Skip to content

Author: Ingrid Jendrzejewski

Published on Leave a comment on Announcing the theme for the 2020 NFFD Anthology…

We are excited to announce that the theme for our 2020 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology is FAMILY.

We invite any and all interpretations of FAMILY, and look forward to reading about families big and small, real and imagined, lost and found, local and global, inherited and created. Families involving people. Taxonomic families. Parametric families. Families on the periodic table. Wherever the word FAMILY takes you, we'd like to follow!

Anthology submissions are limited to 500 words (excluding title), but that is the only constraint.  We welcome submissions from anyone and everyone, around the world.

We will be open for submissions from 1 December 2019 to 15 February 2020.  Further details will be available on our Anthology Submissions page later this month.

Published on Leave a comment on Announcing our 2020 NFFD Anthology Guest Editor

Photograph of Sophie van LlewynWe are delighted to welcome Sophie van Llewyn to the National Flash Fiction Day team as this year's guest editor for the 2020 National Flash Fiction Day anthology.

She'll be joining NFFD Co-Director Ingrid Jendrzejewski in putting together this year's anthology of flash fiction from around the world.

We'll be announcing this year's theme in time for those of you participating in FlashNaNo projects this November, but in the meantime, you can get a better sense of Sophie's work by checking out Bottled Goods, her novella-in-flash that has been longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019 and for the Republic of Consciousness Prize.  You can also find links to her online publications on her website, sophievanllewyn.com.

Submissions for the 2020 NFFD Anthology will be open from 1 December 2019 to 15 February 2020.  Further details will be available on our Anthology Submissions page in November.

Published on Leave a comment on Update from Santino Prinzi

I’ve been a volunteer with National Flash Fiction Day since 2014, after I had my first ever flash fiction called ‘What We Do in Our Sleep’ published in the 2014 anthology Eating My Words. With each passing year I have taken on more and more responsibility, including co-editing the 2019, 2018, and 2017 anthologies and joining Calum Kerr as one of the co-directors. It has been a challenge, it has been rewarding, and it has been fun.

It goes without saying that National Flash Fiction Day means a lot to me, but there’s truth in the saying that you can sometimes have too much of a good thing. Some of you may already be aware of this, but I’m officially sharing that I’m having a fallow year.

Plans for National Flash Fiction Day 2020 are well underway, having been organised by my tremendous co-directors Diane Simmons and Ingrid Jendrzejewski. They’ll be running the show while I work on some exciting personal projects – including having a break! There will be more news about those soon…

My plan is to come back towards the end of 2020 when we’ll begin planning our 2021 celebrations, which will mark National Flash Fiction Day’s TENTH anniversary!

As always, thank you all for your continued support of NFFD. Without it, we couldn’t do what we do.

— Santino Prinzi

1

Published on 1 Comment on Flash Flood 2019 is OPEN for submissions!

...But be quick!  Submissions are only open for a week, closing on 9 May 2019 at 23:59 BST (22:59 UTC).

The aim is simple: wherever you are in the world, we want your best flash fictions. The word limit is 500 words, but that's the only rule. Send us any subject, any genre, any style, any perspective...anything as long as it's flash!

All accepted stories will be published online at Flash Flood on National Flash Fiction Day, 15 June 2019 from 00:01 to 23:59 BST.  This year, we've got some slots reserved for unpublished writers, and we're also nominating for awards such as Best Small Fictions, Best of the Net, and the Pushcart Prize.

Our guidelines have changed this year, so please have a read over our shiny new submission guidelines before you send your work.  If you'd like, you can also read about this year's editors.

We look forward to reading your words!

4

Published on 4 Comments on Entries for the 2019 National Flash Fiction Day Micro Fiction Competition are NOW OPEN!

Entries for the 2019 National Flash Fiction Day Micro Fiction Competition are now open! This year’s judges are Angela Readman, Diane Simmons, Kevlin Henney, and Judy Darley.

Send our judges your very best micro fictions of 100 words or fewer!

Entries are open from Friday 4th January 2019 until Friday 15th March 2019, 23:59pm GMT.

Please read our submission guidelines carefully before submitting.

Angela Readman is the winner of the first National Flash Fiction Day competition. Her short stories have since been winners of The Costa Short Story Award, The Mslexia Story Prize and The Anton Chekhov Award for Short Fiction. Her story collection Don't Try This at Home was short listed in The Edge Hill and won The Rubery Book Award. In January 2019 her debut novel Something like Breathing was published by And Other Stories. She also writes poetry and is published by Nine Arches.

Diane SimmonsDiane Simmons is a writer, editor, a co-director of National Flash Fiction Day, and part of the organising team for Flash Fiction Festivals UK. She has been an editor for FlashFlood, a flash fiction judge and for three years was a reader for the Bath Short Story Competition. Her fiction has featured in a variety of anthologies and publications including Mslexia; New Flash Fiction Review; To Carry Her Home, BFFA Vol One; The Lobsters Run Free, BFFA Vol 2; Flash Fiction Festival, Vols One and Two; Flash I Love You (Paper Swans); FlashBack Fiction; Micro Madness; and six National flash Fiction Day UK anthologies. In 2009 she won second place in ITV's This Morning National Short Story Competition and since then has been placed in many flash fiction and short story contests, including the HISSAC flash prize; the NFFD micro competition; Writers' Forum Short Story Competition; Worcester Literature Festival Flash Competition; 99 Fiction; NAWG; and The Frome International Short Story Competition. Her stories have also been shortlisted for numerous competitions, including the Bath Flash Fiction Award; Exeter Flash; and Flash 500. Her debut collection of flash, ‘Finding a Way’ is being published by Ad Hoc Fiction in February 2019. She tweets @scooterwriter. You can learn more about Diane at You can learn more about Diane at https://www.dianesimmons.co.uk/.

Kevlin Henney writes shorts and flashes and drabbles of fiction and books and articles on software development. His fiction has appeared online and on tree (Daily Science Fiction, Litro, New Scientist, Physics World, Spelk, Reflex Fiction, LabLit, Flight Journal and many more) and has been included in a number of anthologies (The Dark Half of the Year,North by Southwest, We Can Improve You, Haunted, Salt Anthology of New Writing, Ripening, Sleep Is a Beautiful Colour and many more). As well as having his work rejected and make no impression whatsoever on writing competitions, Kevlin’s stories have been longlisted, shortlisted and placed, and he won the CrimeFest 2014 Flashbang contest. He reads at spoken word events, winning the National Flash-Fiction Day Oxford flash slam in 2012, and has performed his work on local radio (BBC Radio Bristol and Ujima). Kevlin has been involved in the organisation of the Bristol Festival of Literature and events for National Flash-Fiction Day. He lives in Bristol and online, where he can stalked as @KevlinHenney on Twitter, @kevlinhenney on Medium and @kevlin.henney on Instagram.

Judy Darley is a British fiction writer, poet and journalist who can't stop writing about the fallibilities and strengths of the human mind. Her flash fiction and stories have been published by magazines and anthologies in the UK, New Zealand, US and Canada, including Seren Books, Mslexia, Unthology 8 and SmokeLong Quarterly, as well as in her debut collection Remember Me To The Bees. Sky Light Rain, her second collection, will be published by Valley Press in autumn 2019. She has shared her stories on BBC radio, as well as in cafés, caves, an artist’s studio and a disused church. Find Judy at http://www.SkyLightRain.com, and https://twitter.com/JudyDarley.

Published on Leave a comment on Submissions for the 2019 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology are NOW OPEN!

Submissions for the 2019 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology are now open, and this year will be more exciting than ever!

Our theme is filled with possibility…or not! Our theme can reveal secrets to us and it can keep danger hidden. Is our theme trying to keep everyone from getting in, or is our theme trying to keep you from getting out? Knock, knock, who’s there? It’s our theme: Doors!

We want you to open the door to stories wild with imagination. We’re looking for those creepy mysteries about doors we can’t find the key to. We want those funny tales of frustration when doors do exactly what they’re supposed to when we don’t want them to. Maybe the stories you want to share are about metaphorical doors, filled with the disappointment of doors that are closed to us or brimming with excitement at new opportunities. Whichever door you decide to write about, make sure it’s your best and that is fewer than 500 words!

The co-editors standing in the doorway of this year’s anthology are Joanna Campbell and Santino Prinzi. Submissions are open from Friday 4th January 2019 until Friday 15th March 2019, 23:59pm GMT.

Please read our submission guidelines carefully before submitting.

Santino PrinziSantino Prinzi is a Co-Director of National Flash Fiction Day in the UK, a Consulting Editor for New Flash Fiction Review, and is one of the founding organisers of the annual Flash Fiction Festival. His flash fiction pamphlet, There’s Something Macrocosmic About All of This (2018), is available from V-Press, and his short flash collection, Dots and other flashes of perception (2016), is available from The Nottingham Review Press. He is also a reviewer of flash fiction collections and novellas-in-flash for various outlets. As well as a nominee for the Best Small Fictions and the Pushcart Prize, his writing has been published in various magazines and anthologies, including Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, Jellyfish Review, And Other Poems, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Airgonaut, Litro Online, Stories for Homes Anthology Vol.2 and many more. To find out more follow him on Twitter (@tinoprinzi) or visit his website: santinoprinzi.com

Joanna Campbell is a writer from the Cotswolds. Her short fiction has been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies. For example, her short story, Upshots, won the 2015 London Short Story Prize. In 2017, Bath Flash Fiction Award published her novella-in-flash, A Safer Way To Fall. Her short story, Much, came second in the 2017 Exeter Story Prize. In 2018, Brad’s Rooster Food, shortlisted in the Royal Academy Pin Drop Award, was chosen for the Simon and Schuster anthology, A Short Affair. Her flash fiction has been widely published, including five times in NFFD anthologies. In 2017, Confirmation Class came second in the Bridport Prize, for which her short stories have been shortlisted eight times. In 2016, her solo collection, When Planets Slip Their Tracks, was published in hardback by Ink Tears and shortlisted for the 2016 Rubery Book Award and longlisted for the 2017 Edge Hill Short Story Prize. In 2015, Brick Lane published her first novel, Tying Down The Lion, which was longlisted for the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize. Joanna is working on two new novels, one of which, The Days Between The Hours, was judged second in the 2018 Stroud Book Festival competition. You can find her online at Joanna-Campbell.com.

Published on Leave a comment on Introducing the new NFFD Artist in Residence

We're delighted and excited to welcome Jeanette Sheppard to the team as National Flash Fiction Day's official Artist in Residence.

Not only did Jeanette provide some images for one of last month's Flash Flood Advent Calendar writing prompts, but she has also produced the stunning skyline that now graces our website.

Where is this city and what is its flashy significance? More about this image will be revealed in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, here's a little more about the artist....

Jeanette SheppardJeanette Sheppard is a short fiction writer and sketch artist.

Her most recent flash fictions can be seen in The Nottingham Review, Ellipsis Zine and Flash Fiction Festival Anthology: Two. Other stories have been published in a number of literary magazines, including Bare Fiction, Litro and The Lonely Crowd. One of her stories flies through the air courtesy of a vending machine at Edmonton Airport in Canada. She has been published in two National Flash Fiction Day anthologies and shortlisted in TSS Publishing’s Flash400 competition. She has also been a winner of the Mslexia Flashcard.

Jeanette’s art revolves around sketching on streets, in buildings, cafes, fields, train stations, anywhere that she happens to be, in ink and watercolour. Every month she runs Sketch Coventry, a self-led open meet up. Recently, she has provided the artwork for Diane Simmons’s collection of flash fiction about grief, Finding A Way, due to be launched in February 2019.

You can enjoy more of Jeanette's artwork and writing by visiting her website at jeanettesheppard.com or following her on Twitter at @InkLinked (writing) and @JinnySketches (art).

Published on Leave a comment on 2018 Flash Flood Advent Calendar

Christmas Fireworks

What better way to end the year than with some flash fiction fun?

Come and join us at Flash Flood for an Advent Calendar full of free writing prompts designed to give you a great head start when submissions open in 2019 for the National Flash Fiction Day Anthology and Microfiction Content , not to mention Flash Flood itself.

The first prompt has been posted here.

If you'd like to share your work or just have a chat about writing, feel free to join our private Facebook group.

Happy Writing!

 

Published on Leave a comment on The Future of National Flash Fiction Day

On Saturday 16th June this year, National Flash Fiction Day celebrated its seventh year!

NFFD was founded in 2012 by Calum Kerr, and since then we have published hundreds of flash fictions by hundreds of different authors across anthologies, FlashFlood, and other flashy projects. We’ve had numerous readings, launches, workshops, and other events around the country to celebrate flash fiction. This was all thanks to Calum, who decided that this year would be his last NFFD.

When Calum stepped down, the future of NFFD was uncertain, but we believe that the best way to say thank you was to keep NFFD going.  As of June 2018, National Flash Fiction Day will be run by three co-directors, Santino Prinzi, Ingrid Jendrzejewski and Diane Simmons, who will strive to keep the momentum going and build on what Calum has started.

To everyone who has been involved with National Flash Fiction Day in the past, thank you for all your work and passion, and we hope you join us for this next chapter in National Flash Fiction Day's story!

Published on Leave a comment on Introducing our New Volunteer Social Media Co-ordinator

We'd like to welcome to the National Flash Fiction Day team our newest member, Claire Thomson, who will be our Volunteer Social Media Co-ordinator!

Claire is currently an Editorial Assistant at Vintage Books. Before this, she worked in a press office and for a feminist literary magazine. From Scotland, she studied English Literature at the University of Glasgow and now lives in North London.