Flash Fiction Judge’s Report Q4 2023

Judge’s Report by Ingrid Jendrzejewski 

It is always a pleasure to read new writing, and this round of Flash 500 was no exception.  I found something to admire in each and every piece, and want to thank everyone who made the shortlist for giving me the opportunity to spend time with your words. 

Narrowing the list down was quite a challenge, and deciding on a final ordering even more so.  Although I could only pick three prize-winners, it was a difficult decision; on a different day or with a different judge, the results could have been different. Huge congratulations to the winners of this season’s competition.

First Place

Tracey Miller Becomes a Cowgirl (Again) is a gorgeously rendered piece in which the narrator keeps us closely in the mind of the main character who sees the world from quite a unique perspective.  Every now and then, a glimpse of a different reality seeps through – both for Tracey and us readers.  The story also challenges our expectations about genre and form; from the start of the piece, readers must determine whether we’re in a land of cartoon violence, of tragedy, of childhood fantasy, of mental illness, or a combination.  This sense of destabilisation adds to the power of that final line that echoes like a gunshot.

Second Place

Cat Burglars is a gentle jigsaw of a story about a narrator’s moment of realisation.  As the main character puts the pieces together, the author invites us readers to stand back and see even more of the puzzle’s image.  Sometimes stories with a reveal at the end can feel like parlour tricks, but this piece invites rereading even when you know what happens. 

Third Place

Container Gardening with Nicolas Cage does a wonderful job of blending reality and fantasy whilst treating its characters with grace and care.  Told from the perspective of an aging woman in a care home, this piece manages to balance the main character’s frustrations with something quite difficult to pull off in flash: hope. 

Honourable Mention

Two pieces came very close to being in the top three.

I love love love the use of language in A Sign of Things to Come and the way it puts us in Alfie’s shoes.  I felt so close to Alfie that I kept forgetting it was written in the third person instead of the first! 

You Don’t Mind Alice, Do You pulls off what I think is one of the hardest tricks in flash fiction writing: a happy ending…and even better, I didn’t see it coming on the first read.  It’s easy to create emotional impact when writing about things that are sad, tragic, horrible, mean, etc., so it’s utterly refreshing when a story ends on a smile that doesn’t feel forced or overly saccharine. 

I’d also like to take a moment to mention a few other pieces that particularly stood out.  I loved the backwards storytelling in ‘Backwards’ and ‘An Education’, the almost haibun-like form of ‘You Said Nothing First’, the lovely atmosphere and sense of melancholy in ‘The Photograph’, and the structure and read-between-the-lines storytelling in ‘Terms and Conditions’.  I thought the writing and voice was incredibly strong in ‘The Knowing’, and I would love to spend a little more time in this world, and, finally, ‘The World Of Unwanted Things’ made me actually stop what I was doing, get up and check that my old typewriter was still around and doing well.  I dearly hope to see all the stories I read as part of the shortlist out in the world (and I’ll be cheering them on); it was an honour and privilege to read your work. 

Congratulations again to the prize-winners and thank you to everyone who submitted to the competition.