Category Archives: Competition

Lemonade I hear ‘im before ‘e arrives on the street, bottles rattling together like bones. Mam’s in the kitchen holding onto a cuppa tea like it’s a life raft, eyes sore and swollen as lemons with all the cryin’. She kicked Sammy out last night – caught ‘im spyin’ on Kel as she got readyContinue reading “First Place: Popman’s bin by Maria Thomas”

country kid in country clothes comes to the city to revel and rebel in ways his Christian parents would disown him for, but they won’t ever know because that was the whole point in coming here, to graze among the flowing queens and exaggerated queers and all the other seductive strangers, more kin to himContinue reading “Second place: City rat by Jennifer McMahon”

Whooping cough. That was the first thing my sister gave me. Me, with my crushed-velvet flesh and sea creature fingers, her with thick bunches and dungarees. I was four months old but Mum fetched the story down so often I could almost smell the vomit-scent cellular blanket. Mum had to suck mucus from my noseContinue reading “Third place: The things my sister gave me by Abigail Williams”

At the Arts Council Annual General Meeting, it was decided that all of the public art that was off display and held in storage should be distributed among the population, and shown in whatever way the people saw fit. Those who wished to host artwork entered a lottery system, paying a flat rate of £10.99.Continue reading “New Voice Award: Happy little accidents by Meg Orpwood”

We are thrilled to announce our short-list for the winter Oxford Flash Fiction Prize 2023. If your story is listed, please do not identify which story belongs to you, as the judges are hard at work making their decisions. SHORT LISTED STORIES Congratulations to everyone on the list who will be awarded publication and either a yearContinue reading “The 2023 winter short-list”

We are thrilled to announce our long-list for the winter Oxford Flash Fiction Prize 2023. Congratulations to all of the authors who reached the list and for all those who entered this round. As always, we saw a wonderful range of experience, genres, topics and stories from all over the world and it was hugelyContinue reading “The 2023 winter long-list”

We accept simultaneous submissions to our competition, and as a result this story will first be published in December 2022 by The Master’s Review, and then by the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize in 2023. So watch this space! An engrossing, evocative piece with flashes of lyricism and depth; it explores belonging, loss and transformation. RachelContinue reading “First Place: The Anatomy of Arriving by Michele Wong”

Dad watches the crows every morning from the kitchen window. A young family has roosted in the hedgerow trees and each day they line up on the fence and scream at each other, at the sky, at the Universe, at my Dad. Dad sips his tea and glares. He knocks on the window, but theContinue reading “Second place: Dinosaur Bones by Emily Ives-Keeler”

The bone-flutes are restless this morning. There is no wind yet, and the reeds stand unmoving amid the dark silty water; but the flutes shift where they hang beneath the thick sheaf of the eaves, rippling with mournful notes. They’ve faded from pink to yellow as they dried – though I watered them every dayContinue reading “Third place: Aching Bones by Zoë D. Marriott”

The clouds hang low, with a smell in the air that reminds me of our small bathroom, when I’m the last in line. The smell of six other bodies removing their night-time odours into the sink, the dregs hanging in the air, not completely eliminated by a layer of cocoa-butter and Sure. I pull theContinue reading “New Voice Award: 1974 by Veneta Roberts”