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New Writers Historical Flash Fiction Competition 2025 – Results

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After reading almost 300 entries that took the judges on journeys through the ages, we are pleased to announce the winners of the New Writers Historical Flash Fiction Competition 2025.

As always, we’d like to thank everyone who entered. Just about every era of history featured among the entries, from almost as far back as 50,000 BCE up to the late 1950s. We’d also like to thank Historic Houses, who provided the additional prize to the writer of the best story set in one of the properties they feature.

We send our congratulations to those who were picked to win a prize and those who made the shortlist or longlist. If you didn’t make it onto one of the lists, don’t despair, and certainly don’t give up on your writing. Judging any writing contest is always going to involve a large element of subjectivity (just ask the Booker Prize panel!), and if your entry didn’t make the cut on this occasion, it doesn’t mean it hasn’t got merit.

The competition helped raise money for two fantastic UK-registered charities First Story and The Funzi & Bodo Trust. We have transferred the donations (10% of entry fees received) and the charities will use the cash to positive effect.

Note that the New Writers Flash Fiction Competition – with a top prize of £1,100 – is open for entries until 31st January 2026 – you can find the competition details HERE.

Winners

First Prize (£500): It’s Now or Never by Beth L. Thompson

Author bio: Beth L. Thompson is a writer from Liverpool. She is currently editing her first novel, which was awarded a 2024 Northern Debut Award for Fiction by New Writing North, and previously won the Stockholm Writers Festival First 5 Pages Prize. She is a graduate of Faber Academy, and her poetry has been published by The Emma Press. (Website: bethlthompson.com)

Second Prize (£300): Blitz Spirit by Jenna Burns

Author bio: Jenna’s writing inspirations include Pat Barker, Sarah Waters, and Mary Renault. Her work has recently appeared in New Flash Fiction Review, Causeway/Cabhsair, and With Bite. She is currently working on her debut novel.

Third Prize (£200): At the Mizzen by Jordan Kelly

Author bio: Jordan is an English teacher from Berkshire with a long-standing passion for history, shaped at university and sharpened by a particular fascination with the British Empire. Encouraged to read from an early age by parents who placed Tolkien and C. S. Lewis firmly on the bedside table, Jordan later fell into the worlds of Shakespeare, Dickens and Daphne du Maurier, writers who enchanted, challenged and delighted in equal measure. Writing now fits in between teaching, reading and an ongoing, one-sided feud with a perpetually unreliable car.

Additional Historic Houses Prize (Historic Houses Membership): Child of Blenheim by Jordan Kelly

This entry will be published in Historic House Magazine in due course.

Author bio: As above.

Shortlist

The following entries (in alphabetical order by entry title) just missed out on the prizes:

  • Daedalus by Mike Kilgannon
  • Good Luck by Maisie Khline
  • Meeting of the Animal Chemistry Club, Sackville Street, Piccadilly by Jupiter Jones
  • Old Bailey, 1785, Verdict: Guilty by Georgia Gubbins
  • Original Sin by G.A. Palmer
  • The Bee’s Gospel (Abberley Hall, Worcestershire) by Timothy Collyer
  • The Boleyn Algorithm by Kehinde Adekunle

Longlist

The judges selected the following entries for the longlist (in alphabetical order by entry title):

  • 1912 by Isabella Mead Husain
  • 1959: Three Minutes to Midnight by Jacci Gooding
  • Catch by Kate Wise
  • Dust and Bone by Emma Richard-dit-Leschery
  • Hide and Seek by Boo Latham
  • Hollow As a Ship’s Hull by Abigail Williams
  • House of Stone by Johanna Meyer
  • It’s Coming Home by Lucy O’Shea
  • Not the marrying kind by Sue Turbett
  • Oh Lord, Here is Inequity by G.A. Palmer
  • The Crimson Seal by Khudeeja Begum
  • The Curative by Donna Tracy
  • The Ghosts of Goodwood by Jenny Azul
  • The Thief by Fiona Ritchie Walker
  • The Venetian Onion Seller by Fiona Carlin
  • There will always be blackberries by Madeleine Deacon
  • We Can, We Will, We Must by CS Bowerman
  • What A E Housman didn’t put in his poem by Sue Trees
  • Worn, Grey Eyes by Jasmine Wharton

Once again, thank you to everyone who entered. We hope you enjoy reading the winning entries. Best wishes from The New Writers Team.

p.s. If you like what we’re doing at NewWriters.org.uk, please consider donating at our Ko-fi.com page. We’ll use any donations to offer more regular free competitions (with bigger prizes) and more free entries to our paid competition to those on low incomes. 

To find out about our upcoming writing competitions – both free-to-enter and those with an entry fee such as the Flash Fiction Competition (£1,100 top prize) – sign up to our newsletter (we send one each month and will never share your email address or any other information with anyone else).

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