With our submission window set to open next week, we'd like to take a moment to introduce you to this year's judging panel. This year, we're excited to announce that Sudha Balagopal, Rebecca Field, James Montgomery and Sherry Morris will be doing it all: reading the submissions that come in, compiling a shortlist, and then deciding on the winning and highly commended pieces.
Our submission window opens on Friday 1 December 2024 and closes on Thursday 15 February 2025. We will be announcing results on or before 15 March 2025. We'll be reading flash of up to 100 words on any theme, but we are not able to consider simultaneous submissions this year.
For the 2024 competition, we will be awarding:
- £150 for first place
- £100 for second place
- £50 for third place
- seven awards of £20 for highly commended pieces.
All winning and commended pieces will be published online as well as in the 2025 National Flash Fiction Day print anthology and will receive one free copy of the anthology.
You can find our full submission guidelines here.
In the new year, we'll be posting interviews with our judges so you can get a better sense of what they're looking for, but in the meantime, you can read more about each of them below.
Huge thanks to our judges for taking on the 2025 NFFD Microfiction Competition and we look forward to reading your work!
Sudha Balagopal is an Indian American writer whose fiction straddles continents and cultures, blending thoughts and ideas from the east and the west. Most recently, her novella in flash, Nose Ornaments, was published by Ad Hoc Fiction, UK. Her highly commended novella in flash, Things I Can’ t Tell Amma, was published by Ad Hoc Fiction in 2021. Nominated for several awards, her work has appeared in Best Microfiction, 2021, 2022 and Best Small Fictions, 2022, 2023, 2024. When she’s not writing, she teaches yoga.
Rebecca Field is a short fiction writer from Derbyshire, UK. Her work has appeared in several NFFD anthologies and she has twice been highly commended in the NFFD micro competition. She has also been published online by The Phare, Ghost Parachute, Fictive Dream, Gone Lawn, Tiny Molecules, Milk Candy Review and Ellipsis Zine among others. Tweets at @RebeccaFwrites.
James Montgomery writes from Staffordshire in the UK. He has won the Pokrass Prize, Retreat West’s best micro fiction prize and a Flash Fiction Festival competition, placed second in New Zealand's international Micro Madness contest, and been highly commended in the Bath Flash Fiction Award and National Flash Fiction Day's micro competition. His stories have been published in various anthologies and literary magazines, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net. Find him at www.jamesmontgomerywrites.com.
Originally from Missouri, Sherry Morris (@Uksherka & @uksherka.bsky.social) writes prize-winning fiction from a farm in the Scottish Highlands where she pets cows, watches clouds and dabbles in photography. She presents an online monthly spoken-word radio show featuring short stories and flash on Inverness Hospital Radio, and received a 2025 Best of the Net nomination from Fictive Dream for her story ‘The Cabbage Tree’. Many of her stories stem from her Peace Corps experience in 1990s Ukraine. Read more of her work at www.uksherka.com.
