From a cafe bookstore, to a windy seashore, to memories of motherlands missed, entries to our flash fiction competition carried readers to a range of places and spaces, using the power of brevity to conjure rich, engaging stories that left readers craving more.
Our most popular competition to date, Guest Judge Janelle Milanes had no small task in front of her as she sought to select our winners. Reflecting on her decision process, she shared:
What an agonizing decision this was! So much talent squeezed into such a short word count. Please share with the writers how much I enjoyed each and every one of these pieces.
Congratulations to all competition entrants on a job well done. May you revel in these pocket-size stories as they inspire you to think, and to pause.
Winner: Flor Africana, Tula S., Cuba
This piece told a complete story—one that didn’t feel condensed or unfinished despite the word count. It is exactly what you would want from a flash fiction piece. Tula expertly weaved the setting into the story from the first line, when Lelo’s ashes vanished behind the Malecon. No detail was wasted. There was no clunky exposition; as a reader I had to piece everything together based on subtle details, from the setting to the relationship between Mara and her grandfather. The last paragraph is filled with beautiful, poignant snapshots of Mara’s history with Lelo and precise vocabulary to help me visualize the memories: “sink their faces into backyard mangoes” and “watermelon popsicles splattering onto the pavement.” Those specifics made the grief truly real to me as a reader. The theme touches on more complex issues as well, beyond the grief of losing a loved one. It is the feeling of being unmoored, of losing touch with one’s ancestral home. When Mara describes how she had felt connected to Cuba through Lelo’s existence, I felt this deeply as a child of immigrants. This piece was a perfect blend of story elements told in a moving and succinct way.
Runner Up: Visiting Hours, Annie_in_Wonderland, US
The tense mood is set immediately in this piece, from the unappetizing food description to the characters’ nervous actions: the mother adjusting her glasses, Perry digging her tongue into her cheek. Even with the dialogue, much of the story is told in what is unsaid. For example, the fact that Gram told the mother that Chinese was Perry’s favorite, rather than the mother knowing that from Perry herself. I thought it was an interesting take on divorce. The focus is not on the separation between the parents, but the effect on Perry and the narrator. The narrator is shown as a helpless observer, describing the action to the reader rather than taking part in it themselves. As a result, the reader can easily imagine themselves in the narrator’s place. The last line resonated with a lingering open-ended tension that never resolves itself: the loneliness of divorce, not only on the parents, but on each member of the family as well. The actions characterize the effect on each member of the family: Perry grows petulant, the mother deflated, the narrator isolated.
Best Peer Review: “Promise” Reviewed by Writing4Life, Australia
This was a thoughtful review that addressed many aspects of the author’s piece, from line edits and word choice to the larger theme at hand. The review touched on what the author did well and provided encouragement while offering helpful suggestions—for example, increasing the emotional impact of the piece by specifying the relationship between the main characters. I agreed with the reviewer’s suggestions in terms of using specificity to avoid repetition (ie. “deck” instead of “ship”) and the use of a period to add emphasis to the dialogue. I loved the action words in the beginning as well and the balance of dialogue and story. The reviewer also had interesting insights on whether to end the story on a hopeful note or one of doom. I found this to be an encouraging review that picks up on what the author does well while specifically addressing changes large and small that could strengthen the story.
Shortlisted Pieces
“Assimilated,” rainydaes, US
“I Don’t Know What to Tell Him,” Donaldson, UK
“The Dreams of a Madman,” Ambie150, UK
