National Flash Fiction Day 2015 competition opens today!

The annual National Flash Fiction Day writing competition, which features stories up to 300 words, opens today, February 1. Submissions period runs February 1 – April 30.

Judges of the 2015 competition are Owen Marshall and Fiona Kidman. Competition guidelines can be found at the NFFD website.

Last year’s competition saw 300 entries and a high quality of prose – both traditional and experimental. Readers can read last year’s winning stories by Sarah Dunn of Nelson, Patricia Hanifin of Auckland and Sue Kingham of Christchurch, along with the other highly commended and short-listed stories, here.

22 June 2015

June events will be posted on the website in the coming months.

If you or your organisation would like to host a NFFD event, get in touch and let us know.

nationalflash [at] gmail [dot] com // National Flash Fiction Day NZ

What is flash?

Short on words but long on depth, flash fiction stings like good poetry. Punchy, succinct and surprising, the best flash stories shift the reader’s heart but they also keep it beating hard.

-Nuala Ní Chonchúir (Ireland), author of Mother America, Nude 

and The Closet of Savage Mementos

The short short story has a long, rich history, and many countries and writers share in its evolution. It has survived many social and technological changes, perhaps finding a renewed audience because of its almost adrenaline-inducing ability to capture, in its fragmented brevity, life and some essential truth.

–Tara L. Masih, author, editor (US), from The Rose Metal Press

Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, Introduction

The best stories [are] those where the reader [is] made immediately but implicitly aware that something else is going on here. These stories are artful, but so well crafted, so cleverly understated, that the reader becomes irresistibly engaged with the story.

-Graeme Lay, writer, editor and judge, 2012 NFFD competition

quote taken from  the introduction to  the third century

Flash fiction is a tray of frosted petite-fours, so tiny and delectably edible, far less caloric than its bigger siblings…

-Susan Tepper (US), author of From the Umberplatzen 

and The Merrill Diaries

Flash is fast, but it’s not fast food. It might have taken years to perfect, like a sauce that reduces to a rich, viscous demi-glace. Flash is whisky in a shot glass. Flash is an adult fly. Flash is this moment right now.

Christopher Allen (US/Germany), editor, flasher

and author of Teri S. O’Type: A Satire

More here.