Got a fresh micro or flash fiction you’re ready to zing out into the world? Enter the Fractured Lit Flash Fiction Open Prize.
The deadline is 14 July 2024.
Guest judge Maurice Carlos Ruffin is the author of the new historical novel The American Daughters, published in February 2024 by One World Random House. He is the recipient of the 2023 Louisiana Writer Award and the Black Rock Senegal Residency. He also wrote The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You, which was published by One World Random House in August 2021. The collection was the 2023 One Book One New Orleans Selection, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a finalist for the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and longlisted for the Story Prize. The Ones was also selected to represent Louisiana at the 2023 National Book Festival. His first book, We Cast a Shadow, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the PEN America Open Book Prize. It was longlisted for the 2021 Dublin Literary Award, the Center for Fiction Prize, and the Aspen Words Literary Prize. The novel was also a New York Times Editors’ Choice.
A New Orleans native, Ruffin is a professor of creative writing at Louisiana State University, and the 2020-2021 John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi.
The first place winner will receive $2,000 and publication, while 15 finalists will receive $100 and publication. All entries will be considered for general publication.
They say; “We want your most creative and resonant flash and microfictions. No themes. Send us those pieces that hum with life, velocity, and intimacy. Write that story you’ve been thinking about for months, the one that needs to exist, the one that caught you in its glare of white-hot inspiration. Please don’t forget that we love stories that involve actions, reactions, and reckonings. Write and submit the stories only you can tell!”
Entries must be under 1,000 words in length.
You need to pay a $20 reading fee per entry of up to two tales. Writers from historically marginalized groups may submit for free until a cap of 25 submissions is reached in this category.
Find full details and enter here: https://fracturedlit.com/flash-fiction-open/
Good luck!
Got an event, challenge, competition, opportunity or call for submissions you’d like to draw attention to? Send me an email at JudyDarley (@) ICloud (dot) com.
Strolling beside a local saltwater swimming pool, I spotted a visitor. Clevedon’s Marine Lake is replenished by high tides. Occasionally waves bring in fish, eels, and, in this case, beautiful moon jellyfish.
Wasafari magazine invites submissions of Poetry, Fiction and Life Writing for The Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize.
Imagine a farm on a seashore where two sisters celebrate the possible death of their brother-in-law, and the third, his wife, isn’t sure whether to mourn or join in with her sisters’ revelries.
I had the pleasure recently of taking a voyage aboard the 
Keza O’Neill’s story ‘Lucky Strike’, a tale of thwarted rage and a commentary on the gentrification of coastal towns, recently won the Sansom Award and was awarded third place in the Bristol Short Story Prize with her story Lucky Strike. Keza has been longlisted for the Bath Short Story Award 2023, the CWA Debut Dagger 2021 and the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize 2019. Keza completed a Masters in Creative Writing in 2023 via The Open University for which she was awarded a Distinction.
Julie Davies won the inaugural Clevedon Literary Festival short story competition with her story Remembrance in 2023. Her story Just Dessert was the second place winner in the Winchester Festival I Am Writing Flash Fiction Competition 2022.
Judy Darley is an award-winning writer, editor and creative workshop leader who relocated to Clevedon in December 2023. She is the author of short fiction collections 
