The 2025 Flash Fiction Festival anthology is the first in our second rainbow series. It’s packed with flash fictions largely inspired by the 2025 festival workshops and also includes prize winners from the Pokrass prize and the online festival competitions. A wide variety of short-short stories from international authors, showing all possibilities of the form.
Festival participants said:

“It was my maiden participation in the Flash Fiction Festival 2025 at Trinity College, Bristol. Had I not attended the Festival, I would have missed many momentous things—beaming faces, fresh flashes, ennobling exchanges with first-rate flash fiction writers, riveting readings, wit-winging workshops, and delectable dishes. Kudos to Jude Higgins and her team of volunteers for their invaluable service to the alluring art of Flash Fiction! For me, the Festival was not merely an event but a vibrant laboratory of creativity.”
– Paritosh Chandra Dugar, a Prize Winning Flash Fiction Writer from India

“It was my first year at the festival, and I didn’t know what to expect. What I found was people from everywhere, carrying their stories like small lanterns. Together, we made a brief, brilliant light – enough to see one another clearly, enough to see the work ahead. I carried that brightness home. For me, the festival lingers like a candle in the window, and I’m grateful to have found a light I can return to, year after year.”
– Rena Willis writing from Costa Rica

Paperback ISBN 978-1-915247-78-0; 133mm x 203mm; 138pp

£10.99 GBP

select your region:

USUKDEFRESITNLJPPLCASEAUIEBE

Over seventy short-short stories to marvel at, in this, the fifth anthology in the rainbow series from Flash Fiction Festivals, U.K. These stories are written by presenters and participants from around the world who came to the online flash fiction days and the flash fiction festival in-person weekend in 2022. Inventive, heart-warming, fun, tragic and thought-provoking, there’s so much to inspire in this latest anthology of festival flash fictions.

“It’s been a pleasure being involved with the weekend festivals since 2017. I’ve found it exciting and rewarding to help bring together so many writers and to watch connections and friendships being formed. I hope that the festival continues to flourish and inspire!”
~Diane Simmons, UK based writer and Flash Fiction Festival Co-Director 2018-2022

“The Flash Festival experience was life-affirming! The workshops, prompts, panels and readings have turbo-charged my flash flow and meeting all those friendly fellow flashers in the flesh was unforgettable (in a good way).”
~S. A. Greene, UK based writer.

“Jude Higgins and Diane Simmons have created a Mecca for the world of flash. It was an exciting treat for this relative newbie to mingle with leading exponents of the genre from both sides of the Atlantic. There was a rich buffet of terrific workshops – including on the novella in flash – and the chance to meet fellow flashers previously seen only online or in print. Sign me up for the next one!””
~David X. Lewis writer based in Ferney-Voltaire, France.

Paperback ISBN 978-1-915247-56-8; 133mm x 203mm; 126pp

£10.99 GBP

Over seventy short-short stories to marvel at, in this, the fifth anthology in the rainbow series from Flash Fiction Festivals, U.K. These stories are written by presenters and participants from around the world who came to the online flash fiction days and the flash fiction festival in-person weekend in 2022. Inventive, heart-warming, fun, tragic and thought-provoking, there’s so much to inspire in this latest anthology of festival flash fictions.

“It’s been a pleasure being involved with the weekend festivals since 2017. I’ve found it exciting and rewarding to help bring together so many writers and to watch connections and friendships being formed. I hope that the festival continues to flourish and inspire!”
~Diane Simmons, UK based writer and Flash Fiction Festival Co-Director 2018-2022

“The Flash Festival experience was life-affirming! The workshops, prompts, panels and readings have turbo-charged my flash flow and meeting all those friendly fellow flashers in the flesh was unforgettable (in a good way).”
~S. A. Greene, UK based writer.

“Jude Higgins and Diane Simmons have created a Mecca for the world of flash. It was an exciting treat for this relative newbie to mingle with leading exponents of the genre from both sides of the Atlantic. There was a rich buffet of terrific workshops – including on the novella in flash – and the chance to meet fellow flashers previously seen only online or in print. Sign me up for the next one!”
~David X. Lewis writer based in Ferney-Voltaire, France.

Paperback ISBN 978-1-915247-32-2; 133mm x 203mm; 120pp

£10.99 GBP

Eighty-five stories from presenters and participants from around the world, who came to the nine online Flash Fiction Festival days, from March 2021 to January 2022. Inside this fourth Flash Fiction Festival anthology, sponsored by Ad Hoc Fiction, you’ll find flash fictions that experiment with structure, cover many different subjects in surprising ways and show how much is possible in this very short form.

‘As someone whose flash fiction writing only really took off during the pandemic, it was such a gift to be able to meet up online for some amazing input from writers whose work I revere. I made new online friendships, many of which have persisted via Twitter and in other workshops since. I was amazed to find my work accepted for the anthology, and am now looking forward (all paid up) to meeting some people ‘IRL’, in July 2022 at the Bath Flash Fiction Festival.’
~ Bonnie Meekums, from the UK

‘The Flash Fiction Festival is about so much more than writing flash. I came to these online festivals as a relative newbie to the flash scene and found a welcoming community of flash writers of all levels of experience from beginners to master. The community welcomed everyone and throughout the course of the festival, we attended online workshops, participated in writing challenges, chatted with other writers and wrote a lot. Having an opportunity to submit pieces we wrote during the festival workshops to the anthology was an added bonus. More than that, the things I took from this festival have had long-lasting effects. I learned of submission opportunities that led to publishing, I met other writers who give workshops and through those, have extended my circle of writing friends and colleagues even further. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to have attended this event and I look forward to more.’
~ Finnian Burnett from Canada

‘I think the online flash fiction festival is a constant gem and a huge source of inspiration. Looking back at 2021, the festival days proved a consistent source of new pieces for me. All the ones I wrote for the writing challenges have found a lovely home since. I also loved the break-out rooms and the opportunity to meet other writers from around the world.’
~ Slawka G. Scarso from Italy

Paperback ISBN 978-1-915247-06-3; 133mm x 203mm; 132pp

£10.99 GBP

82 micro fictions from participants and presenters who came from around the world to the third Flash Fiction Festival UK which took place in Bristol, UK in June 2019. Dip in to discover short short stories – all 250 words or under – in different styles and on many different themes from the personal to the political.

“A festival of riches, the UK Flash Fiction Festival is for adventurous writers and readers. From memoir and travel writing to novellas and dream sequences, the sessions in the third UK Flash Fiction Festival engaged writers new or experienced in the form and encouraged outside-the-box writing. Participants polished their skills, learned new ones and discovered hot-off-the-press books. Flash at its very best – with the very best!”
~ Michelle Elvy, writer, tutor, editor and festival workshop presenter. Author of the everrumble.

“The 2019 Flash Fiction Festival was a revelation. Fabulous workshops, great company. Came home with my head popping with ideas. A great confidence booster!”
~ Anne Howkins, festival participant.

Paperback; ISBN 978-1-912095-87-2; 196mm x 134mm; 134pp

£9.99 GBP
Buy Now

Sixty micro fictions written by participants and presenters inspired by the second UK Flash Fiction Festival held in Bristol, July 2018. The stories here, by writers from several different countries, touch on world politics, relationships in all their forms, fantasy and historical themes. Short-short fictions that surprise and linger long.

“The Flash Fiction Festival 2018 was a wonderfully inclusive, supportive weekend for flash writers at all levels. Its workshops were well varied and inspirational, while the readings gave so much pleasure with the quality and range of the work. Not to be missed next year!”
—Carrie Etter, poet, flash fiction writer and Reader in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.

“The Flash Fiction Festival 2018, under the direction of Jude Higgins, is itself a collaborative work of art. It was a deep pleasure to be part of a world where everyone was open, engaged in each other’s writing, and made more adventurous by proximity to this community. We talked, we ate, we drank, we wrote. Then we wrote about what had just happened.”
—Laurie Stone, writer, critic and teacher.

“A great weekend. A lot of serious work done, but also a lot of fun. If you write, or want to write flash, book for next year as soon as booking opens!”
—Jenny Woodhouse, writer, U3A Group Leader.

Paperback; ISBN 978-1-912095-59-9; 196mm x 134mm; 126pp

£9.99 GBP
Buy Now

Seventy-four micro-fictions written by presenters and participants at the first ever literary festival entirely dedicated to flash fiction, held in Bath, June 2017. These short-short stories, 250 words or under, show the wide variety of styles possible in this emerging genre.

Most of the UK’s top flash fiction writers and teachers offered workshops and talks and readings at the Flash Fiction Festival: David Gaffney, Tania Hershman, Calum Kerr, David Swann, Vanessa Gebbie, Kit de Waal, Paul McVeigh, Peter Blair, Ashley Chantler, KM Elkes, Meg Pokrass, Jude Higgins, Christopher Fielden and Michael Loveday. Plus distinguished international guest and leading exponent of the form, Pamela Painter, from the United States.

“It was a wonderful assembly of authors and editors and ‘students’ – though the students already seemed like authors.”
—Pamela Painter

“You managed to create a relaxed yet focussed ambiance so that participants could let anxieties fall away, have fun writing and immersing themselves in craft and other skills, soaking up all the varied and sparkling influences that abounded.”
—Vanessa Gebbie

“…I had previously come across the genre, viewing it more or less exclusively as something light and whimsical but I had completely under estimated its potential and the discipline involved. It was these latter two aspects that intrigued me…”
—Patricia Wallace

“…comments and insights from the workshops showed me how the embryonic idea I started with could be developed and given depth.”
—Mary Bevan

Paperback; ISBN 978-1-912095-67-4; 196mm x 134mm; 112pp

£9.99 GBP
Buy Now