Tag Archives: Diane Simmons

Winner of The Great Flash Fiction Festival Throwdown, October contest

Participants at the first of the new series of flash fiction festival days in October had the opportunity to take part in a mini flash fiction contest. Our contests for this round of the five day series are inspired by the British TV show – The Great Pottery Throwdown. It is renowned for one of the judges, who is moved to tears by the wonderful creations the amateur potters make. Read more on our post about the contest.

We are giving away mugs and a £30 cash prize plus publication for a winning story each month plus a book giveaway from Ad Hoc Fiction for the runner up. We ask people to write stories that make an emotional impact.

Our first judge from the October festival day was Diane Simmons who based her prompt on a mug featuring Van Gogh’s sunflowers. She selected ‘Inside My Father’s Head’ by UK writer Ali McGrane. Ali McGrane won one of the Signature contests in our last series with her story ‘This is Not A Story About A Rainstick’ and was selected The Winner of Winners of the Signature Challenge for the same story by our judge team at the end of the series. Many congratulations to Ali who co-incidentally will also have her novella in flash The Listening Project up on preorder with Ad Hoc Fiction later this week. The Listening Project was shortlisted by Michelle Elvy in the Bath Novella in Flash Award in 2020.
Bio
Ali McGrane lives and writes between the sea and the moor. Her work has appeared in anthologies and online, including Ellipsis Zine, FlashBack Fiction, Janus Literary, Splonk, and on shortlists including the Bath Flash Fiction Award. Her Bath shortlisted flash novella, The Listening Project, is forthcoming from Ad Hoc Fiction Find her on Twitter: @Ali_McGrane_UK. 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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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!
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