The Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages is delighted to announce that this year’s Flash Fiction Competitions in French, Spanish and German are now open!
Our annual Flash Fiction Competitions invite secondary school pupils to submit a complete story of no more than 100 words, in French, Spanish, or German, for the chance to win up to £100.
Our 2026 Competition marks the first year in which German will be included and we’re excited to be expanding the Competition after many successful years!
Entries are judged by a panel of academics who are primarily looking for creativity, imagination and narrative flair, as well as linguistic accuracy. Pupils’ language skills will be considered in the context of their age and year group: in other words, we will not expect younger pupils to compete against older pupils linguistically. Each language competition is divided into three age categories:
- Years 7-9 (ages 11-14)
- Years 10-11 (ages 14-16)
- Years 12-13 (ages 16-18)
The judges will award a top prize of £100, as well as prizes of £50 to a maximum of two runners up, in each category. Certificates will also be awarded to pupils who have been highly commended by our judges. Results as well as the winning, runner up, and highly commended stories will be published on our blog, Adventures on the Bookshelf, if entrants give us permission to do so.
More information and links to the submission forms can be found on our competitions webpage. Pupils may only submit one story per language but are welcome to submit a story in two or three languages if they would like to. For some inspiration, they can have a look at last year’s winning entries in French and Spanish. Please note that pupils must enter the competition themselves: teachers cannot enter on their behalf for reasons of GDPR compliance.
FAQs can be found here and any other questions can be directed to schools.liaison@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk.
The submission deadline is 12 noon on 31 March 2026.
Bonne chance à tous! ¡Buena suerte a todos! Viel Glück euch allen!