Flash Fiction Festivals UK

hosting the Flash Fiction Festival 2025
I began directing Flash Fiction Festivals UK in 2017 with a successful weekend event held in Bath. Since then, apart from the pandemic years I have organised the festival weekend every year in Bristol with the help of a great team. It’s the only literary festival devoted to flash fiction and was shortlisted in the Saboteur Awards for the Best Literary Festival in the UK in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2023.

The festival takes place In Trinity College Bristol in July from Friday afternoon until Sunday evening and participants, who come from all over the world, can attend seven flash fiction workshops during the weekend, from a choice of around thirty, held by well-known international flash fiction writers and teachers of the form. There are also flash fiction readings, the Pokrass prize a competition set in advance by reknowned writer Meg Pokrass with results at the festival, book launches, a book shop and a bar with karaoke entertainment plus plenty of room in the beautiful grounds for quiet chats. Participants can book rooms at Trinity College or nearby or camp in the grounds. All are welcome, those experienced in writing short-short fiction or new to the form. Check out the gallery at the 2025 festival weekend to get a flavour of the event. The banner here, from this year shows the range of activities and the next festival weekend will take place 17th-19th July 2026. Booking open early 2026.

During the pandemic, when it wasn’t possible to hold face-to-face events, I began running monthly online festival days called The Great Festival Flash Off, a fun take on The Great British Bakeoff, the popular reality TV show. The online days have same mixture of workshops and readings as the inperson event plus a mini competition with prizes and yoga for writers. These were very popular and I have continued running three a year since in the Autumn often with a repeat of workshops held at the face-to-face wekkend, Booking is now open for the 2025/26 online days which run from 11.00 am to 6.30 pm in October, November and January and they are only £35 a day. More details on flashfictionfestivals.com

Those who attend the festival can submit stories for the festival anthology. And winners of the writing challenges on the online day are also published. We have now published the first rainbow series of anthologies and are beginning the second series.