Entries to the 2024 Allingham Flash Fiction Competition will be judged by Nuala O’Connor, the acclaimed author of Seabourne and editor of the e-journal Splonk.

The deadline for entries is 29 September. Nuala O’Connor’s Nora was chosen as Dublin’s One City One Book novel of 2022 and was named one of the top ten historical novels by the New York Times. Her sixth novel, Seabourne, about Irish-born pirate Anne Bonny, was published by New Island in April 2024. Nuala O’Connor won the Irish Short Story of the Year award at the 2022 Irish Book Awards and is editor of the Flash e-journal Splonk. She lives and writes in Galway.

The first, second and third place winners of the Poetry and Flash Fiction awards will read their winning entries at the Literary Lunch on Saturday 9 November at 12 noon during the 2024 Allingham Festival. In addition to the €300 first place cash prize, the winning entries of the 2024 Flash Fiction competition will also be published in Splonk.

The 2024 Allingham Festival will take place in Ballyshannon from 6-10 November. Festival highlights include a keynote speech on artificial intelligence by RTE broadcaster Richard Curran and a concert by Delta blues prodigy Muireann Bradley. Festival details, including rules and entry forms for the poetry and flash fiction competitions, are published online.

.