Oxford Flash Fiction Prize

New Voice Award: Mrs Mabli and the Weather Committee by Sharon Hier

In the Welsh village of Tywydd, it was widely accepted that the weather had moods. If the sheep escaped, it would rain. If Dai the Butcher was late opening, it would snow. If Mrs Jenkins sang while hanging out washing, clouds would scatter like gossip after chapel.

Nobody could explain it, but nobody needed to. And everyone knew Mrs Mabli was boss of the Weather Committee.

Of course, there was no official committee. Nothing written down, no badges. But every Tuesday, a group of women with floral umbrellas met in Tywydd Memorial Hall to ‘have a word’ with the elements.

“I tell you,” said Mrs Mabli one grey-skied morning, stirring her tea with a biro, “We’ve got too much drizzle and not enough dignity.”

“Last week my cat grew moss,” muttered Gwenllian, who’d been drying laundry in her hallway for seven days.

“The garden slugs are developing social structures,” said Blodwen, who’d once trained marigolds to grow in the shape of her husband.

The committee clucked and nodded. It was time to take action.

That Thursday, Mabli walked into the post office with a determined gait and handed the Postmistress a stamped envelope addressed:

THE DEPARTMENT OF WEATHER ADJUSTMENT
Somewhere, Probably Cardiff
Wales

Inside was a note written on pink notepaper scented with lavender:

Dear Weather Department,

I am writing on behalf of the Tywydd Weather Committee. We request a rebalancing of atmospheric conditions:

– No more than two consecutive days of rain.

– Sunshine on market days

– Winds strong enough to dry sheets, not blow them into Aberystwyth.

Warm regards,

Mrs M. Mabli (Chairwoman, unofficial)

To Mabli’s great satisfaction, someone replied. It arrived by pigeon. A pigeon wearing a tiny waterproof cape.

The note read:

Dear Mrs Mabli,

Unfortunately, due to recent cosmic interference and staffing issues in the Department (one cloud herder retired, the other turned into a cumulonimbus), adjustments may be delayed.

In the meantime, please consider taking localised weather into your own capable hands.

Yours atmospherically,

Carys, Assistant Undercloud Technician

“Well!” Mabli said, hands on hips. “If it’s up to us, then we’ll jolly well manage it ourselves.“

The following Tuesday, the Committee met with jam tarts, thermometers, and a retired weathervane named Trevor. They agreed on three main goals:

Manage the rain. Not stop it, heavens no — they were Welsh, not mad. Just persuade it to behave.
Encourage sunshine, particularly on days involving:
- sheep shearing
- outdoor bingo
- Dai the Butcher’s annual barbecue
Redirect misbehaving wind away from Rhian’s greenhouse, which had taken flight twice and landed in Pontypridd.

Mabli took it upon herself to build the first Weather Whistle, an instrument she swore her great-aunt used to control mist during Eisteddfod parades.

It was made from a copper teapot, an umbrella handle, and six teaspoons. When she blew it, nothing happened. Five minutes later, the clouds parted, and a rainbow appeared over the Co-op.

“That’s either sorcery,” said Gwenllian, “or timing so lucky we dare not waste it.”

By the end of the month, changes were noticeable.

The rain fell only at night.
Pigeons lined up in neat rows on telegraph wires, seemingly in conference.
A local spaniel was elected Official Wind Tester, wearing a special scarf that flapped in helpful directions.
Children began predicting the weather more accurately than the BBC using nothing but toast and marbles.

Tourists thought it charming. Locals called it Mabli’s Mood. Even the council took note after the village narrowly escaped a freak hailstorm that landed, oddly, only on the local MP’s garden. “He voted against extending bus routes,” Mabli said, deadpan.

But balance, as always, is delicate.

One morning, Rhian burst into the meeting, hair like a dandelion and smelling faintly of lightning. “There’s a problem,” she panted. “We’ve overdone it. I think we’ve attracted something.”

“What sort of something?”

She gulped. “A Storm Sprite. Possibly two.”

This was serious.

Storm Sprites lived over the Irish Sea, drawn by improper weather rituals and unsanctioned meddling.

“Do they bite?” Blodwen asked.

“No,” said Gwenllian, “but they’re terribly sarcastic and ruin perfectly good hairdos.”

That night, thunder growled above the hills like a snoring dragon. The wind knocked over bins with deliberate spite.

Mabli stood in the garden in her slippers, shouting into the gale, “Now look here! This is community-led meteorological maintenance, not an invitation to throw tantrums.”

Something shimmered in the air, a crackle, a laugh like wind chimes and then a small shape zipped past her ear like a wasp made of mist and fury.

“That’s it,” she muttered, going inside to find the Emergency Umbrella. The one with the runes painted on it in nail polish.

At dawn, Mabli marched to the standing stones above the village and planted her umbrella like a flag. “I offer a truce!” she declared into the storm. “You may resume standard weather operations with immediate effect, as long as you remember who you’re dealing with.”

The wind paused. Then, with a sneeze-like gust and a flash of lavender-scented lightning, the sky cleared. Rainbows bloomed. Not one, not two, but three, all stacked like traffic lights.

The Storm Sprites, it seemed, accepted her terms, though not without leaving one last cloud in the shape of a rude gesture.

The Weather Committee no longer tried to control the weather. They influenced it gently, with polite suggestions and the occasional bribe of honey cake left at the crossroads.

Mabli was awarded an unofficial title: Guardian of the Microclimate. Tourists came to Tywydd in search of the ‘magic village where rain only falls on Mondays.’ The locals knew better. It wasn’t magic. It was Mabli, her friends, and a well-behaved pigeon named Hazel.

And every Tuesday at 10am, under the quiet hiss of the kettle and the steady tick of Trevor the Weather Vane, the committee met and discussed that week’s forecast. Because as Mabli always said, “You can’t control the weather. But you can invite it in for tea and ask it nicely.”

I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for bringing a breath of fresh air to so much hopelessness, to this feeling of the end of the world we’re experiencing. Writing with humor is incredibly difficult, and even more so when we think that everything around us, everything, is despondent and pessimistic. I loved the story, I loved being able to laugh, I loved the fresh tone and the use of magic, so necessary, so illuminating. I felt like a child again, what a delight.
María Fernanda Ampuero

“Mrs. Mabli and the Weather Committee” is quirky and surreal and relatable, and to propose such a setting with humor, both subtle and grand, shows the skillful mastery of language and plot. This was a much needed pleasant story, escaping into another realm with peace and laughter.
Shome Dasgupta

Eleven years ago, life threw Sharon Hier an unexpected plot twist, a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis that led to early retirement at 44. Since then, she’s completed a Creative Writing degree with The Open University and joined an online writing group funded by MS Cymru, where they happily discuss and critique story arcs and the rhythm of a good sentence. Sharon lives in Swansea, Wales, a place full of sea-salted inspiration, craggy coastlines, and woodland walks, often shared with her three daughters. When her health allows, you’ll find her horse-riding across the Gower’s breathtaking scenery, dreaming up characters and sometimes getting lost on purpose. Her husband has learned to expect detours and dramatic monologues about fictional people.

The 2025 short-list

We are thrilled to announce our short list for the winter Oxford Flash Fiction Prize 2025.

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

… But Why Now?
A Poster of Three Cats
A Sheer Drop of Three Thousand Feet
Beneath the Judas Hill
Diva
Double Take
Dugout
First Date Tilt-a-Whirl
Flesh + Bone
Flowers
For all the years I didn’t notice, something plinked in response
Full Circle, Perfect Square
Golden Ticket
Grooves
Love Island
Magnetic porridge
Mrs Mabli and the Weather Committee
Mumsnet 1537
No Obits
Prodigal of the teardrop isle
Rotting Water
The Disappeared
The Quiet Migration
The river he wise
The Skin We Borrow
There Will Be Time
To the Poo-Poo Man Who Made My Tiger Costume
Unbirthday
Valedictorian
Wet Brain
Worker’s Anthem

We will be in touch with the authors of each over the next few days and we will be announcing our finalists and winners in a few weeks. So watch this space!

Our next competition will be opening on the 1 June 2026. So if you don’t find yourself on this list, we hope you’ll try again in our next competition and keep crafting.

The 2025 long-list

We are thrilled to announce our long list for the winter Oxford Flash Fiction Prize 2025.

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 genres, topics and stories from all over the world, and it was hugely competitive. Many wonderful stories just missed the final list and for those we have permission to email – we will be letting you know!

If your story is listed, please do not identify which story belongs to you, as the judges are hard at work making their decisions.

LONG LISTED STORIES

… But Why Now?
A day in the life, Lydia
A Poster of Three Cats
A Sheer Drop of Three Thousand Feet
Beneath the Judas Hill
Diva
Double Take
Dugout
First Date Tilt-a-Whirl
Flesh + Bone
Flowers
For all the years I didn’t notice, something plinked in response
Full Circle, Perfect Square
Golden Ticket
Grooves
Houses that talk
Love Island
Lumberman, Woodsman
Magnetic porridge
Mrs Mabli and the Weather Committee
Mumsnet 1537
No Obits
None of us have anything to hide
Prodigal of the teardrop isle
Protest
Rotting Water
Saltraire
Teeth
The Disappeared
The old man
The Quiet Migration
The Reckoning
The river he wise
The Skin We Borrow
The Watchers
There Will Be Time
To the Poo-Poo Man Who Made My Tiger Costume
Unbirthday
Valedictorian
Wet Brain
Windows
Worker’s Anthem

In the next few weeks, we will be announcing our shortlist, who will be awarded publication in our next anthology.

So watch this space!

Our next competition will be opening on the 1 June 2026. So if you don’t find yourself on this list, we hope you’ll try again in our next competition and keep crafting.

First Place: Hold by Andrew Lang

I remember you running faster than the other mums on sports day, I remember you saying, I’m not like the others I’m way out weird, I remember you saying, dry it up and put it away, never leave anything by the sink, I remember you singing on your guitar, oh the buzzing of the bees in the cigarette trees, I remember you saying, oh to be normal, anything to be normal, I remember thinking you’d go on forever.

I remember you saying I want you to have the things I never had, I remember you saying, go out with as many girls as you can, you learn something from everyone, I remember you shouted, But not that one, no, break up with her, now! I remember you loved the title of the book, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? I remember you saying, these are the best days of my life, but I’ve found them so late, I remember you singing, freight train, freight train moving so fast.

I remember you sitting on your stool by the Aga with your dog on your knees, I remember your gentle hands when you touched animals, I remember your gentle hands on the back of Dad’s neck when he was low, I remember you saying you’d lie awake at night thinking of all the stupid things you’d said, I remember you shouting, Oh my goodness if you could only hear yourself! I remember feeling angry when they looked down on you, I remember your loneliness, I remember you asleep in the afternoons with your glasses on and a book on your knees, Egyptian PE you called it, I remember when I said, you should get that cough looked at.

I remember reading in a Stuart Dybeck story, It was the first time I’d ever had the feeling of missing someone I was still with, I remember you drafting letters, the crossing out, the rewriting, the crossing out again, and then the final version, I remember you whispering, he’ll fall apart when it happens and looking at Dad, I remember reading to you as you slept: a book called The Great Circle, I remember you saying, my life began the day you were born.

I remember I smashed a plate against the wall. I remember I tried to sleep in your bed but I felt afraid. I remember defrosting your beef stew. I remember your half-moon glasses all around the house. I remember your empty shoes. I remember forgetting the date it happened, was it the ninth, or was it the eleventh? I remember thinking, but how could I forget? And if I can forget that, then what else?

“Hold” is relentless in all the best ways. The story’s urgent heartbeat/drumbeat refrain conjures memories with equal measures of intensity and tenderness. The mess, mirth, and miracles of mother’s life through her child’s eyes are encapsulated beautifully and assuredly.
Deesha Philyaw

“I remember” repeats like a prayer, imbuing a tenderness to the palpable grief of a mother’s death and the knowing that holding onto memory’s vividness is a losing battle. This is flash fiction at its best—every word counts and combined, this piece penetrates the heart.
Avi Ben-Zeev

Andrew Lang is a writer and filmmaker who lives in London. His debut film, Sons of Cuba, won Best Documentary at the Rome International Film Festival and Best Newcomer at the British Documentary Association Awards. He has written several screenplays, which various production companies are developing. He is new to the joys of flash fiction, and Hold is his debut publication.

Gambar oleh Rinnie Deer dari Pixabay

Second Place: The Worst-Case Scenario by Emily Rinkema

At the end of the first week at my new job, Tina from Sales makes me go to a lunchtime baby shower with her. I can’t think of many things that could be worse–maybe a pap smear, maybe a water park, maybe a plane crash–but she tells me I have to go, that it’ll make a good impression.

There are about twenty women in the conference room, which is decorated with blue streamers and blue balloons. Some are seated already, a semi-circle with the mom-to-be in a rocking chair at the front, but most are at the potluck table.

We get in line behind Carla from Communications, who is filling her plate with desserts.

‘She’s just glowing,’ Tina says to me, looking at the expectant mother, who I think works in Finance. ‘I just love babies,’ she says, and I scoop something from the bowl in front of me onto my plate. The table is covered in all things boy: trucks, trains, cars, baseballs, airplanes. ‘Look how happy she is,’ she says, and tucks her chin to her shoulder like she’s cuddling herself.

I’m not sure she’s glowing, but she does seem happy to be having a baby.

We only have 30 minutes for lunch, so a woman with curly hair who I think works in Marketing tells us all to have a seat and says we’re going to play a game called Funny Story. She goes over the rules: the mom-to-be will pull a name out of a bonnet, and the person whose name is pulled has to tell a quick funny story about being a mom, or, she says, if she isn’t a mother, then she should tell a funny story about her own mother, or, she says, laughing, if she isn’t a mother and doesn’t have a mother, then she can tell any funny story that has a mother in it. At the end, the mother-to-be will choose the funniest story.

I’m relieved no one knows me yet, that my name won’t have made it into the bonnet because I never RSVP’d. I’m probably the only one in the room who is not a mother, who doesn’t have a mother, who doesn’t want to be a mother, who is the Marketing woman’s worst-case scenario. I start to eat.

But the pregnant one, the one with the t-shirt that says BABY with an arrow pointing down, says my name. I look up, mouth full of broccoli salad. Everyone is staring at me. Tina winks.

I’ve never been good with people. I work in IT. But Tina smiles at me expectantly and I panic and start talking, telling the first story about mothers I can think of. I tell the room that when I was ten, my mother, who would die in childbirth a few years later, told me her family always knew when my grandmother was pregnant again because they would find her sitting at the top of the stairs, crying.

The Marketing woman puts her hand to her mouth.

I remember that it’s supposed to be a funny story, so I quickly clarify that she cried because she had fifteen children. ‘Fifteen,’ I repeat with a laugh. Everyone has stopped eating and I just keep going because they are all staring at me and there’s more to the story, so I tell them that after the 15th baby was born, before she was even crawling, they were honored for being good Catholics and flew to meet the Pope, and on the way back, just hours after being blessed, their plane crashed and everyone died. ‘Not the baby,’ I add quickly, because this is a baby shower, and I don’t want them to think I would tell a story where a baby died. ‘Just the parents. All fifteen kids stayed home,’ I say, and I realize that I should have said that part earlier.

Tina looks at her plate.

‘Here’s the funny part,’ I say, because that’s the point of the game, and though I may not be an extravert, I have seven siblings and equate competition with survival. As the timer goes off, I tell them, speaking quickly now so I don’t get disqualified, that nine of the fifteen kids became priests and nuns. I’m laughing now, because, come on, that’s funny, right? Not funny haha, but funny unexpected, funny fucking absurd.

The pregnant mother puts her right hand on her belly. She might be crying, but I look away before I can tell for sure.

The real funny thing, the thing I don’t say because my time is up, is that the baby, the 15th one, the one who wasn’t yet crawling when her parents crashed into the ocean, told me once–as we sat together at the top of the stairs on the morning of my tenth birthday–that she wished her mother had said, ‘Not without the baby,’ when she was invited to meet the Pope. Then she would have been just a beautiful photograph on the wall, a memory of a baby that, if not for tragedy, could have grown up to be anything, maybe a writer, maybe a doctor, maybe the owner of a bakery that made only pies. But instead, she told me, and she laughed, even though she was crying, she grew up to be a mother.

“Worst-Case Scenario” made me cringe, howl with laughter, and nod with knowing. This is clever social commentary on motherhood wrapped up in a hilarious bow.
Deesha Philyaw

An irreverent take on motherhood that raises poignant and heretical questions: does becoming a mother mean sacrificing one’s dreams? To poke at motherhood while being laugh-out-loud funny? Now, that’s a rare feat!
Avi Ben-Zeev

Emily Rinkema lives and writes in northern Vermont, USA. Her writing has appeared in The Sun Magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly, and X-R-A-Y Lit, and she has stories in the Best American Nonrequired Reading, Bath Flash, and Oxford Flash anthologies. You can read her work on her website (emilyrinkema.wixsite.com/my-site) or follow her on X or IG (@emilyrinkema).

Business Stock photos by Vecteezy

Third Place: More Sky Than Anywhere by Chris Cottom

By the morning, the storm has blown itself out but left the village with no electricity. We wrap up and stroll down the hill to the ramshackle barn where, in faded black paint, a sign proclaims ‘Veg in Shed’. I point out the cluster of nests under the eaves and you tell me to expect the swallows back in April, that they’ll fly six thousand miles from Africa, but not in a straight line.

On an old door laid across some crates are a bunch of carrots with the green bits tied in red baling twine, a rubble of muddy potatoes, and an untrimmed Savoy cabbage on which a brace of slugs are copulating. There’s a battered Quality Street tin for the money and an enamelled set of scales pocked with scabs of rust, with a platform for the weights, but no actual weights.

Back in the cottage, we peel and chop and you tell me about teaching sewing skills at an orphanage in Tamil Nadu, a day’s drive from Chennai; your elder twin sisters, both married with kids; your plans for a working holiday in Australia. I tell you it’s been a lifesaver, coming up here every weekend, building a log store, going to hotpot suppers in the village hall. I tell you what they say here, that Suffolk has more sky than anywhere.

We put the pan on the woodburning stove and head out again, along the back lane they call the Road to Nowhere, until it becomes a track, then narrows to a path. When this peters out, we climb a stile to skirt a ploughed field up to the wood, where it’s alternately mud-slippy or loamy with leaf mould. You chatter about grumpy goblins, elves dancing with nymphs, dairymaids cavorting with their swains beneath the gnarly oaks. Avoiding snares of barbed briars, we emerge at the far side where, across the sodden fields towards Lavenham, black clouds are menacing the pewter sky.

By the time we get back to the track, it’s a stream. Before we reach the tiny village green, our boots are squelchy sponges. Ditching our sopping clothes in the kitchen, we try to rub one another warm under a tepid shower before snuggling in front of the stove, your soft ginger hair turbaned in a towel.

It’s dark by half-past four and we light my emergency candles. When you say it’s like a church and perhaps we should pray, I’m not sure you’re joking. We squint at last week’s ‘Observer’ before feasting on our hearty soup, relishing its heat and congratulating ourselves on being so resourceful. After thrashing me twice at Scrabble, you place the sofa cushions neatly in front of the hearth and unbutton your dress.

In the morning, the electricity is back on and we walk in the other direction, across the empty fields and along through the meadows to Chelsworth. We stand on the bridge, watching the swollen river surging through, and you explain that swallows stop over in reed beds to sleep while they’re migrating, up to a million in the same place, like an enormous bird motel.

Later, you’re quiet after I lock up and we head south through Halstead and Braintree. Before we reach the motorway, you’ve fallen asleep. As we stop-start through the London traffic, you jerk awake and navigate me to Forest Gate, where you ask me to drop you at the corner, rather than drive down your road. When I ask you about next weekend, you say you’ll let me know, that things are a bit complicated. You hurry into the dark, your bag over your shoulder, and I wonder why swallows don’t travel in a straight line. As I drive away, I remember you saying that half of them return to the same nest.

This story is a dilation—the quiet intimacy of a couple’s secret romantic getaway. Without the need to know the narrator’s name or gender, I was right there with them, becoming attuned to the finest of details, my heart longing to nest.
Avi Ben-Zeev

With intricate prose and impeccable detail, “More Sky Than Anywhere” weaves a wistful tale of two lovers at a crossroads.
Deesha Philyaw

Chris Cottom lives near Macclesfield, UK. He’s packed Christmas hampers in a Harrods basement, sold airtime for Radio Luxembourg, and served a twelve-year stretch as an insurance copywriter. He liked the writing job best. @chris_cottom1 | chriscottom.wixsite.com/chriscottom

New Voice Award: The life cycle of frogs by Victoria Harris

5. Tadpoles

There they are: translucent blobs and tails like commas wriggling and squirming in the tank. Little mouth parts mowing away at the algae. Andie’s face is pressed up against the tank, big green eyes growing wide like forest pools as she watches. It’s the first time her parents have brought her to see my lab. They’re exhausted from the long flight but Andie just couldn’t wait.

Andie’s face twists in disgust. ‘Eew!’ she says.

No granddaughter of mine is going to be repulsed by tadpoles.

‘They’re not eew,’ I say, ‘Frogs are beautiful. A gardener’s best friend: they eat up all the slugs that destroy my vegetables.’

‘Why are there so many of them?’ she asks.

I settle myself down in a chair next to the sequencing machine and beckon Andie over. ‘It’s a hard life being a tadpole. Most of them would usually get eaten up. In the wild maybe one or two will ever get to be a frog. These ones are special: they’re endangered. You know what endangered means?’

Andie shakes her head.

‘It means that there’s not many left in the wild. Humans pollute or destroy their habitats or they die from parasites. That’s why we look after them here and try to make sure as many survive as possible.’

I frown as I notice the slight murkiness: I’ve told them before we need better filters.

18. Froglets

The summer weather is close and the froglets are starting to leave the pond. As Andie clutches that envelope apprehensively, I can still see that little girl, staring at the water with me.

‘Are you going to open that?’ I ask.

Her hands are shaking as she tears it open slowly and pulls out the letter. The tears start to well as she reads the words on the Cambridge letterheaded paper. I can tell without even looking at it what the outcome must be.

9. Hindlegs

It’s late spring and the tadpoles have the first signs of back legs emerging. Andie and I are sitting by the pond in the garden of my little country cottage. It’s nice to be back closer to my family, somewhere that’s not a long-haul flight away. A dragonfly larva has a tadpole in its clutches, which is writhing and squirming to break free but I can already tell its hopeless.

‘Aren’t you going to help it?’ Andie asks.

‘Nothing to be done,’ I reply.

The dragonfly nymph sucks out the tadpole’s insides and Andie’s eyes start to well up. One more tadpole that will never be a frog.

‘That’s nature, I’m afraid. Like I told you before, most of those will never become frogs, but the dragonfly needs to live too.’ I say.

54. Adulthood

It’s autumn now and the frogs will have already left the pond. The images from the ceremony on the screen dance in front of my eyes. My eyes are going, so I have to squint. The nurses have brought be extra pillows to prop me up, so I can see Andie on the screen and behind her a picture of my old friend.

‘Thank you all,’ screen Andie says. ‘I want first of all to thank my grandmother for instilling in me the passion for research. This specimen was bred in my grandmother’s lab where its genome was sequenced. Without that basis, I would never have been able to make the connection between these genetics and their application to human diseases.’

18. Froglets

It’s been two weeks and the froglets are starting to lose their tails. The ones that made it will be leaving soon. Andie turns another letter over in her hands.

‘I know it’s not Cambridge,’ I say, ‘But it’s an excellent University.’

Come late November, I’m on a train with Andie’s favourite chocolate cake for her birthday.

I arrive at her dorm, and as I gently knock, Andie opens the door. I can tell straight away that something is wrong. I sit down next to her on the bed, which is the only place in this small room.

‘Jen and I had a fight,’ she says, looking at her feet.

‘Your girlfriend Jen, right?’

Andie’s eyes go wide.

‘Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I’m not perceptive. No-one cries like that over just a good friend.’

She clutches her hands, refusing to meet my eyes.

‘She dumped me,’ she says.

‘You know what they say,’ I say. ‘You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your princess.’

She wipes her eyes and lets out a small laugh.

‘I thought you liked frogs, and you always said they were beautiful?’ she says.

‘You’re right,’ I concede, ‘Well, how about this? There’ll be a lot of tadpoles in your life but only some of them will get to be frogs. Don’t worry, someday you’ll find the frog that will be your princess.’

29. Losing tails

Andie looks stunning.

‘Here,’ I say, pinning the frog brooch to her dress. ‘Something old.’

‘Your favourite brooch. Thank you,’ she says.

‘It’s your brooch, now. Better not be late,’ I say. ‘Don’t want to leave Sophie waiting.’

5. Frog

My heart sinks as I take it in. The fungus has contaminated almost all the tanks. I told them the filters were not good enough. And yet, I know in my heart that this is my responsibility. How could I have messed up so badly?

We sterilise and treat everything, but I already know in my heart that for most of them it is too late. Only a handful of tadpoles make it. As the weeks pass, we lose more, until by the end of the season only one remains. Out of a clutch of 500, only one has actually gotten to be a frog. Maybe that will be enough.

A grandmother’s love for her granddaughter, Andie, is expressed through a connection to science, nature, and frogs. This piece jumps in time, as denoted by the numbered subtitles, each corresponding to Andie’s age. Starting at 5 and ending at 5, this author brilliantly centres nature’s awe at the core of the storytelling—its terrors and hopes.
Avi Ben-Zeev

Charming and dazzling in its simplicity, “The Life Cycle of Frogs” captures the complexities of two lives, a grandmother and her granddaughter, in surprising and compelling ways. Extended metaphor has never read so good!
Deesha Philyaw

Victoria is an Oxfordshire-based researcher with an interest in speculative fiction and science. They are particularly intrigued by the interplay between science and philosophy.

Oxford Prize: She writes herself a different life by Susan Wigmore

One in which her mother doesn’t die tragically giving birth even though it means sacrificing any likeness to Mary Shelley. One in which her father spends weekends at home (like other dads) instead of showing people Grand-Design houses he wants himself. One in which her older brother isn’t in his room all day listening to Dark Side of the Moon but takes her cycling on the bike she’s cleaning now, upturned on the drive, just as a red car motors up the cul-de-sac towards her house, the one right at the end with the navy front door as if the road leads here and only here and the car has come for her.

It stops. Engine idling. Time tick, ticking over.
And her narrative trajectory goes into freefall, spiralling wordlessly —

until grabbed by
a gravitational pull so strong she’s like a moon compelled to orbit an unknown planet.

Because this is where she gets in the car.
Because yes, she would like to go for a spin and the driver looks so hauntingly familiar, like a wayward maiden aunt she didn’t know she had, with a snake tail necklace, fringing on her jacket and two Diet Cokes up front. (Though they need something stronger, the woman says, now she’s old enough, if not quite legally, to make the world spin.)

If the girl had vocabulary enough, she’d say planetary gears in the car’s transmission keep it moving optimally, but the best she can manage is it floats. So they float to the Spar on the edge of town where the woman hands her a Take That tote; she’ll need it, though she won’t be shopping exactly. And while the woman talks rum with the shopkeeper, the girl takes chicken sandwiches and crisps and fat black grapes, mindless of a business owner’s need to balance the books.

They picnic by the reservoir in long, summer-scented grass beyond a danger sign. Arctic terns swoop over the water. Just passing through, says the woman with tanned feet so effortlessly bare. There’s Bacardi and Coke in paper cups and the lurch of the world. Splashes of sunshine through trees bright as revelations.

And there’s the time it takes the girl to unbuckle her sandals.

Because here is where she realises something of Mary Shelley might yet linger in the narrative of her life. So she swims, naked, slick-skinned, rising through rings on the water’s surface to take oxygen from the air, warmed by rum and the thrill of drinking it despite knowing, for now at least, the road leads home.

Other than the angle of the sun, nothing has changed in the cul-de-sac when the red car pulls up at the kerb. The bike is how she left it and she spins its front wheel like a game of chance at the fair, letting it whir to a stop before tossing her sandals in the bin. She knows without seeing the woman is watching, knows without hearing the car is floating away. And she walks back into her old life, the one in which no one has noticed her absence, bare feet on cool grass, cotton dress awry, the touch of a hand still warm on her arm.

Both a ghost story and a familial love story, “She Writes Herself a Different Life” perfectly captures the sweet, wild places grief may take us.
Deesha Philyaw

This queer awakening is a gem. A beguiling aunt lookalike stops by in a red car and offers a ride and a picnic. This quick detour from life’s routines results in a transformed internal life—a metamorphosis that does not require a witness.
Avi Ben-Zeev

Susan’s writing has been published, placed or listed by Reflex Fiction, Oxford Flash Fiction, the Fish Short Story Prize, Mslexia, Retreat West, the Cambridge Flash Fiction Prize and The Daily Telegraph Short Story Competition. She won inclusion in the first Fractured Lit Anthology, the Fish Flash Prize 2023 and the Globe Soup Short Memoir 2022. A flash non-fiction piece was shortlisted for the 2022 QuietManDave Prize. Her novella-in-flash was long-listed for the Bath Award 2024.

The 2024 summer short-list

We are thrilled to announce our short list for the summer Oxford Flash Fiction Prize 2024 in partnership with the Bodleian Libraries’ Kafka: Making of an Icon exhibition at the University of Oxford.

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

According to Wikipedia, Most Damselflies Emerge in Cool, Daytime Conditions
Amusement park dad
An unlikely awakening
Choose your animal
Corvids
Growing pains
Here is a slide
His bones
Hold
In bed with Tesla
Inheritance
It’s June in Kentucky, and Bob’s trucking through on I-65
Kitchen conversations
Light pressure
Lost and found in Clapham
More sky than anywhere
Nebulated
Northbound
She writes herself a different life
The experience machine
The Extemporal Haberdashery
The glory
The life cycle of frogs
The worst case scenario
Three cornered hat
Wanted: Pregnant woman seeks dunnock, parenting experience preferred
What storms may come
When the stork brought Eliza a rock instead of a baby

Those on the short list will be awarded publication in our next anthology and a workshop with The Flash Cabin.

We will be announcing the winners in a few week’s time, so watch this space!

Join us! Words of Wonder day and anthology launch – 26 October | 11-4pm

Join us for the anthology launch! On 26 October, the Bodleian Libraries will hold a day event in Oxford called Words of Wonder. During the day (time to be confirmed), we will be celebrating the launch of the anthology with readings, prizes and more. There will also be hands-on activities in this celebration of the wonder of words: experiment with words through collage, black-out poetry, and hanging lines of literature; have a blind date with a book; create and recreate stories with collaborative writing and narrative games; and take a tour of Kafka: Making of an Icon and print your own themed keepsake.

Let us know if you want to join us in person or online by registering your interest and we will keep you up-to-date and send you the invite link.

The 2024 summer long-list

We are thrilled to announce our long list for the summer Oxford Flash Fiction Prize 2024 in partnership with the Bodleian Libraries’ Kafka: Making of an Icon exhibition at the University of Oxford.

If your story is listed, please do not identify which story belongs to you, as the judges are hard at work making their decisions. We will be in touch with those on the list.

LONG LISTED STORIES

A face like no other
A house we can both live in
According to Wikipedia, Most Damselflies Emerge in Cool, Daytime Conditions
Amusement park dad
An unlikely awakening
Besieged bodies
Cafe terrace at night
Choose your animal
Corvids
Cuckoos
Drunk, he falls backward into the flow of time
Ever westward
Growing pains
Here is a slide
His bones
Hold
Home is where the heart used to be
In bed with Tesla
Inheritance
It’s June in Kentucky, and Bob’s trucking through on I-65
Kitchen conversations
Light pressure
Lost and found in Clapham
More sky than anywhere
Nebulated
Northbound
One hundred days of the Irishman
Picasso was a dick
Scatter Plot of Loss
She writes herself a different life
The experience machine
The Extemporal Haberdashery
The glory
The indignity of old wright
The life cycle of frogs
The puppy
The tube transforms
The worst case scenario
Three cornered hat
Wanted: Pregnant woman seeks dunnock, parenting experience preferred
What storms may come
When the stork brought Eliza a rock instead of a baby
Whispers of the Vaal
Willie

In the next few weeks, we will be announcing our shortlist, who will be awarded publication in our next anthology and a workshop with The Flash Cabin.

So watch this space!

Our next competition will be opening on the 1 June 2025. So if you don’t find yourself on this list, we hope you’ll try again in our next competition and keep crafting.

Words of Wonder day and anthology launch – 26 October | 11-4pm

Join us for the anthology launch! On 26 October, the Bodleian Libraries will hold a day event in Oxford called Words of Wonder. During the day, we will be celebrating the launch of the anthology with readings, prizes and more. There will also be hands-on activities in this celebration of the wonder of words: experiment with words through collage, black-out poetry, and hanging lines of literature; have a blind date with a book; create and recreate stories with collaborative writing and narrative games; and take a tour of Kafka: Making of an Icon and print your own themed keepsake.

Let us know if you want to join us in person or online by registering your interest and we will keep you up-to-date and send you the invite link.