comments and more about Sara Hills and David Lewis who were this month’s winners. Read in Full

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Winners of Great FlashFiction Festival Throwdown, February

larisa-birta-UaVQ0GLZER0-unsplash

Thank you so much to writer, and learning facilitator, Sage Tyrtle who was our writing contest judge for the tenth of our Flash Fiction Festival Days.She set a great prompt based on Van Gogh’s Cafe terrace painting. Thank you also to all the writers who entered. (Please check out Sage’s website, linked above, for more of her workshops inspiring writers with wonderful prompts).

The winner, selected by Sage, is Sara Hills
Sage wrote these comments on ‘Tomorrow at Cafe La Nuit’, Sara’s story. Read in Full

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Raffle

At the in-person flash fiction festival, Friday 14th to Sunday 16th July, 2022 in Bristol, UK, we’re selling raffle tickets at £1.00 each, with all proceeds going to The Trussell Trust.

Here is our list of prizes!

  • Hall and Woodhouse, who have generously supported us at previous festivals, are donating a £200 voucher towards an overnight stay at one of their hotels.

Lots of Books in the Raffle

    Co-Festival Director, Diane Simmons is offering her flash fiction collection Finding A Way, and her Novella-in-Flash, An Inheritance.

    Nancy Stohlman is offering a copy of her incredibly useful flash fiction guide book, ‘Going Short’,published by Ad Hoc Fiction in 2021.

  • Two free places at one of the next online Flash Fiction festivals to be scheduled in the Autumn. Dates arranged soon. Worth £30 each for a whole day of flash fiction.

  • A free year-long membership with the amazing Writer’s HQ
    Writers’ HQ is an online creative writing school for ‘badass writers with no time or money’ that offers a huge catalogue of online writing courses, webinars, workshops and resources, along with our flashtastic free weekly Flash Face Off challenge. We also happen to have the very best writing community in town to help you find your literary home and develop your writing with a team of friendly cheerleaders!
    Find out more at www.writershq.co.uk or throw us a gif @writers_hq on Twitter.

Anita Carpenter, who runs Flash Cabin is offering a year’s worth of Art & Flash sessions

https://www.flashcabin.com/art-flash

The Propelling Pencil is offering 1 x critique of stories up to 500 words and
1 x voucher redeemable against any upcoming workshop

A voucher for 50% off creative coaching from the Story Road (Audrey Niven)

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2023 Pokrass Prize. Winners announced!

Meg Pokrass

Our Flash Fiction Festival Curator, acclaimed writer and teacher, Meg Pokrass was unable to come to the festival again in July, this year, but we’re delighted she offered a writing challenge for all festival participants, another one of her trade-mark “Pokrass Prompts”. Read the winners from the 2023 Pokrass prize, now announced

Everyone who booked for the in-person flash fiction festival in July, gained a free entry to the contest. The challenge was to write a up to 300 word micro inspired by the prompt.

Results were announced, 15th July, at the festival.

The first prize winner, James Montgomery from the UK, won £50, two books and three free entries to Bath Flash Fiction Award and his story will also be published in the sixth Flash Fiction Festival anthology to be published by the end of the year.

Two Runners-Up Anika Carpenter from the Uk and Patricia Q Bidar from the US> received two books and three free entries to Bath Flash Fiction Award and publication in the fifth Flash Fiction Festival Anthology. Read in Full

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3 hour pre-festival workshop with Kathy Fish

Kathy Fish

READY! SET! WRITE! with Kathy Fish Friday 14th July, 2.00 – 5.00 pm

BOOKING NOW CLOSED VIA PAYPAL. CONTACT US IN CASE THERE ARE ANY LAST MINUTE PLACES

NB: This workshop is NOT ONLINE. It is an in-person extra to the the main festival workshops. It is also open to those who are not coming to the rest of the weekend. Workshop cost: £50.00 GBP

“In order to be creative, you have to know how to prepare to be creative…” ~Twyla Tharp

Kathy says:
I’m a big believer in the value of pre-writing as a necessary first step to drafting new work. Over the years, I have developed some exercises and activities aimed at immersion and deep work before beginning the joyful task of creating new art. The result? Fresh, original drafts of surprising depth and beauty. In this engaging, interactive three-hour session we will begin with a series of fun and interesting activities and prompts that will prime our brains for creative expression. From these, we will put together “toolboxes” for story writing, equipping ourselves with our own unique word banks, vocabulary, images, characters, settings, even titles. In the last hour, we will draw on these tools to draft rich, resonant stories that might not otherwise be written had we not arrived at the page primed, prepared, energized, and inspired.

Kathy Fish has published five collections of short fiction, most recently Wild Life: Collected Works from 2003-2018. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, Copper Nickel, Washington Square Review, and numerous other journals, textbooks, and anthologies. Fish’s “Collective Nouns for Humans in the Wild,” was selected for Best American Non-required Reading 2018 and the current edition of The Norton Reader. Her newsletter, The Art of Flash Fiction, provides monthly craft articles and writing prompts and is free to all. Subscribe here: https://artofflashfiction.substack.com.

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Friday Flashy Fringe Fete & Paella!

You are welcome to arrive from 12.00 pm onwards on Friday 14th July for the in-person flash fiction festival, 14th -16th July at Trinity College, Bristol.

What’s happening on Friday afternoon this year?

From 2.00 pm – 5.00 pm another fantastic three hour pre-fest workshop by acclaimed teacher and writer from the US, Kathy Fish. Open to festival participants and those who can’t make the whole weekend. Booking (£50) for the workshop open soon via paypal.

Electra Rhodes

And from 12.00 midday, we’re delighted festival team member, Electra Rhodes, is organising a Friday Flashy Fringe Fete! More details coming soon.
Electra says: Fancy an afternoon of flashy fun on the lawn? I’ve got great news. 2023 will see the first Flashy Fringe Fete of the Bath Flash Festival, running, skipping and jumping throughout the Friday afternoon. 
With games, stalls, activities, lashings of fun the Flashy Fringe Fete combines the best of an English country fete with everyone’s favourite flash writing opportunities.
As well as a flash lucky dip, flash pass the parcel, a team flash treasure hunt, pin the tail on the donkey, bunting, and other excitements there’ll be the chance to meet old friends and make new ones before the evening events and the rest of the weekend kicks off.
Many of the activities will have prizes and goodies to take away, and there will also be a Fringe Fete Flash Prize too
I’ll be approaching some people to run activities, stalls, and events direct, but don’t be shy about coming forwards. I’m dying to hear from you and how you’d like to volunteer to make this the flash of inspiration and fete we deserve!
Electra will have a dedicated festival email soon. In the meantime contact us to forward onwards.

Paella

Chicken Paella:£14.00
Vegan Paella:£12.00
Both Gluten Free.
Available Friday afternoon. 5.00 pm.

28th June Update: You can’t buy paella via paypal on this page anymore, but I have booked some extra ones with Luciano in case anyone wanted to buy one last minute. If you want a chicken or vegan paella, please can you let me know and you can pay for them with a card at the festival bookshop

Luciano cooking

Luciano brought samples for us and our Spanish tasters late last year, and they said there were a really, really good paellas, both the chicken and the vegan ones. Big portions, cooked fresh on the spot. Pay in advance.

Chicken Paella (GF)


Other Friday Events:

Bar (run this year by Trinity College)

Karaoke ready to go in 2019

Badger’s Pouch, the bar, will be open from 2.00 pm
After the evening of readings, Karaoke entertainment will be available in the bar, organised by Helen Rye and Christopher Allen.
Bookshop
The festival bookshop will be open from 2.00 pm to 5.00 pm in the Tyndall’s room, by Reception in the main building.
Official Welcome and Evening of Readings 6.00 pm – 9.00 pm in Dining Room.

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Accommodation options

Outside Trinity College

The 2024 flash fiction festival will be held at Trinity College, a Theological College, in the Stoke Bishop area of Bristol. There will be some single budget bnb (basic breakfast) rooms at Trinity College to book as part of the festival package. (Pictures of rooms available soon). plus 20 camping spots with facilities in the grassy area in front of the college.

For the festival weekend Friday and Saturday nights (and Thursday and Sunday nights if people want them) we have also again blocked book rooms for the festival place/accommodation package at Churchill Hall, a Bristol University Residence only a few minutes walk away from the college, in a lovely setting opposite the Bristol Botanical Gardens. You can see Churchill Hall and its proximity to Trinity on our location map on the menu.

The rooms are bnb (continental breakfast). An example of one is pictured below, along with a picture of the hall and an area of the shared bathroom. They are quite spacious and for single occupancy only. You can book a festival place with accommodation now It may also be possible to book Thursday night at Churchill Hall. Contact us if you are interested in an extra night on Thursday. Read in Full

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