Peter Burns (@peterburns69) Bsky

Congratulations!

1 week ago 1 0 1 0

There's some info on historic cat names here, Diane: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular...

2 months ago 1 0 1 0

Tagging by Graham Mort THE CHARGE NURSE asked me to help carry Charlie to the gurney. Charles Edward Gray. We took him down to the morgue at the end of the hospital grounds, avoiding the puddles.…

This is the link to my new flash fiction ‘Tagging’ published by @fictivedream.bsky.social
fictivedream.com/2026/02/15/t...

2 months ago 9 3 0 0

a cat wearing glasses and a bow tie is laying on a laptop computer . ALT: a cat wearing glasses and a bow tie is laying on a laptop computer .

Still need inspiration for our micro comp or anthology? Why not read Diane’s interviews with our editors & judges? If you scroll down in the link, you can read all five interviews. Subs are open till 23:59 GMT on Sunday 15th Feb.

www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/index.php/ne...

2 months ago 9 8 0 1

Love these drawings Lorraine. Hope you and Karen are well.

2 months ago 1 0 1 0

Really enjoyed this flash, and the way the character's story is told is very well crafted.

3 months ago 5 0 1 0

In the first of this season’s interviews, NFFD’s Diane Simmons talks to anthology editor Sharon Telfer @sharontelfer.bsky.social about writing from the heart, taking risks & much more: www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/index.php/ne...

4 months ago 8 6 0 2

Yes please, and what a beautiful cover!

4 months ago 1 0 0 0

We are very excited to reveal our guest editor & theme for our 2026 anthology! Submissions open on 1 Dec & close on 15 Feb 2026. Our microfiction comp judges will be announced next week! www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/index.php/an...

5 months ago 35 20 0 5

Highly Commended October 2025 Award: Dawn Tasaka Steffler The Menopausal Woman and the Tsunami by Dawn Tasaka Steffler The Menopausal Woman is finally visiting her sister in Hawaii when an 8.7 earthquake rattles Russia, and now a goddamned tsunami is head…

www.bathflashfictionaward.com/2025/10/high...
Congratulations @dawnsteffler.bsky.social!

5 months ago 13 8 3 3

3rd Prize October 2025 Award: Debra A Daniel My Husband Watches Henry the Donkey by Debra A Daniel When the news is overwhelming, my husband turns to Youtube. “Here comes Henry,” he says. Henry’s owner brings treats and the donkey prances to …

Congratulations Debra A Daniel! www.bathflashfictionaward.com/2025/10/octo...

5 months ago 11 7 1 2

Congratulations Emily Rinkema! www.bathflashfictionaward.com/2025/10/2nd-...

5 months ago 14 7 3 3

1st Prize, October 2025 Award: Adam Brannigan Two Nude Night Owls by Adam Brannigan Its past midnight, and I’m sitting at my fire pit, burning old letters from old girlfriends. Old photos. Old birthday cards. Trinkets and whatever. It’s time t…

Congratulations Adam Brannigan! www.bathflashfictionaward.com/2025/10/1st-...

5 months ago 15 7 2 2

Congratulations!

5 months ago 1 0 0 0

Congratulations to all on the lists!

5 months ago 4 0 0 0

Rose Water – Free Flash Fiction At the school gate this morning, Grandma scrubbed my bully with her words. She leant down to Billy’s ear, her breath turning his face white and hollow, as though he’d been gripped by a demon. Then she...

FFF07062023

Rose Water
by Hannah Retallick
www.hannahretallick.co.uk/about

#FlashFiction #writingcommunity #flashfiction

freeflashfiction.com/fiction/rose...

8 months ago 1 1 0 0

You're welcome, Jim.

10 months ago 0 0 0 0

😆

10 months ago 1 0 0 0

I appreciated the whole story, Audrey, its fantastic.And it was the directness and authenticity of the first line, immediately putting me amongst women from a certain location, that made me laugh out loud. Funny and fresh!

10 months ago 1 0 1 0

Really like the humour and characterisation, via great, realistic dialogue, in this story by Jim Parisi.
#nffd2025

10 months ago 6 2 2 0

'In the last weeks before my mother died, a fox began appearing on our front porch. Always at twilight. Always facing the door.'

This is such a beautiful piece!
#nffd2025

10 months ago 5 1 1 0

'When the bomb rolled out of Rennie’s mouth and smashed down onto the dinner table, there was just time enough for you to marvel at how something as tiny and weightless as a single word could land with such impact...'

Love this flash by Barbara Diggs, and what an ending!

10 months ago 1 0 0 0

'You sit crisscross in the weeds, watching me push stone buttons and turn twig dials. At first glance, you’re still folding knots into clover stems. Only when I scrunch my eyes shut and sift through a subsequent plane of existence does your fate unfold.'

Great flash by Bethany Cutkomp.
#nffd2025

10 months ago 3 2 1 0

'Almond Skin' by Nina Miller Amma told me not to eat almonds whole lest my skin got browner. She blanched them perfectly so that the white oval nut popped easily from its brown skin to be tossed away as she slivered the innards for cooking. Thankfully, she didn’t know I rubbed in tanning oil, whose bottles were as dark as I hoped to become. Didn’t know I soaked in the New England summer sun like my friends, showing skin that was supposed to be covered. Poolside, girls compared tans, and I was told how lucky I was that I didn’t burn. Yet I secretly envied the joy of peeling off sunburned skin and the warmth that emanated from their bright red skin all slathered with aloe. My aunt, visiting from India, wondered why we tried so hard to get dark when they advertised lightening creams there. India, a country I imagined, kept girls so sheltered that their skin blanched ghostly white. Here, I worked hard to forget my roots, though my skin became darker daily, an inheritance skin deep. A child of the Americas whose cultural identity teetered on the balance beam of Marvel Comics and Amar Chitra Katha. Never understanding who people wanted me to be. Never knowing the real me and not sure who I was becoming. Hiding that I was white underneath all my brown only to be continually exposed, bisected, transected, chopped to pieces like that sliver of almond perched precariously atop my Amma’s carrot halwa. --- Nina Miller is an Indian-American physician, epee fencer, and creative. She loves writing competitions and nursing cups of chai. Wigleaf Top 50 for 2024. She is a contributor for The Pride Roars blog and author for Sci-Fi Shorts. Find her @NinaMD1 or ninamiller.bsky.social. Read more at ninamillerwrites.com.

FlashFlood: 'Almond Skin' by Nina Miller #nffd2025

10 months ago 18 3 0 8

'Martha's New Boyfriend' by Allan Miller Edith tentatively shook his metallic claw, then led her guests into the living room. After some polite chit-chat, she asked her daughter if she would give her a hand in the kitchen. Martha could tell something was up. She’d been worried her parents might judge him on his looks, or the way he spoke, or because O.S.C.A.R 9 was an H-class titanium battle-bot. Edith said she wasn’t being robotist, she just didn’t want to see her daughter getting hurt. Martha assured her the slaughter droid wouldn’t hurt a fly. Not unless it was a giant mecha-fly armed with photon blasters and spinning tail spikes. A look of panic spread across their faces. They had to get O.S.C.A.R 9 as far away as possible, but the buzzing of approaching insectoid wings told them it was too late. Edith clung to the vague hope that her husband might somehow bond with their daughter’s new partner, but then she heard his attack sirens booming. O.S.C.A.R 9 warned Mr Coulson to disengage his weapons systems or prepare to be obliterated. When the flyborg opened fire, he responded with both laser canons. Mother and daughter stood in the back garden while proton screams filled the air. As the house was reduced to rubble, Martha vowed that next time she brought a killer robot home she’d make sure her father hadn’t been drinking. --- Allan Miller is a writer of humorous flash fiction. His work has been published in such places as Gutter, Popshot Quarterly, Ellipsis Zine, Full House Literary, Firewords, Porridge, Mono, ForgeZine, The Martello, Neither Fish Nor Foul and Trash Cat Lit, and featured on the shortlist for the Welkin Mini 2025.

FlashFlood: 'Martha's New Boyfriend' by Allan Miller #nffd2025

10 months ago 7 1 0 2

Debut Flash: 'Rotation' by Bailey Scroggins A soft hum of an approaching train vibrated the wooden step I sat on. Its back, silver from the moon, was barely visible beyond the wall of my hillside parapet. A rhythmic hymn echoed, click-clank, click-clank, as each wheel passed over the seams on the track, rolling over the faint gaps, circling, as my spoon circled the inner rim of the stock pot, blending the seasonings into the broth, as my mother had, as did my grandmother, and my great-grandmother. I remember my mom recounting how her grandmother taught her to make soup, a simple base modified for whichever ailment was in need of a cure, the same one she taught me. She watched her grandmother sauté the onions in butter at the bottom of the pan, my mother atop a stool with built-in steps, one her grandfather had made so she could help stir in the ingredients. Or was this something I read as I cleaned out my mother’s house, a memory transcribed in a journal, a recital? It was all beginning to blur together; a rotation of wheels spinning, of pots stirred, of meals made, of living, left, and gone, rounding back to a glimpse of an impression I thought I once had. --- Bailey Scroggins leads an itinerant life. In and between each place, she writes. She and her husband consider Hudson, NY home base.

FlashFlood: Debut Flash: 'Rotation' by Bailey Scroggins #nffd2025

10 months ago 6 2 1 0

Great story by Cathy de Buitleir, which this registered nurse really appreciates!
#nffd2025

10 months ago 1 0 0 0

'In the grand scheme of things we are sitting on a giant sphere of ice swirling in space, cold steam flowing off, speed slowing by degrees.'

Wow! What a great thought-inducing flash by @sharonboyle

10 months ago 0 0 0 0

This is great, Jack. Love that ending.

10 months ago 1 0 1 0

'The sun rises. A fern uncurls. A spider crawls across the coffin lid. I am shadowed in cobwebs, shrouded in a mist of silver thread.'

Great new take on an old take, by @jackmmorris.bsky.social. Love that last paragraph.
#nffd2025

10 months ago 4 2 1 1

Posts by Peter Burns