The final results of the 2021 National Flash Fiction Day Novella-in-Flash are in!
Our winner receives £300 in prize money and single-author publication. Second place receives £100, and £50 goes to third place. The winning novella-in-flash will be launched on National Flash Fiction Day 2022.
An enormous thank you to our judge, Sophie van Llewyn for reading our short-listed entries. You can read Sophie’s full report on our winners and more information about this year's winner below.
Congratulations to all our winners!
FIRST PRIZE
Sybilla – Joanna Campbell
SECOND PRIZE
Let the Demons Tiptoe – Jeanette Lowe
THIRD PRIZE
The Lives of Tita – Melissa Llanes Brownlee
Judge's Report
Sophie van Llewyn
I want to thank first Stephanie Carty and Jeanette Sheppard for all their hard work in reading the entries and selecting the longlist and shortlist. I was thrilled and surprised to see so many different approaches to the form. I’m always in awe how it keeps growing and changing. So without further ado, here are my top three favourites:
First Place -- Sybilla
A wall, a city divided, lives impacted in so many different ways. This novella-in-flash is a little gem. While the story focuses primarily on Felix, the owner of a bookshop that sells reconditioned books, and Lara, his employee, we also see how the wall impacts the lives of so many people. Underneath the seamless storytelling, I could truly see the rigorous editing – while the story moves forward at a great pace, everything is tight, and pulled together. Not a single secondary character is superfluous. And I do love a good love story!
Second place -- Let the Demons Tiptoe
This novella-in-flash charts the struggles of a family after one of their members dies. Beautifully written, I was swept off my feet by characterisation. The author draws three portraits of those left behind – sister, mother, and father. These people feel so alive in the different ways they cope with loss, and it’s so touching to see them moving together towards healing.
Third place -- The Lives of Tita
In this novella-in-flash set in Hawaii, I felt that the landscape was a character in itself. Lore and legend are woven in with beautiful writing. The child POV in some of the flashes is so candid, so well done. I found myself in lots of the elements – what child doesn’t love swinging on a swing, a relative’s game console, and isn’t afraid of monsters?
The winner of our first Novella-in-Flash Award is Joanna Campbell.
Joanna is a full-time writer from the Cotswolds. Her short stories have won first place in the Exeter Writers competition, the Bath Short Story Award Local Prize, the London Short Story Prize, the Magic Oxygen Literary Prize and the Retreat West Short Story Prize.
Joanna’s flash-fiction won second place in the 2017 Bridport Prize, for which her short stories have been shortlisted many times.
Her novella-in-flash, A Safer Way to Fall, was a runner-up in the inaugural Bath Flash Fiction Award and published in How To Make A Window Snake (Ad Hoc Fiction). Her short story collection, When Planets Slip Their Tracks was shortlisted for the Rubery International Book Award and longlisted for the Edge Hill University Prize.
Her novel, Instructions for the Working Day, will be published in August 2022 (Fairlight Books).