Enter the Fractured Lit Flash Fiction Open prize

Button on Kilve Beach cr Judy DarleyGot 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.

Enter the Fractured Lit Ghost, Fable and Fractured Fairy Tales prize

The Fractured Lit team urges you to dig into the darkest recesses of your imagination to write stories of ghosts, fables, and fractured fairy tales in 1,000 words or fewer.

The deadline is 4th February 2024.

Guest Judge Aimee Bender will choose three prize winners from a shortlist. The winner of this prize will receive $3,000 and publication, while the 2nd and 3rd place winners will receive publication plus $300 and $200, respectively. All entries will be considered for publication.

They say: Whichever tradition you choose, make sure you find a new way to approach it, to twist and discombobulate it, so it pushes us away from the mundane and into the strange or uncanny. Transport us from the here and now to a new land of discovery, a fresh way of being entertained that embraces all of the ways we show our humanness.”

A $20 reading fee allows you up to two stories of 1,000 words or fewer each per entry.

Aimee Bender is the author of six books: The Girl in the Flammable Skirt (1998), which was an NY Times Notable Book; An Invisible Sign of My Own (2000), which was an LA Times pick of the year; Willful Creatures (2005), which was nominated by The Believer as one of the best books of the year; The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (2010), which won the SCIBA award for best fiction, and an Alex Award; The Color Master (2013), a NY Times Notable Book for the year; and her latest novel, The Butterfly Lampshade (July 2020), which was longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Award. Her books have been translated into sixteen languages. Her short fiction has been published in Granta, GQ, Harper’s, Tin House, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, and more, as well as heard on PRI’s “This American Life” and “Selected Shorts.”

Find full details of how to enter here: https://fracturedlit.com/fractured-lit-ghost-fable-and-fractured-fairy-tales-prize/ 

Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw attention to? Send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com.