Month: September 2018

ISSUE 19: SEPTEMBER 2018

~ Brilliant Flash Fiction

IMG_6653Call St. Mary’s
By Lila Rabinovich

Nancy would later tell anyone who asked that she escaped the hailstorm by ducking into the first available open door, which happened to lead into a church. She’d been making her way back home slowly, switching her purse from the crook of her right arm to the crook of her left and back again as they got tired of the weight. It was just bad luck that there’d been such a massive storm, so uncharacteristic for February, on that exact day, when her purse was so heavy. She was carrying Walter’s favorite book, his glasses and hers, a thermos still half full of black tea, an empty Tupperware (she despised hospital food), her billfold, her house keys, a packet of Kleenex, a packet of mints, a small leather pouch with all her regular medication (the Lipitor and the diuretics and the aspirin), and her cell phone. It was a lot for such a small, feminine bag. Continue reading “ISSUE 19: SEPTEMBER 2018” →

“WOW US” – WRITING CONTEST RESULTS

~ Brilliant Flash Fiction

This writing contest was a lot of fun for the staff at Brilliant Flash Fiction. The entries were judged in-house and provided us with months of reading pleasure. We would like to thank the 350 writers who took the time to share their creativity and brilliance with us. Choosing a shortlist and three prize-winners was a difficult task.

IMG_6939First Prize: LIGHT THE DAMN FIRE by Eileen Malone
Second Prize: Calculus by Suzanne Freeman
Third Prize: Gustav Mahler’s Nipples by Laton Carter

Judges: Brilliant Flash Fiction staff
Theme: None!

 

First Prize: LIGHT THE DAMN FIRE

Assistant Editor Ed Higgins’ comments: As novelist and short-story writer Richard Harding Davis observed: “The secret of good writing is to say an old thing a new way or to say a new thing an old way.” Eileen Malone’s story carries the marks of both. The plot and plotting of the betrayed vengeful wife is, of course, a much repeated tale. Malone reinfuses this old nugget with a realism of setting as well as giving her protagnist-narrator a believable infusion of emotional hurt by a betraying husband. All of which sets the story up for the “new thing” twist on good ‘ol revenge. In the couple’s get-away cabin the wife sets alight the stuffed fireplace—but with the vent closed. Continue reading ““WOW US” – WRITING CONTEST RESULTS” →