Winners of the 4th annual FF150 competition

Audio First Prize
Ted Gooda – The day I chose the Wrong Ice Cream

Text First Prize
Kerri McCourt – Still Life

Audio Runner-up Prizes
Mark de Klerk – Turning Water into Blood
Mary Scott – Not a Devourer
Nina Nazir – When You’re Ambushed by Could-Have-Beens

Text Runner-up Prizes
Andrew Hallsall Smith – Jigsaw
Moray McGowan – The editor
Owen Townend – A Communal Kitchen Notice

Highly Commended
Text – Alan Mansell –  A Bloody Mary in PC World
Text – Denise Bayes – Four Letter Words
Text – Michael Luntley – Esther sewing

Commended
Geraldine Whitehouse –  The Walk
Heather Walker  –  Silent Speaking
Helen Price –  Deja Vie
Howard Moon –  Special Desert
Jo Riglar –  The Weight We Carry
Joanna Miller –  The Slipper Maker | Journeys
Kerri McCourt –  Hunger | Amanda Jane
Nina Nazir – Let Me Sleep on it
Sally Mayo –  Everyday Fruitcake
Sue Gerrard –  Feeding the Birds

Details of the 2026 competition

2026 anthology authors in alphabetical order

Alan Mansell, Andrew Halsall Smith, Denise Bayes, Geraldine Whitehouse, Heather Walker, Helen Price, Howard Moon, Jo Riglar, Joanna Miller, Kerri McCourt, Mark de Klerk, Mary Scott, Michael Luntley, Moray McGowan, Nina Nazir, Owen Townend, Sally Mayo, Sue Gerrard, Ted Gooda

All of the above writers have their text spoken

Alan Mansell

A Bloody Mary in PC World

Though decades ago, I remember that first sip. You’d placed it in my hand promising a world of new taste. Curious and uncertain, I laughed nervously. “Just plug it in. It’s as easy as your USB”, you said reassuringly. You called it a mouse. I thought you joked. They don’t last me too long, so I’ve had quite a few.

Today, I brought another home, unboxed it. I was puzzled, but a quick click or two revealed the culprit. It’s not just the farmer’s wife who can wield a carving knife. Like in centuries past we edit, copy and paste, and invent news to suit our own blind taste. We curse or point accusingly, define today’s heresies, with tailless mice we scribe and scroll yet more of hatred’s sad decrees.

Note: “Three Blind Mice”; its origin may be the burning of three bishops.

Alan Mansell is retired after a career mainly in Higher Education Finance and lives in Shropshire. He writes poetry and some flash fiction. In recent years a number of items have been listed/commended in competitions, and/or published in various anthologies and magazines including Steel Jackdaw, Wildfire Words and Artserve. In 2025 a poem won the Arundel Literary Festival Poetry Competition. His interests include conservation, music, history and following a notably unsuccessful local football team!

Owen Townend

A Communal Kitchen Notice

After months of asking you to clean your mugs and spoons and to wipe down the sink surface, I have an unfortunate update.

Because my polite requests have gone unheeded, I am no longer the washing up fairy. Your apathy transformed me into a kitchen redcap.

I realise that powrie’s traditionally stalk castle ruins but this particular fairy calls the space between tap and kettle its turf.

With that said, if I find any more abandoned teabags or cups full of black gunk, I shall pursue you with a pike. The cost of poor hygiene is a stab wound followed by a thorough stomping with my iron boots.

As for any subsequent clutter, I collect all blood on my hat as any self-respecting redcap should. Rest assured that I will always tidy up my messes.
So, on your next refreshment break, please rinse and tread carefully.

Owen Townend is a writer of speculative fiction and poetry inspired by thought experiment and wordplay. His work is published in anthologies from Oddity Prodigy, Ad Hoc Fiction, Bitter Leaf Books and numerous others. He lives in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England, UK. You can find him on Instagram – @owt441.

Helen Price

Deja Vie

voiced by Marilyn Timms

‘I think I’ve had another life.’

‘What, reincarnation?’ said Joe, placing two pints of bitter on the table. He smack-licked his fingers, pulled back his chair and sat.

‘Yeah, maybe,’ said Mike.

‘Why d’ya say that?’

‘Just now as I was sitting here, waiting for you, I had this really strong sense of living through it all before. Everything was identical, even that bloke over there scratching his nose, wearing the same jacket, a scraping chair and Madness singing Baggy Trousers on …’

‘That’s déjà vu!’

 ‘…and the rain pelting against the window and she behind the bar laughing in that kinda half laugh and…’

‘It’s always raining in this bloody country and Maggie’s always laughing!’

‘And you—you were trying to persuade me against my argument, against what I was trying to get across.’

‘You’ve drunk too much.’

 ‘Exactly. I did in my past life too.’

Helen Price is a Bristol-based Irish writer, who has written novels but her focus is on short stories, flash fiction and poems. Publication success is great when it comes and when it doesn’t she thinks, ‘that’s life’, a philosophy which drives her writing.

Michael Luntley

Esther sewing

She rests her threads, starts to sing.  Elizabeth adds the third, William the fifth below.  Isaac joins Esther.  They’re off.

Voices hold hands each with other.  Elizabeth’s climbs with tenor of brother.  William grounds the bass.  The hearth choir glows. Then,

‘No, no, no….,’ Esther pauses.  The rhythm off beat,  ‘Too slow, too slow’.  She breathes and then, ‘again,’ she says. 

They rehearse, join voices.  A practice hymn they’ll sing at chapel, but practice, practice, practice.  The eisteddford, just a week.  Work to be done, to thread a seamless embroidery of song that binds.  Again and again, Esther draws them in, marshalling, softly chiding,
‘Nooo, too quick, hold it longer’.

Always caring, smiling, hearing, waiting and holding still. They edge into line, the rhythm, pitch, tonality a sampler of music’s holy presence.

‘There’s fine,’ she’ll say. She looks at her children and picks up her sewing, ‘there’s fine.’

Michael Luntley is a retired academic – philosophy. He spent much of the last two decades telling stories in song, including the show ‘from this ground’ which details in song, poetry & narration C19 migration of English agricultural labourers to Brazil – a collaboration with poet Olga Dermott Bond. Since lockdown, he’s turned to poetry (handful published in local collections) and short fiction and has recently completed a novella – Pond Life – which he is now touting around agents.

Sally Mayo

voiced by Marilyn Timms

Everyday Fruitcake
(#2 in Easy Weeknight Recipes)

Ingredients

Equal measures of:
Stress
Resentment
Perceived injustice

Generous pinch of guilt

Three or four unreasonable demands, often repeated

Half cup of fear

Large handful of hurtful comments

Assorted anxieties, to decorate

Method

1. Mix the stress, resentment and perceived injustice together and allow to ferment slowly in your head.
2. Add the guilt, when night closes in.
3. Beat in the unreasonable demands, one by one. Make sure each is fully incorporated before adding the next.
4. As dawn approaches, gently fold in the fear.
5. Finally, stir in the hurtful comments, ensuring they are evenly distributed.
6. Bake for an hour or so under a dim nightlight.
7. Test to see if it holds firm, then dust with anxieties, as desired.
8. Avoid serving hot. For best results, set aside until cool and share with a trusted friend.

Sally Mayo lives in London. She has worked as an English teacher for the last few years and has always enjoyed writing to entertain herself and her pupils. More recently, she has attended creative writing classes and focussed on writing for adults.

Sue Gerrard

Feeding the Birds

Juliet always fed the birds at 9:00 am after meticulously preparing fresh bread, just small pieces in case her feathered friends choked on her baker’s best. It was part of her strict routine and Juliet had always been strict especially with her husband Harry, who had died last year.  It was then she started feeding the birds, her only living contact now. She felt that they could not do without her.

Today she was late and feared they might  fly away and never return. She grabbed the bread and rushing to where they were waiting,  slipped hitting her head on the merciless patio flags. Her life ebbed away.

The birds ate the bread from her hand, then continued to her hand and upwards; they would be well fed for the next few weeks. After which they would happily do without her, feeding themselves in another garden.

Sue Gerrard has had published 17 books ranging from poetry to Local History to a children’s book. She has appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester and many other festivals. She was awarded and took up the ‘Robert Lord Writing Residency’ in Dunedin, New Zealand in 218/19 based on her project ‘In Search of Richard Seddon.’ Further details are on her website: suegerrard.com

Denise Bayes

Four Letter Words

We knew that you had ninety Sanskrit words for the intricacies of love while my language had only one small way to express the same emotion.

We knew that hope was only four letters long but burst like a star between us, blocking out the obstacles of our families trying to break us apart, caught up in the differences between the clothes we wore, the food we ate, the cultures we had been immersed in.

But this morning, as you leaned low towards me, encircling me in a moment of union, we believed our cocoon of love could protect us from the opinions of the world, keep us wrapped close.

Because we knew that hate had only four letters too.

Together we floated through the golden air, our feet levitating above the ground as you bent to kiss me in a flutter of ruby red rose petals.

Denise Bayes has enjoyed writing since she was a child. Her work has been recently published in Free Flash Fiction, Thin Skin, Temple in a City, Does it Have Pockets, Underbelly Press, Flash the Court, The Orange Rose and Belladonna’s Garden. Denise grew up in Sunderland but has lived in Italy, Robin Hood’s Bay and Spain. She currently teaches six-year-olds in Barcelona where she lives with her husband and a lively Cavalier Spaniel called Rory.

Andrew Halsall Smith

Jigsaw

Boy, how she loved him to bits. Despite. Because. A broken son needed his Mam; only she could thwart this heinous world. She wove her pledge into nightly stories, of monsters and sirens. They shared an oath, whispered, galvanised by time.

In that safe house, only non-competitive games were played. As infant, wooden blocks: high-rise walls, collapsing, rebuilt. As toddler, jigsaws: misplaced pieces, incompleteness. Later, hide-and-seek in lockers: she the rescuer, he always eventually betrayed by his breathlessness.

 Years passed. Baby teeth in boxes, getting ever larger. Down-eyed school runs, his purple fingers threaded into her tight grasp, scuttling obediently. Solo playtimes.

 There were rumours, concerns, warnings. He whispered. Nobody heard. More pieces got broken, lost.

 In the end, the sirens did come. They put him in a box. (And her a cage.) But then, he was always her little Jigsaw Boy. (And she’d loved him to bits.)

Andrew Halsall Smith lives in northeast England, is happily married (with 2 twenty-something kids and family dog), works in tech whilst fantasising about faraway retirement. 
He rediscovered his younger self’s love of writing through creating bedtime story adventures for his children. Private scribbling led to joining local writers groups. Confidence grew. Andrew concentrates on short or micro fictions, never novels. (Too many disparate ideas, why waste them?) 

Mary Scott

Not a Devourer

Monday: In a charity shop Judith found a thriller with a picture of a bloodied jewelled dagger on the cover.

Tuesday: The short story collection, ordered last week online, was left in the rain on Judith’s doorstep; luckily it was easily dried.

Wednesday: Judith supported her local bookshop and brought a bookmark plus a steamy romance.

Thursday: The red telephone box community book-swap beckoned, and Judith took home an obsolete accountancy textbook.

Friday: The library was selling some old books for a small donation and Judith couldn’t resist the encyclopaedia of gems.

Saturday: After listening to a book review podcast Judith ordered three more books online.

Sunday: The plumber working off-the-book, squeezed past the piles and remarked, ‘You’re a bookworm.’

Unblinking, Judith flexed a talon, flicked flat a scale, flounced her wings, and through smoke and fire breathed, ‘I hoard books, I don’t eat them.’

Mary Scott lives in Somerset with her husband and a garden full of squirrels. She writes flash fiction and short stories, and her varied background includes computer programming, accountancy and school business leadership. In 2026 her work was shortlisted or longlisted in several competitions including: Free Flash Fiction, the Brick Lane Bookshop Prize, Writing Magazine’s Crime Short Story competition, and the WriteTime Short Story Competition. In addition, her work was chosen for publication in the Parracombe Prize 2026 Anthology.

Heather Walker

Silent speaking

Of course I was suspicious. He was home late; work, my love, it never stops. His hands flew, exaggerating their meaning.

There were tell-tale signs like perfume on his jacket. Who had laid a head there? Receipts in his pocket – business lunches, he signed when I waved them in front of him.
That night he tossed and turned in bed, and that’s when I got her name and a few other things.

The next day, I packed his stuff into black sacks and left them in the hall. You might not know this, but deaf people use sign language in their sleep. So, when he arrived home signing his usual, hi, love, I gave him back a sign of my own. One that is universal. You don’t need to know sign language to know that one!

Heather Walker writes short fiction and poetry. Her work has appeared in various publications, including Ink Sweat & Tears, Popshot, Banshee Press and Underbelly. She has also published a collection of flash stories and a Christmas novel entitled Tinsel Street. Heather lives in London and is a member of Sutton Writers. Occasionally she can be found at open mic sessions. Currently, she is editing a novella.

Howard Moon

Special Desert

voiced by Marilyn Timms

Sitting at the counter of a retro style dining car shaped eatery. Filled with ambiance and customers. Heavy white coffee mugs, sugar in glass containers that pour, no blue or pink packets of whatever that stuff is.

Cream or milk in pitchers made of stainless with lids that flip up. What the hell is non-dairy creamer?

Fly ribbon hanging from the ceiling, filled with hapless victims, not sure if it adds or subtracts from the classic ambiance. But is definitely a symbol from days forgotten.

Head cook comes out from the kitchen wearing tall white hat and full body apron that is devoid of any clean or white spots. Looking pleased with himself, he pulls down the fly ribbon.

As he heads back to the kitchen, he announces, “Desert will be ready in ten minutes.”
My eye catches the sign on the counter – “Today’s desert special – Shoofly Pie.”

Howard Moon is a writer and poet. His writing and poetry have appeared in multiple collections and anthologies, Small Change, Montana Mouthful, Of Poets and Poetry, Native Skin, Breath and Shadow, Ariel Chart, Steel Jackdaw and more. He has won national, local and regional awards for writing.
Howard began writing poetry in 2012 after suffering a brain injury. He is of Native heritage – his grandfather was born on a Fox reservation. He is retired and lives in central Florida with his wife. 

Moray McGowan

The editor

The best view is from the gate where the losers will be dragged out. I watch the gladiators enter from the far side, bodies oiled, armour gleaming, watch them fight, foreseeing their doom in a misjudged thrust or parry. I begin to make my choices. I must, because once they fall I have only moments: it needs a cool head to weigh things up, in the heat and stench and howl of the crowd, to balance the fighting skills, the crowd-pulling power of a star gladiator, against the severity of a wound, the expense of nursing him back to fighting fitness. The crowd love watching me almost as much as the fights themselves. But the emperor’s jealous glare means sooner or later he will seize this decision for himself, force the crowd’s attention back to him, patron and paymaster of the bloody spectacle. My days are numbered too.

Moray McGowan, a Hiberno-Scottish silverback, wrapped chocolate, delivered mail, dug trenches, picked fruit and baked boiler insulation, taught for forty years at universities in Germany, the UK and Ireland, and now shuffles between the marshlands of Somerset and the jungles of Berlin.

Joanna Miller

Journeys

voiced by Marilyn Timms

Love wore an angry face that Saturday; blustered red and sweating—a crazy, running full pelt down White Swan Lane, past the Mucky Duck’s packed beer garden. Stopping at the main road, she fought to catch her breath just as the double-decker pulled up. Not too late. There he was at the stop, arm outstretched.

Safe behind smudged windows, we watched their scene play out: her anguish, clenched fists beating his bare chest, fish-mouth opening and closing like the climax in a silent movie. A mother crying, imploring her son, imploring us. And him shoeless, not meeting her eyes. A lost bear of a man, shaking his head while she pummelled him.

Then the doors hissed shut, and we set off again, relieved that no one would have to sit next to him, leaving them standing on the curb, as we continued on to different destinations.

The Slipper Maker of Shieldfield

voiced by Marilyn Timms

Abba met me at the school gates.

“How was it?” He took my hand.

I didn’t answer, not wanting to disappoint.

“Today we take this path home,” he said.

Leading me the long way, under Newcastle’s burning skies, he wove his stories about the port city where he’d been born and met Ima. The terrible sea journey they’d endured in the coal ship.

When we reached the house, I said the teacher had read us a fairytale, about a girl called Cinderella. “She cleaned fireplaces. Until she became a princess.”

“Why so serious then, my little Lena?” he teased, twirling me round. “I am your fairy godfather. You will have the most exquisite slippers, more beautiful even than Cinderella’s.”

And I started to laugh, certain that Abba would always be my protector; that he could make anything and everything possible.

Joanna Miller lives in Derbyshire on the edge of the Peak District with her partner, three dogs and a cat. Her micro and flash stories have been listed in various competitions, including Edinburgh True Flash Fiction Award, Fish Flash Fiction Prize, Tadpole Press 100 and the London Independent Story Prize. She has been published by Bath Flash Fiction, Writing Magazine, the Scottish Arts Trust, Free Flash Fiction, Wildfire Words FF150 and WOW! Women on Writing..

Geraldine Whitehouse

The Walk

Would a serial killer shop in Waitrose?

The green bag, all he has on him as, dogless, he moves through the woods towards me.

Closer, I see the leaf green lettering “Eat, sleep, re-use, repeat.”

A bag for life?

I hope so

Geraldine Whitehouse had 20 years working in Business Psychology which was an opportunity to study humanity up close and taught her much about human dynamics, thought processes and relationships.  All of this helps to inform her writing. Over recent years she has attended a variety of creative writing courses run by published authors. Geraldine’s works include poetry, short stories and flash fiction.  She was shortlisted for the Farnham Flash 500 competition 2026.  When not writing in English, she is speaking French and welcoming friends to their place in France.

Jo Riglar

The Weight We Carry

Penny delighted in sand falling like a waterfall through her fingers. She gasped when a shadow blocked her sunshine.

Her dad plucked her from her play, lifted her onto his shoulders. She cried out, voice cracking, hammering her fists against his neck.

‘Let me down!’ She knew what was coming.

Her father’s eyes were rigid, staring out to the horizon. Drowning in shock, the utter helplessness was as real as the Saturday the sea took his baby. He never unsaw that blue marbled skin.

Waves roared, seagulls wheeled and screeched overhead. Penny’s heart pounded. Her dread of this impact was raw.

He lifted her gently and threw her in the water.

Her small body disappeared and resurfaced in dirty foam. She thrashed wildly, mouth open wide, hands flailing, red dress ballooning.

There were tears in his ever-sad eyes.

‘Come on darling Penny,’ he said. ‘I need you to learn.’

Jo Riglar was born in Cork, Ireland and now lives in Surrey. She writes poetry, short stories and flash fiction and has had work published in Far and Wide, an anthology by Croydon Writers, in The First Time by Anansi Archive, and in the American publication Streetlight Magazine. She won the South Warwickshire Festival poetry competition in 2023 and the Friday Flash Fiction competition in 2024. Her work has been broadcast on local radio and performed at Farnham Literary Festival.

Mark de Klerk

Turning Water into Blood

Growing up, we were told that blood is thicker than water. I guess it was said to imply that one looks after one’s own before others. This always struck me as strange. How water was considered less than. Though without it, there is no blood. There is no life. Where in blood there is pressure. Sometimes between crimson tides. Sometimes between moons. And sometimes, every time. This thought stuck like an antibody as we watched again for a double line and again something was missing. So, I searched for the source of this proverb and discovered the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. Like the slow drip of liquid on limestone, this cut a canyon through my mind. Slicing through the ochre cliffs, a river flowed from the womb of another woman. The sky was blue. The air was still. We jumped.

Mark de Klerk lives in Cape Town with his wife and three adopted daughters. He has pieces published or forthcoming in Gyroscope Review, Scapegoat Review, Prosetrics, New Contrast, the Kudu Journal and LOL Comedy, amongst others. He has recently been long listed for poems in the 2026 Rialto Nature & Place Competition, the 2026 Propel Cambridge Poetry Prize and the 2025 Bedford International Writing Competition. He can be followed on rowdynest.substack.com.

Nina Nazir

When You’re Ambushed by Could-Have-Beens

You pause mid-write and glance up.  You realise this is a café for babies.  The noise level has risen since you first arrived.  At the neighbouring table, you notice the glow of mother, supportive friend and sister.  Cooing over their little miracle.  Listing all the ways to settle them when they cry. 

Do a little dance while you hold them, it helps.  Mother gets up to demonstrate.  Everyone laughs.  It’s a joyful moment.  You look on at the periphery wanting to write but momentarily enchanted by this matriarchal cocoon.

He’s just hungry.  Mother pulls down her vest and starts breastfeeding him.  You can smell the warm scent of milk and skin.  You almost wish…but then don’t, not really.  Motherhood was not meant for you.  You have only just learned to mother yourself.  Still, the view from the other side is green.  So green.

Let Me Sleep on it

She admired the grace of his milk-white hands as he stirred his coffee.  Her mind wandered.  Wondered what else they could do.  Then she remembered this was a business lunch and she didn’t wholly trust him.  Nor was she even sure she liked him.

“So,” she said, cutting through the silence. “Is it to your satisfaction?”  

He smiled.  A smile like the dazzle of headlights, which almost hid the shrewd look beneath.

“I need a moment,” he said.

She waited, suddenly aware the atmosphere had changed.  Everything became brighter, more intense.  Sounds, sharper.  A shaft of sunlight pierced through the café.  There was the click-clack of heels, a woman’s laugh.

Then he leaned forward, eyes cool and unblinking, and made his counter-offer.  Which was less business, more pleasure.  And it was her turn to mull it over.

Nina Nazir (she/her) is a British Pakistani poet, writer and fine artist based in Birmingham, UK.  She has been widely published online and in print, most recently with Ink Sweat & Tears and Anti-Heroin Chic, and she has work forthcoming with Unlost Journal.  You can usually find her surrounded by books, making art or writing in cafés.  You can also find her on Instagram: @nina.s.nazir or at her blog Sunra Rainz where she often shares poetry, art and book reviews.

Kerri McCourt

Amanda Jane

The dental office I switched to texts: ‘Amanda Jane, confirm your appointment: Monday, January 5, 9 am.’

Perhaps my first and middle names were entered as one by mistake in their system. I suppose I could fix that when I visit. Amanda suffices. Besides two nicknames—Manda Bear (husband) and Mandy (friends)—I go by just Amanda. Only my mother ever called me Amanda Jane.

A few years ago, Mom started repeating stories, questions, losing her way, even in familiar places. Now she needs help washing, dressing, gives only a vacant stare when I greet her. She no longer recognizes me or knows my name.

I shrug, confirm the appointment.

On Monday, when the receptionist greets me in person with ‘Hi, Amanda Jane,’ I don’t correct her; I simply smile, letting the moment satisfy a longing, her words wrapping me in surprising comfort, like a long-awaited hug.

Hunger

I step off the scale, my self-worth rising as the numbers drop, and blow-dry my hair while glancing at the family photo taped to my mirror, searching for myself — I’m the one in baggy jeans, but I’m lost in her hollow eyes — and nothing in the mirror feels real any more either. My reflection tricks me with its carnival fun house distortions.

Beneath loose sweatshirts and jeans, under my skin—somewhere within the blood-and-bone landscape—dreams lie, buried like fossils waiting to be uncovered. Adolescence reshapes this bleak terrain—creating new hills and blooming buds—even as red rivers cease to flow. Bones jut out, knobby knees knock together, leaving bruises.

The warmth of the blow-dryer washes over me, over my hair and my goosebumped, down-covered skin, and I hold on to as much of it as I can before it slips away.

Still Life

She’s an artist whose paintings depict a book resting on a table, a basket of pears, and sweet pea tendrils winding around a hidden gate. Still life. But early in her diagnosis, she said that if she forgot her family, she would shut the door on life. Now, when she holds a paintbrush, she wonders what it’s for. I wonder what she believes about life now.

Her laughter flows as if through an open gate, breezier than ever, charmingly childlike. She’s present; the here and now is all that is real. She doesn’t remember how to cook or the names of her children, but the way she touches the peony petals in her garden, marvelling at their exquisite softness and appreciating beauty in small, simple details, shows that the artist within her endures.

Is that enough? Is that still life?

Kerri McCourt‘s flash fiction won first prize in FFF Competition Thirty One and was shortlisted in FFF Competition Twenty Seven. Her bronze-medal-winning story was published in Blank Spaces Magazine in September 2024. She wrote for CBC First Person in April 2024, and her work has appeared in several other publications. She wrote a novel, Reflection, in 2002. She writes from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Ted Gooda

The day I chose the wrong ice-cream

A woman I don’t know offers me a lolly one too-hot day.
I look to my father for permission. 
A nod. 
I’m too small to see into the freezer but there are pictures on the side: Fabs, Orange Maids, Mr Men, Milkpops with cowskin wrappers, strawberry and vanilla.
And Cornettos.
I’ve never had one. I point, shyly, not knowing how much things cost. 
He shoots me a look. How can eyes hurt like fists? 
The penny drops as the old woman fumbles in her clip purse for more coins, insisting that I must have the ice-cream.
I protest, too late.

That was the day I discovered that Cornettos taste sour as cigarettes. That a wafer cone is choking dust. That you never tell what you really want. Desire is secret and shameful. You put the fist in your mouth and swallow that instead.

Ted Gooda is a poet, playwright and ghostwriter. Her debut pamphlet Silence & Selvedge was published in 2024 and Take the River Against the Tide followed in 2026. Her poetry explores memory and family, often with a touch of ‘domestic noir’. Her fourth play, a verse drama, Mannequim premiered at the Brighton Fringe Festival in 2025. She ghostwrites a Sunday Times top-10 bestselling series with Mirror Books, writing as Theresa McEvoy.
www.theresagooda.co.uk

Details of our 4th annual Flash Fiction competition, 2026

8 Cash prizes | 2 sections, with prizes for each
Audio: 1 prize of £150, 3 of £15
Text: 1 prize of £150, 3 of £15

Opened 1 March | Closed: 31 May 2026
Plus publication in FF150 Anthology 2026 for prizewinners & long-listed writers.

Click links for 2025 Anthology, 2024 Anthology

Wildfire’s 4th annual flash competition invited stories of up to 150 words on any topic. Writers chose their form — prose or poetry — in no more than 150 words (including title).

Every text entry was read as an anonymous file by triage judge Marilyn Timms, who formed a long list. The longlist entries were read, also anonymously, by Dr Katherine Parsons and Christine Griffin, winner of the audio prize in FF150-2025. Both will collaborate with Marilyn to select a shortlist and prize winners.

All audio entries were heard by triage judge Howard Timms and a longlist sent to the judges to choose a shortlist and prizewinners.

After the judges agreed a list of winning stories, the writers of listed and prizewinning stories was researched from the entry records. The successful authors were then emailed.

Any writer who wanted help making an audio entered and paid for the audio, asking for a free private online recording session on the entry form. They were offered an appointment time on the next available Saturday morning.

Entry fees were £3 per audio, £3 per text, or £5 for a story entered as audio and text at the same time, seeking a prize in either section. No individual story may win two prizes, but a writer can win twice, with a different prize-winning work in each section.

Rules

• The contest is open to writers from any country, except volunteers for Wildfire Words.
• All entries must be entirely the writer’s own, unpublished work. Any previous print or online publication, including self-publication, disqualifies a work from the competition.
• Entries must be in English. Translations are allowed, but only if the writer translated their own work into English.
• Submit as many entries you like. Each entry should be no more than 150 words, including its title, in Word, PDF, or plain text, and an entry fee must be paid for each.
• Entries may be made as text or as audio of the writer reading their own text. There are separate prizes for the text category and for the audio category.
• Each entry’s title should be at the top of the page, and its file name must be the same as its title.
• Do not put any identification on the work. Our website will match your entry title to your email address after the anonymous judging is complete.
• To maintain anonymous judging, Your entry must not be a work that could be recognized by the judges from workshops, mentoring, or public readings.
• Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but an entry must be withdrawn in the event of it winning a prize or publication elsewhere. Entry fees are not refundable once an entry has been received.
• Work will not be returned, so please keep a copy.
• We are unable to give feedback on individual entries or on the results of the competition — the judge’s decisions are final.
• Results will be emailed by mid June to all who entered.
• Entry fees are £3 per audio, £3 per text, or £5 for a story entered as audio and text on the same entry form. No individual story may win two prizes, but a writer can, with a different prize-winning work in each section.
• Entries must be paid for on the entry form, and your entry file uploaded, by the closing time of 11.59 pm on 31 May 2026. When you have completed the entry form, uploaded your entry, and pressed submit, you will be asked to pay the entry fee by credit or debit card or using your PayPal account. In case of any difficulty in entering text or audio, please contact us.