Flash Fiction (5 minute reads or less)
Altercation
Fictive Dream (Biffy 50 Nomination)
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"From its cutting edge, the shards of an onion dribble onto the worktop; sliced like rose petals; like tear drops; like acid rain."
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READ
And Then, Ephemeral
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"Unfurling, its pairs of legs judder into subconscious action. Spines bristle outwards. Its segmented body wriggles across the leaf."
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READ
Blue Over Pink
Spelk
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"A metropolis of vinyl-floor streets; quasi-buildings in Day-Glo cardboard; polyethylene windows into homes for puppets and dolls."
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READ
Casanova's Mistress
Bath Flash Fiction (Long List)
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"She is afraid of emptiness. He says he isn’t afraid of anything but that isn’t true. He is afraid of slithering things."
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BUY BFFA
Constellations
The Drabble
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"The inner cavern is a spiral galaxy of planets and stars. It pulses like a bullfrog’s throat – alive but dying."
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READ
End of the Line
Splonk
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"Oh Ifracombe! She took the bus since there were no more trains. She was a green thing. Fell for a fisherman with seaweed in his beard."
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READ
How to Refill an Invisible Balloon
Green Stories (3rd Place)
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"His mum’s red balloon has shrivelled like a sun-dried tomato and is hanging limply by her left ankle."
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READ
Important to Us
Potato Soup Journal
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"P is a dynamo. Kneeling. Arms like a sprint canoeist. She opens a packing box and scrabbles through the contents."
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READ
It was the Horse that Killed Her
Retreat West (Quarterly Flash Fiction Winner)
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"Ambulance outside Old Lady’s house. Its blue light whirligigs round."
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READ
Life at the Colliery
FlashBack Fiction
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"It’s dark. Darker than coal. Darker than Ma’s eyes when I came home caked in mud after football on the common."
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READ
a list of things that are white
Fictive Dream
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"in the chapel, the chaplain’s cassock; her teeth, enamelled gravestones that bite words in half."
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READ
The Long Road
Lunate Fiction
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"We’re on the long road, you and me. Dirt not tarmac. Potholes and pebbles. The trees either side weave their boughs into an almost-arch."
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READ
Punctuation Marks in an Unknown Key
Reflex Press (Long List)
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"Morning. Post-wake-up kiss. Stretch. Shower. Dress. Lingering gaze in your direction as I leave the bedroom."
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READ
Rag-doll and Puppet-man
Bath Flash Fiction (Long List)
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"Rag-doll skitters into the kitchen where she melts cheese strings over Doritos in the microwave."
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BUY BFFA
Stepping Out
Bending Genres
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"My second first steps are like a walrus in stilettos. Quick, slow, quick, quick, slow. Jelly legs buckling at the knees."
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READ
Surreal Portraits of the Future Us
Craft Literary
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"In five years, on Space Mountain, we’ll blast asteroids to clear a path through the Milky Way."
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COMING SOON
Short Stories (5-20 minute reads)
La Maldadita
The Cabinet of Heed
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"Other times, I dream of anthropomorphic octopi who wear polka dot swimsuits and sip paper-umbrella-accessorised mojitos."
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READ
Red Route
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"The dull thumping of rubber against asphalt. Repetitively rhythmic as my trainers hit the slick surface of the pot-holed pavement."
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READ
The Wall
Collective Unrest
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"It sprung up overnight. Unexpected, it stood there as we all opened our curtains, bleary-eyed, in the morning. A divider line."
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READ
Under an Aurora Sky
Lucent Dreaming
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"Sometimes, an animal takes form within one of the little clouds, or a person, or even a landscape—places away from the harsh expanse..."