FFF Competition Thirty-Three Judge’s Report by Rosaleen Lynch
26th May 2026
It was the Saturday of the first bank holiday weekend of May, and I’d just finished a batch of marking, so I’d be free, when the Free Flash Fiction longlist arrived in my inbox—fifteen brilliant pieces chosen by Ian Rushton, giving my long weekend the perfect start.
Every single story on the longlist had something to be admired, and so much to engage the reader. There was such a great sense of place and motion in the pieces What Katie Did (on Thursday Afternoons), Cast Away and The Potato Pickers (after Sheila Fell), from swinging on a swing, to skidding down a sea-cliff goat track, to stumbling amongst the potato furrows. Nature, the universe, and the vulnerability of our minor roles as humans, is so powerful in pieces like Splintered and Some Structural Changes May Be Permanent and Leftovers with imagery that just devastated me. Character performances came alive in perfect tiny details and the ‘historical facts’ of Foundations of Me and Next They Ruled That Only Men Could Wear Buttons, whether in reality or speculatively, and in the deliciously unusual little play starring Dickinson and Bronte in Emily and Emily, Living in a Cave. The wordplay, world-building and confidence with which all the stories on the longlist, were written, was entrancing. I’m sure every one of the remaining longlist will soon find its forever home.
Choosing a shortlist of six was so difficult, from such an already great selection of writing. I went back and forth, thinking I’d be objective and be able to score them on this and that, but with each one already so accomplished and standing out in some way, I knew I couldn’t be fair. So I went for the six that said something to me that long weekend in May, that I wanted to hear. Some I loved for their cleverness, some for their themes or commentaries on the world, some I chose for the characters or something I could identify with. Any voice against guns and had hope was going to do well in the present climate.
Shortlisted Stories
Scatterbrain plays beautifully with neurodiversity, the to-and-fro, the ins and outs, and roundabouts of less ‘tidy minds’, that I and anyone who was ever called a scatterbrain might identify with. I love the luscious language and details and juxtaposition of the mundane, domestic and natural worlds, that build the characters, the child-parent relationship and the joy and fear, around those protective feelings you have for those precious people in your life. Saving them from the people who want it all just-so, these well-intentioned people, expressed so eloquently in ‘kindly, tidy minds’, a phrase that just sings on the page.
Life Needs a 3D Printer had me at the title and with its glorious mix of humour and darkness in its social commentary. It has a charm that has a content warning about it. As a toddler grandparent, I’m all about the dinosaurs. I love this bringing back of the extinct intertwined with the technology of modern times and modern insecurities, pushing change, redesigning our world, our relationships and ourselves, with sometimes unrealistic expectations and looksmaxxing and glow-up culture. The couple trying to be nice to each other is endearing and bittersweet. And then ‘her machine. Her rules’ feels like she’s playing God, and makes me think of what we do when get power. And the writer makes sure I can see it all, details like that hole in the sock and the Liam-figures, and that line, ‘A Liam who will come alive for her the way dinosaurs do for the kids who take them home’ comes alive in that same way for me. The end ‘Jaws to kill’ hits with a punch, and brings to mind all the plastic surgery and physical crunching of bones to get that ‘perfect’ jawline, that people go through—Imagine if it was as easy as using a 3D printer. A funny piece with a dark underbelly that kept me hooked to the end.
The Carriers of Light was just a beautiful homage to hope amongst the ‘gloom and gunmetal shadows’. In the darkness of grief and the history of guns, the simple imagery of the ‘jars of light’ like hope is so powerful. And the writer paints these lovely pictures in my head of how this hope is carried hidden or displayed proudly or how people ‘held their jars in protective arms’ and then the you-character who wears it like joy, becomes a beacon of hope, like a reminder of not to be afraid of losing the light, to enjoy it, act as if, and ’laugh at the darkness’ and let the hope carry you in dance not drag you into the dark. I love this for all the joy and hope. It is so far away from the victim-blaming culture of telling people to avoid bad things happening to them. I love to think of giving ourselves permission to just live our lives and dance when we like, without fear, being those ‘carriers of light’.
Highly Commended
Renovations is a brilliantly quirky take on letting down our walls. With so many stories with structures referred to in terms of, building and rebuilding ourselves and relationships, in the longlist, this one stands out for how the walls don’t change ‘dramatically-they simply become less certain of themselves each morning’ and wonder what they are containing. I love the main character’s conversation with the walls, empathising with them and ‘whispering affirmations to the foundations’ and practising ‘mindfulness exercises’ with the bathroom tiles, while the windows start to show yesterday’s weather and the ‘kitchen sink hums defunct radio frequencies’. It’s funny, clever and wistful and makes me think of how we can diminish as humans, and how life can’t be fixed with insurance or trying to be responsible and how we anthropomorphise to make the unfamiliar less threatening, or to understand or to connect more with the world and how we might ‘pay extra for buildings with personality’, though I have to say I do love a living wall.
Gravel has such a quiet intensity and deep emotion, and oh, to know, what is enough! I love how the narrator is talking about someone selling driveways—it seems slightly unreal, and then calling him ‘Resin Man’ carries such weight, like the hero of a movie. I love the settings of the precinct, and Birds and Supersavers. The relationship between Kathy and the narrator seems so real, people who really know each other, Kathy giving ‘one of her excuses’ saying so much. And then there’s this exquisite simile—‘His cheeks are pinched, white and pink like the viburnums shivering in the concrete flower beds.’ Then we hear how Kathy is wrong about the narrator fancying the Resin Man, that ‘it’s something different. Smaller.’ That word on its own is magnificent, as if the narrator is showing restraint, while also illustrating the magnitude, with a one-word sentence. When the narrator says, ‘I’ll fall asleep easily without the nightlight on because that would be enough,’ it killed me. Knowing what is enough and not wanting more. And the thought that the narrator should feel such fear and how another human could solve that, steady them, stop them like resin, from rolling away. What yearning!
The Winning Story
My Sister’s Second Word effortlessly explores the message around consent and does it with humour. It grabbed me from the title, playing on the baby’s-first-word meme. I loved the humour of the first word being ‘dada’ dismissed by Mom as ‘an extension of babble’. And the toddler ‘no’ was brought alive so well, and Mrs Shulman telling her ‘you stand your ground’, I loved. That other kids were wary, brought to mind stereotypes and how girls can be raised to behave nicely and be amenable and cooperative. I laughed at the addition of ‘don’t care’ and ‘why’ and the sibling narrator collaborating and giving her more ‘no’ vocabulary, and that juxtaposed with the mom’s ‘yes quests’ trying to train her, contain her, to get her to conform, and then Mrs Shulman’s sage counsel. This is followed by such a well-executed time-jump, from how the sister ‘treated time like dynamite; another fuse waiting to ignite’ to ‘when Danny Schulman tried to fold her into the space between his closet and his trophy shelf’ and how her ‘whole life was training for that fight’. That fight against being trapped in those circumstances, and to protect herself, in terms of her rights to consent and bodily autonomy, and agency. Yes, I know that fight, and however much we practice saying no, the Danny Schulmans of the world need to practice hearing ‘no’ more. A powerful piece that had me cheering, ‘Yes!’
Congratulations to you all!
Rosaleen Lynch