Edinburgh International Book Festival, 2025

Each August, we run a Flash Fiction Competition to coincide with the Edinburgh International Book Festival. It's an event dear to my heart, not least because it allowed book lovers from all over the world to discover why we're so lucky here in Scotland's Capital.
After 40 years at its famous original location in Charlotte Square in Edinburgh's West End, the Book Festival moved over to a new venue less than a mile away in the Edinburgh Futures Institute.

It's a glorious purpose-built area, far less weather-dependent, and most importantly, environmentally sustainable. (The old one wasn't.) You can find out much, much more by clicking on the logo to the right.

Gordon Lawrie, editor
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THE FORMAT

We’ll be using our tried and tested format. Six individuals have been asked to be judges. (They don't know each others' identities, so they can enter, too.) Each will choose one story from the selection submitted during the period of the competition, and that becomes the short list. and the voters (our active circulation list) then get to choose the one they like best, which will win the prize of £50 in the winner's own currency.
TIMING

We’ll be running the competition just ahead of the dates of the Edinburgh International Book Festival in the hope that we can announce the winner as it ends. We'll therefore accept entries for the competition from 00:01 on Saturday 2nd August 2025 until 23:59 on Friday 15th August 2025.
The Rules
  1. Entry is free (as in "free").
  2. All entries must be of 90-100 words in length not including a title. There is no contest on this occasion for longer stories or poetry.
  3. Stories should be in the English language.
  4. Stories should be new, original, and not have been previously published by Friday Flash Fiction.
  5. Stories should relate in some way to the competition theme, FESTIVAL, and the word FESTIVAL must appear at least once in the body of your story.
  6. Entries must be submitted through the STORYBOX on the Classic 100-Word Submissions page. Entries that are emailed, or sent as a Word document, will not be accepted.
  7. ​Closing date 23.59 GMT on Friday 15th August 2025.
  8. Winner will receive £50.00 prize or the equivalent in local currency paid electronically*
  9. A short list will be selected by the judges, which will then be subject to the vote amongst the FFF voters. The winner will be the story with the most votes, while the remainder will be awarded "Highly Commended" status.
  10. Rights to all stories remain with the authors but FFF reserves the right to use prizewinner's and highly commended's stories for FFF publicity purposes elsewhere.
*It will be necessary to pay the winner directly into their bank account, or using PayPal.
​A prize of £50.00 will be awarded to the story judged to be the best. There is no entry fee, and you can enter either once or twice.
(In other words, the usual one story per week.)

Entries are now open until 11.59pm on Friday 15th August 2025 GMT.
Note to entrants: submitting an entry doesn't guarantee acceptance for publication – stories must continue to meet our basic standards. For details, see the "SUBMISSIONS GUIDANCE" on our Submissions page. Please bear in mind that, particularly during the competition itself, we can't enter into discussions on the merit or otherwise of submissions.
It would also be unfair if one of the judges edited your story to make it acceptable.

The Edinburgh International Book Festival

If you enjoy any of the events, please consider making a very small donation. Even a tiny amount, in combination with many other tiny amounts, makes a huge difference.
To find out more about the Edinburgh International Book Festival, click on the logo below: