Monthly Archives: March 2025

Debut Novel by Patrick Holloway, our 2023 BSSA winner, now published!

Patrick Holloway won first prize with his wonderful short story,’The Language of Remembering’ in our 2023 Award, judged by Farhana Shaikh. We’re very excited to announce that his debut novel, with the same title, was published at the end of last month by Epoque Press. and is available from their store, bookshops and from Amazon. The novel extends the story of the short story’s protagaonist, Oisin, and here’s a brief summary:

“The Language of Remembering is a novel that explores the ways memories can construe an identity and what it means to call a place a home. Brigid and Oisin embark on a journey of personal discovery, and as past traumas are exposed, they begin to understand what has shaped them and who they really are. The Language of Remembering asks how we connect to the people we love and how we move on from the past to find meaning in the present.” Continue reading →

Interview with BSSA Team Member, Jude Higgins

Jude is a well-known face in the short story and flash fiction world. In addition to being a prolific writer, she is a tutor, runs online Flash Fiction Festival Days three times a year, is the founder of Bath Flash Fiction Awards, directs the small press, Ad Hoc Fiction and also Flash Fiction Festivals UK, an in-person weekend event, now in its 7th year, which attracts writers from all over the world.

Her flash fiction has been published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies and The Chemist’s House, her debut chapbook of short fictions, was published by V Press in 2017. Last year Ad Hoc Fiction published Clearly Defined Clouds, her full flash fiction collection, also available from Amazon. It has been described as a ‘mastery of condensed fiction.’ She is also a founding member of Bath Short Story Award, which is where we’ll begin. Continue reading →

Finding a Title

Our 2025 Award closes on 31st March. In FOUR weeks. Maybe if you are entering, you are at the stage where you are thinking about a title. Maybe you began your short story with a title in mind? Maybe your story is still percolating before any words get down on paper?

How do you create a good title? So much has been written about this. Good ones stay with you for ever. I love Raymond Carver’s famous short story title, which is also the title of one of his collections,  “What we talk about when we talk about love.” Gordon Lish, his editor, retitled it  “I Am Going to Sit Down.” but thankfully,  it  was never published in that version.

There’s a fun thing I saw recently somewhere online, which suggested writing  bad versions of famous titles of novels and short stories. For example, ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ could be ‘The Fruits of Anger’. Worse, another Steinbeck novel. ‘Of Mice and Men’ could be translated into  ‘Of Rodents and Males.”What about this version of “Sons and Lovers” — ‘Offspring and Their Romantic Partners’? Or ‘Fondness in the Season of the Plague’. Silly, but useful to study the originals and see how they work. Is it the weight of the words, or what they encompass about the book or the short story. Is it the rhythm or the length of the title? Continue reading →