FFF Competition Thirty-Four Judge’s Report by Emma Phillips
23rd July 2026
Reading for this competition and selecting the winning entries is always a pleasure and a privilege, so huge thanks to Ian and his team for their diligence in compiling the long list. Congratulations to each of the fifteen writers chosen; I loved the range and quality of the pieces, and it was a tough decision to narrow the list to just six stories. I read and reread each flash before settling on the winners. It wasn’t easy; all fifteen pieces were carefully crafted. ‘The Man Who Haunted Himself to Death’ was moving, witty, lyrical and will no doubt find a good home soon and ‘Our Day Out’ immediately grabbed my attention and placed me in the mother’s world. ‘Honey Badgers’ was clever and funny with an unexpected ending. A different judge, on a different day, may have ordered these pieces otherwise, and I hope the writers of the stories that didn’t land in the final six are quick to get their work back out into the world.
I particularly loved the humour in the longlisted pieces. These are challenging times and flash is often the perfect stage for loss, pathos, sadness so it was wonderful to find so much risk taking and so many joyful quirks. I fell in love with flash for the versatility of the form and these writers have all succeeded in celebrating its possibilities.
The Shortlisted Stories:
‘Crusader Knights of Carshalton’ captured my imagination from its title, and this is a masterclass in distilling a much bigger story into the flash form. We are there, waiting for the Hillman from the outset, reading between the lines as ‘Mum shouts goodbye, doesn’t come out’. We wonder whether it will be an ‘Army Day’ or not, quietly aware of the marital battle that has played out and concluded prior to the action, but as readers, we exist in the moment with the two young brothers, preparing to navigate the outcomes of their parents' separation. The child narrator shows us adults as flawed, in the not-at-all chance meeting with their father’s new partner:
‘At the entrance to Polesden Lacey, a lady in a flowery dress smiles at us. What a surprise, says Dad. Boys, I’d like you to meet Marianne.’
Yet it is the children’s resilience and capacity for joy which carries through this story. Marianne is not painted as a wicked stepmother, but someone interested in them, and I enjoyed images such as ‘When Dad sends us to patrol the garden, we double back, belly-crawl through the shrubbery to spy on the two of them talking on the terrace.’ Although we get a sense of melancholy in lines like ‘Afterwards, she sits in front, sings along to The Beatles on Pick of the Pops like Mum used to before she got sad’, it is the boy’s youthful exuberance and the clever use of voice and dialogue that we remember. This story belongs to the children, and it is beautifully done.
‘Red Blue Green’ is a riot of colour, full of beautiful imagery as the narrative voice ponders some of the red flag moments leading to a break-up. The ‘What ifs’ are enhanced by carefully drawn scenarios:
‘What if I had to change my dental appointment and found you at home, in the kitchen with two cobalt coffee cups, and a rusty-lip cigarette in the bin.’
Repetition and the exploration of the primary colours of red and blue give this piece lovely structure and allow the reader to experience the heating and cooling of emotion as the details of a betrayal filter out. This is a great example of how to show and not tell in flash fiction. There is heartbreak, but it is subtle. I loved lines like ‘The faint jade scent of someone else, which dissipated as I walked through our space.’ The secondary colour, the green, is also filtered through the piece, and we are left with a resolution in ‘the spring meadow line …. drawn beneath you’ which offers hope.
‘He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Emotional Support Penguin’ is witty and absurd, but also poignant and clever. The unwanted gift ‘Like a weighted blanket, but more fun’ given by a concerned mother to her adult daughter is ridiculous but also believable:
‘She saw an advert in her Facebook feed, she says, and right away thought of me.’ We can imagine the elderly mother’s errant doom-scrolling; this is a brilliant piece of social commentary in a world where we are encouraged to turn to the internet for solutions to anything that irks us. This writer entertains us with one-liners that brilliantly portray the misunderstandings of this mother-daughter relationship. We learn that last year’s birthday gift was ‘a subscription to an upmarket dating site that promised a suitable match in six months or my money back.’ The narrator cashes in her refund for ‘a state-of-the-art air fryer big enough to cook an entire Christmas dinner for one,’ and states ‘Neither of us has ever mentioned it again.’ It’s a brilliant take on the strangeness that often runs through families.
Highly Commended
Both highly commended pieces are also original and funny. ‘Please Take One’ gripped me from the opening line ‘By ten past nine, Peter had come out of the printer instead of the quarterly figures’. The photo/memorial leaflet with an office complaints form accidentally printed on the rear is such a great idea, brilliantly executed throughout this piece. I loved the humour, the portrayals of the awkward co-workers who find copies of the leaflet and attempt to navigate the situation: ‘At eleven, a mug appeared by my keyboard. Tea, milk, no sugar. I drink coffee. I drank it anyway.’ and the contrast between the mourner's self-conscious actions in the church and the narrator’s telling recollections:
‘I stood at the back and looked at the stained-glass window I have never liked, the one Peter chose when we married here thirty-one years ago because he said the blue made everything look washed and new.’
Again, I loved the unexpectedness of this story, and its brilliant conclusion. Endings in short fiction are hard to get right; this author brings everything to a head in three words. Read it. Admire. Huge congratulations!
‘Pemberley Park Run’ is another example of fabulously funny flash. I was instantly smirking at the notion of Jane Austen’s heroines dropped into the modern age, limbering up alongside runners gathered to compete against themselves in the popular phenomenon that is Parkrun. There is added humour in the notion of these Regency women racing against the clock, with Elizabeth Darcy exclaiming ‘We were the only runners in Regency sun-bonnets, so naturally I went over.’ The dialogue is brilliant; Elizabeth quizzes Emma, ‘How’s married life treating you, post-novel?’ and raises questions over Mr Knightley’s conduct in her asides to the reader: ‘who was Knightley to stick his nose in and moralise? That “Badly done”? Massive red flag.’ I loved this for its originality, boldness and feminism, nodding at ‘the shadows that encircled her were deep and they were widespread, and they stretched for centuries.’ Utter brilliance in under 300 words.
The Winning Piece
The author of ‘Reel Lives 1972’ has written a beautifully layered story. We occupy a bygone age, cleverly evoked by the description of Bill in his booth, where he ‘cleans so guns can blaze.’ The repetition, the imagery, place us alongside him, a protagonist who follows convention, understands the technicalities of his work. We are aware of the tension in ‘With the soft hands his father hated’ and suggestions that Bill is not the director of his own life. The imagery and language choices sing of cinematography: ‘the ballet of whirrs and clicks, by the rat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat, as the film is drawn towards the gate.’
‘Alone, in his booth’, we realise that for Bill, films are both a burden and an escape. The focus on the Western allows us to consider the race, gender and sexual inequalities of the time; We, like Bill, root for the Indians to triumph over the cowboys. ‘We sense that change is coming through the imagery ‘As the sky bleeds pink, Bill is the last to hold them.’
This story is empowering, and it is hopeful; essential qualities for our own uncertain times. Read it, question set narratives, be like Bill Evans where we leave him in this piece. Congratulations to a very worthy winner.
Emma Phillips