“…the entries felt so much like snowflakes, each of them unique and beautiful and entirely original in their execution. I read stories drawn from “real life” while others were anchored in a speculative world; stories that commanded attention from a fist punch of a first sentence and others that started quietly yet stealthily and accrued power and tension with each sentence”
— writer and teacher, Sarah Freligh form the USA, (Judge of February Award)

“Hitting that submit button is always an act of writerly courage and I applaud the spirit of all who entered this round of the Bath Flash Fiction Award. It’s been a privilege to read this rich array of flash. The fifty long listed pieces revealed a wide range of approaches and areas of focus”
— writer, editor and teacher Marie Gethins from Ireland (Judge of June Award)

“Reading this long list reaffirmed my belief that flash fiction writers are where it’s at in the literary world. The stories in this round popped with pitch-perfect prose and demonstrated a deep understanding of how form impacts story”
— writer and teacher, Kathryn Aldridge-Morris (judge of the October Award)

Paperback ISBN 978-1-915247-80-3; 133mm x 203mm; 166pp

£11.99 GBP

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This novella-in-flash tells the story of Cassie and Susan, both of whom contracted polio during one of the last outbreaks in the UK in the 1970s. Joanna shows how Cassie, a young girl of eleven at the time, and Susan, a newly qualified teacher, manage the experience of being in an iron-lung and learn to breathe again. After they leave hospital, we follow their different journeys as they slowly manage without the ventilator and each make a new life. This engrossing novella is striking in many ways, not least in how vividly it portrays life inside an iron lung and how frightening and painful it is to breathe unaided.
— Jude Higgins, judge of the 2026 Bath Novella-in-Flash Award

Paperback ISBN 978-1-915247-82-7; 133mm x 203mm; 94pp

£10.99 GBP

Devastating and wise, Unhoused chronicles terminal illness, grief, and dark family secrets—but also human strength and the miraculous joy of community care. Each snip of prose is a quiet heartbreak. I am shattered again and again. But in the connections and in the space between these carefully observed and emotionally resonant stories, a greater tale of resilience and hope emerges. I kept thinking as I read that this is what a novella-in-flash is meant to do.
—Allison Wyss, author of Splendid Anatomies

This is what I love most about flash—the way it keeps unfolding inside you long after you’ve finished reading. Unhoused, Victoria Melekian’s stunning novella-in-flash, does exactly that. I closed the book with hope for these characters—and for all of us—and a deeper sense of our shared humanity. This book is a beautiful entry point for new readers of the form, and a gift to those who already cherish it.
—Judy Reeves, author of A Writer’s Book of Days

Paperback ISBN 978-1-915247-86-5; 133mm x 203mm; 86pp

£10.99 GBP

With clear language that shifts easily between everyday moments and more lyrical passages, Sherman writes with honesty and restraint, making the emotional weight feel real without being overwhelming. This is a moving, accessible portrait of memory, loss, and the fragile bonds that remain even as so much slips away. A book you won’t want to miss.
– Francine Witte, Pushcart winning author of Radio Water

Beautifully crafted in luminous prose and fully grounded in its coastal location, How to Get There from Here is an unflinching yet tender story of how Lauren must now parent her mother.
– Jupiter Jones, author of The Hyena’s Daughter

Paperback ISBN 978-1-915247-84-1; 133mm x 203mm; 126pp

£10.99 GBP

“All the writers have a praise-worthy handle on prose and they embrace the short story form with imagination and zest. The stories are brilliantly varied, encompassing snapshot events, descriptions of sprawling political movements, and intimate essayistic monologues.”

Lucy Luck and Olivia Bignold from Conville & Walsh Literary Agency, judges, BSSA 2025

Paperback ISBN 978-1-915247-76-6; 133mm x 203mm; 144pp

£10.99 GBP

“It was my maiden participation in the Flash Fiction Festival 2025 at Trinity College, Bristol. Had I not attended the Festival, I would have missed many momentous things—beaming faces, fresh flashes, ennobling exchanges with first-rate flash fiction writers, riveting readings, wit-winging workshops, and delectable dishes. Kudos to Jude Higgins and her team of volunteers for their invaluable service to the alluring art of Flash Fiction! For me, the Festival was not merely an event but a vibrant laboratory of creativity.”
– Paritosh Chandra Dugar, a Prize Winning Flash Fiction Writer from India

“It was my first year at the festival, and I didn’t know what to expect. What I found was people from everywhere, carrying their stories like small lanterns. Together, we made a brief, brilliant light – enough to see one another clearly, enough to see the work ahead. I carried that brightness home. For me, the festival lingers like a candle in the window, and I’m grateful to have found a light I can return to, year after year.”
– Rena Willis writing from Costa Rica

Paperback ISBN 978-1-915247-78-0; 133mm x 203mm; 138pp

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Spin of the Triangle tackles an important and difficult subject in a very skilful way. We are introduced to the different women who take part in a baby-trafficking business. They are all vulnerable and have lived lives where they have been exploited in many different ways. Stephanie Carty shows the characters in the novella convincingly occupying each of the three roles in the victim, persecutor and rescuer triangle at different times. In the end, we see that it may be possible for them to step out of moving around this triangle and have a different life. I was impressed by the individual stories in different POVs. All aspects of the baby-trafficking business are covered, from the young girls manipulated to give up their babies, the grief of those who regret their choices, the office manager deadening her feelings with alcohol, the lies told about the babies’ origins. And in the background, the men who control it all.
— Jude Higgins, judge of the 2025 Bath Novella-in-Flash Award. Author of Clearly Defined Clouds.

Paperback ISBN 978-1-915247-74-2; 133mm x 203mm; 76pp

£11.99 GBP

The Lives of the Dead is a timeless and poignant novella that tracks one woman’s journey through the dark wood of marriage and motherhood. Told through a cleverly woven narrative that includes internet searches and reimagined fairy tales with a feminist twist, this deeply resonant and compelling story explores the agency afforded to women through themes of power, expectation and sacrifice. Skilfully crafted with language that radiates heart and yearning, Fiona McKay proves an incomparable and essential voice in fiction.
— Sara Hills, author of The Evolution of Birds (Best Short Story Collection, Saboteur Awards, 2022)

Newly married Kate is in an unequal relationship. Her husband holds a firm grip on their future, his hand literally holding tight on her wrist, causing small bruise marks – a motif through the novella. The interior focus shows Kate’s sometimes guilty struggles about motherhood and competing desires very well. The author has structured the novella brilliantly with Kate’s journey to self-realisation interspersed with re-visioned fairy tales. The fairy tales offer great depth to how the story unfolds and invite many reads to get their full impact.
— Jude Higgins, Judge Bath Novella in Flash Competition 2025

Kate lives a constrained life with her husband, John. Tracking the beginnings of their marriage and her initiation into motherhood, the text is interspersed with exquisite fairy tale re-tellings, which amplify and illuminate the ‘everyday’ story. The prose is lush and lyrical, Kate’s emotional landscape expertly rendered. An exemplary novella-in-flash from Fiona McKay, showcasing what can be achieved in the genre.
— Gearóidín Nic Cárthaigh, author of Geansaithe Móra (An Post Irish Language Fiction Book of the Year, 2024)

Paperback ISBN 978-1-915247-72-8; 133mm x 203mm; 116pp

£11.99 GBP

Debra Daniel perfectly captures what it is like to be a twelve-year-old girl in a particular place and time, while also touching upon the universality of that precious age between childhood and teenager. Interspersed throughout In the Dark Eyes of the Rabbit is advice on how to live from Retta’s mother, father, and grandmother, bringing to mind Jamaica Kencaid’s “Girl.” But it is Retta herself whose voice rings loudest as she is “lost to the wonderment of life and love and dying and secrets and truths and how people sink and how they float…”
— Ann Hood, NY Times Best Selling Author of The Stolen Child and The Book that Matters Most

“Debra Daniel has a rare knack for combining depth and humour, substance and charm. In the Dark Eyes of the Rabbit is at once a tender depiction of the dynamics of a family, a vivid coming-of-age narrative, an unforgettable portrayal of a grandmother, and an astute study of fracture and repair within relationships. It’s warm and funny and poignant — I immediately wanted to read it again.”
— Michael Loveday author of Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash and Three Men on the Edge

“I loved this novella-in-flash on many levels. I liked its close focus on the life of a family in the USA in the 1960s and how they navigate day-to-day situations. I liked the POV, in the strong and believable voice of a twelve year old girl and the way she thinks about her family and relates to them. The adults are flawed but believable — a fearful grandmother who makes doom-laden remarks and has many strange habits, a self-preoccupied mother, a father who spends much time away from the home and an aunt who reveals family secrets. The novella is moving, and also has humour — a great combination. The use of the rabbit motif threading through, adds a further depth. In the end, the family, in crisis, does pull together.”
— Jude Higgins, author of Clearly Defined Clouds and founder of the Bath Novella-in-Flash Award

Paperback ISBN 978-1-915247-70-4; 133mm x 203mm; 132pp

£11.99 GBP

There are 137 flash fictions in this, our ninth yearly anthology — the long listed, short listed and winning pieces from the three 2024 Bath Flash Fiction Awards. Dip in or read all the way through. You’ll find much variety and extraordinary linguistic feats, in these stories, all 300 words and under by writers from all over the world.

“I’m in awe of the flash fiction pieces I read, the idea, the crafting of the story, the structure and how these stories got such a variety of reactions from me. A sharp intake of breath, a few tears, a nodding of the head, a smile…”
— Susmita Bhattacharya, author of Table Manners (February Award judge)

“This was a rich set of flash fictions, and they required reading several times before the ones that stuck started to emerge – because so many were memorable. I have so enjoyed considering the many virtues of all of them.”
— Michelle Elvy, author of the everrumble (June Award judge).

“Flash fiction presents such a wide range of possibilities in terms of narrative, character, tone and form, and the writers of these pieces have made full use of these.”
— Matt Kendrick, writer, editor and teacher (October Award judge).

Paperback ISBN 978-1-915247-66-7; 133mm x 203mm; 172pp

£10.99 GBP