Flash Fiction Judge’s Report Q4 2025

Judge’s Report by Ingrid Jendrzejewski

Judging this competition was a genuine pleasure—and, in the best way, a difficult task. It can be so hard to compare such strikingly different pieces: the quiet, traditional tale versus the experiment with format; themes that lean into tenderness and humour versus those that don’t flinch from darker truths; the pieces that dazzle on the first read versus those that come out of their shell slowly, revealing more and more with each re-reading. I was impressed with so many of the shortlisted pieces and on a different day, or with a different judge, the results might be quite different. But a competition is a competition, so a decision had to be made….
As I constructed (and reconstructed) my final list, I kept coming back to craft, emotion, and resonance. I found myself interrogating each piece for language that serves the story, form that deepens meaning rather than just decorating it, and endings that don’t simply conclude but reframe, leaving the characters (and the reader!) changed. In a few cases, it was just a few little slips of voice or a slight rush in the ending that kept a piece off my final list, and I hope that with time, the authors of these pieces will see this as a gift. There are a couple great pieces in this shortlist that have the potential to become legendary with another edit, and I will be cheering for every one of these pieces on their future journeys. But for now, here are my selections for this season’s Flash500:

First Place: Inventory of Things My Mother Never Taught Me to Measure

This gorgeous numbered-list-of-a-story feels utterly assured, perfectly pitched, and deeply generous. I love how this piece builds its emotional architecture through the senses—smell, sound, touch—and how just when you think you have the story’s measure (sorry, couldn’t resist!), it keeps finding new and unexpected ways to describe what might be quantified and how. When we move away from (or, perhaps more accurately in this story’s world, farther into!) the kitchen to face distance, grief, pride, and mercy, these expansive topics are held and nurtured perfectly by the list-format scaffolding that has already been established. The language is precise without being precious, and the repetitions create a steady, almost ritual rhythm that carries us all the way to a final scene of tenderness and emotion.

Second Place: Since. Because. You Know

I absolutely love the control in this piece. The voice is vivid, funny in places, self-protective, and recognisably human—then, without any showiness, the piece tightens its grip and delivers an ending that re-frames everything we think we know about the speaker’s pain and performance. The “since / because / you know” pattern becomes much more than just a stylistic flourish by the end. This is a deceptively simple story that earns its twist through pacing, clarity, and a final turn that lands cleanly—no melodrama, no wobble, just a powerful moment when everything clicks into place. And even once I knew the ending, there are enough layers that I found more to appreciate each time I came back for more.

Third Place: All the gifts you ever gave

This is a blisteringly effective use of both the single breathless paragraph and the use of a list as a narrative juggernaut—an accumulating record that begins with the expected vocabulary of romance and steadily reveals what lies beneath. I love how the piece refuses to look away: it gives us the bright objects and the bruises in the same breath, exposing the way harm can hide in plain sight. The craft here is in the deft deployment of sharp, specific details and in its well-paced escalation and calibration; the line keeps moving and the pressure keeps rising, until that final gesture which is both darkly funny and fiercely liberating.

I would also like to take a moment to give a shout out to some of the pieces that came close. I loved the deft braiding and imagery in both ‘The Hills are Alive’ and ‘The life cycle of coral’, the assuredness and pacing in ‘Grandad’s Chair’ (that quiet aside about the clip-on tie is sheer brilliance!), the raw tenderness and compassion in both ‘Never Going Pro’ and ‘Disposophobia’, and the experiments with form and structure in both ‘Is It Pronounced Shrewsbury or Shrewsbury?’ and ‘The fear of falling’. Congratulations to these authors as well!
Finally, I’d like to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who entered. It is truly a privilege to spend time in so many imaginative worlds, and to witness how much can be carried—emotionally, intellectually, and poetically—in such a small space. Congratulations to the winners, and also to all the longlisted and shortlisted writers. The standard was high, and my final calls came down to the finest calibrations of voice, pacing, echo, and impact.

— Ingrid Jendrzejewski, February 2026