Prompt: None. Let your imagination run wild
No Entry Fee
Word limit: 300 words, excluding title
Deadline: SEPTEMBER 15, 2018
Submissions: email to
brilliantflashfiction@gmail.com
Prizes:
50 euro first prize (or equivalent amount in your currency)
25 euro second prize
15 euro third prize
Judges: Brilliant Flash Fiction staff
Continue reading ““WOW US” WRITING CONTEST!”
ART PROMPT- WRITING CONTEST RESULTS
Many thanks to the 180 writers who entered our contest and to Judge Adam Kluger who created the art prompt and volunteered his time to select three prizewinners.
First Prize: The Lion’s Tooth by Nell Jenda
Second Prize: A Night With Old Friends by Chris Espenshade
Third Prize: Infinite Morning by Alyson HilbourneJudge:
Judge’s Comments:
A quick note to thank you so much for participating in the Art Prompt Writing Contest. It is such an honor to have so many talented writers participate.
In my opinion there are 180 winners. Each entry I’ve had the pleasure to read is making its own very strong argument for recognition. But contests being what they are, only three of you will win prizes.
So what was actually going on in the painting? In case you are curious—the painting shows a writer sitting by himself in deep thought at a diner (The New Amity Diner in NYC) with a red-nosed waiter named Frankie stationed behind him. The painting was rendered in charcoal pencil with pastels and some water-color mixed in to create a grainy feel. On the ceiling is a old fashioned fan emitting some yellow light. That’s it.
Thank you, Brilliant Flash Fiction! Continue reading “ART PROMPT- WRITING CONTEST RESULTS”
ISSUE 16: JANUARY 2018
HIT & RUN
By Shoshauna Shy
I wondered what kind of “closure” did Jean think she was going to get?
YOU ARE FEMALE & DRIVE
A RED CAR.
YOU RAN OVER MY CAT
ON WINGRA STREET
MAY 18TH.
PLEASE CALL JEAN.
NEED HELP WITH CLOSURE
I came across this notice the week that Eric, my boyfriend-since-high-school, suddenly moved out of our apartment to follow an Edgewood College grad to Schenectady, New York. Apparently, someone’s cat darted into danger, a simple case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. What was there to explain or describe—unless apathy meant the driver didn’t brake or she actually went out of her way to hit the animal. But who would fess up to that?
I pictured Jean barely out of her teens, just a few years younger than me, stapling laminated notices to phone poles outside of The Yellow Platter, a neighborhood café. I had started going there for breakfast so I wouldn’t have to start the day alone. I imagined her returning to an empty apartment where a catnip bunny lay under a chair, saw her reaching instinctively for fur among the bedcovers at 3 AM. I doubted that meeting the red car phantom would make 3 AM’s any easier. Continue reading “ISSUE 16: JANUARY 2018”
ISSUE 15: SEPTEMBER 2017
Three Summer Flights
By Tim Love
As usual, Dad collected her after breakfast on Sunday and drove her to Dunstable downs. The hillside was already full of families.
“You first, Tracy.”
She held the bobbin of string while her father retreated with the kite. Then he threw it skyward. “It’s new!” she said, watching the dragon soar.
“Yes, I made it this week.” When she pulled harder, the kite spiralled and fell. “It needs a longer tail,” he said, “Oh well, let’s have an ice cream.” They sat on the grass, licking 99s. While he studied the other kites, which to her were heavy and drab, she watched the gliders taking off below. Winched up, they climbed steeply until they were higher than she was. She watched the cable fall away, as if in slow-motion. The ice cream finished, she stretched out on the grass and looked up at the kites against the bright blue sky. Without warning a glider filled her vision, flying very low and fast. She would always remember the wide wings, the silent surprise. Continue reading “ISSUE 15: SEPTEMBER 2017”
BFF WRITER WINS WRITE WELL AWARD
Congratulations to Charles Rafferty, winner of a 2017 Write Well Award for his story, The Silver Smile of the Hatchet, originally published in the March 2016 issue of Brilliant Flash Fiction. For details, check out writewellaward.com.
Anne-Marie Lindstrom won a 2015 Write Well Award for her September 2014 Brilliant Flash Fiction story, Becky’s Song.
Here is Charles Rafferty’s award-winning story:
The Silver Smile of the Hatchet
By Charles Rafferty
Magda was too tiny to kill a cow but her mother needed help with the weed-like tenacity of her daily chores. The chickens were put on Magda’s list. The worst one could do, her mother concluded, was to run headless around its pen.
Magda surprised her mother. With a succession of little kisses, she would persuade the chicken to her side. She let it peck the seed from her palm as it had done on a daily basis since the first time it left the henhouse. Then she scooped it up and took it behind the barn. Continue reading “BFF WRITER WINS WRITE WELL AWARD”
ART PROMPT WRITING CONTEST!
Prompt: Write a story based on Adam Kluger’s art displayed here
No Entry Fee
Word limit: 300 words, excluding title
Deadline: FEBRUARY 15, 2018
Submissions: email to
brilliantflashfiction@gmail.com
Prizes:
50 euro first prize (or equivalent amount in your currency)
25 euro second prize
15 euro third prize
Artist & Judge: Adam Kluger Continue reading “ART PROMPT WRITING CONTEST!”
CONCEALMENT – WRITING CONTEST RESULTS
Many thanks to Judge Charles Rammelkamp for choosing our contest theme and volunteering his time to select the three prizewinners. Thanks also to the 250 brilliant writers who entered this contest.
FIRST PRIZE: Andrew M Stockton, Sunday Lunch (Again)
SECOND PRIZE: Lesley Middleton, Little Joe
THIRD PRIZE: Mark Warren, The Cleaner
Judge: Charles Rammelkamp
Theme: Concealment
First Prize: Sunday Lunch (Again) by Andrew M. Stockton
Judge’s Comments: Sunday Lunch (Again) is like an oyster concealing a pearl. Just as the food smells are described as “invisible but powerful,” so is the secret of incest that’s only alluded to. Is it the daughter’s father? Her uncle? Both? All that’s certain is the shame and the “naked, remorseless memories” behind the sham of the family dinner.
Sunday Lunch (Again)
By Andrew M Stockton
Walking into cooking-smells, cabbage, the roast, food smells, invisible but powerful, making me salivate. “Hi, it’s me; your daughter’s home for Sunday lunch! Feed me!”
Dad’s laid the table, and the tablecloth is so bright and white it could warn ships about hazards. Wish I’d had such a hazard warning years ago. Mum checks the cutlery and moves the bottle of wine that uncle Danny bought to hide a small stain on the cloth. Continue reading “CONCEALMENT – WRITING CONTEST RESULTS”
ISSUE 14: JUNE 2017
This Heady Thing Called Love
By Linda Ferguson
He calls and I say I’ll come.
I haven’t seen him in three days. Unless you count Tuesday, in the dining hall. Ah, there he was, in line with the tall ballerina with the beret tipped over her Lauren Bacall bob.
Good thing the roommate is in class right now. I wouldn’t want her watching as I stand in front of the mirror and finger the magenta streak in my hair I added the day he first kissed me. She was here last week when I was a sodden, shuddering ball on my crumpled bed, having just heard his sudden confession. She crossed her arms then and said I could do better, her voice rising to vehemence when she called him a “lousy boyfriend.” Which makes me think she might not endorse my getting all gussied up now, smoothing on China-red lipstick, pulling on black fishnets, dabbing my throat with the perfume Aunt Jeanine sent me last Christmas. No, I don’t need anyone frowning at me as I clasp a slender silver chain around my ankle or as I turn in front of the mirror again to check out the short tangerine-colored dress with the coral stitching around its hem. Continue reading “ISSUE 14: JUNE 2017”
CONCEALMENT WRITING CONTEST!
Prompt: CONCEALMENT
No Entry Fee
Word limit: 300 words, excluding title
Deadline: SEPTEMBER 15, 2017
Submissions: email to
brilliantflashfiction@gmail.com
Prizes:
50 euro first prize (or equivalent amount in your currency)
25 euro second prize
15 euro third prize
Judge: Charles Rammelkamp Continue reading “CONCEALMENT WRITING CONTEST!”
LOST IN TRANSLATION – WRITING CONTEST RESULTS
Brilliant Flash Fiction would like to thank Judge KJ Hannah Goldberg for suggesting our contest theme (the dubash), and for volunteering her time to choose the prizewinners. Thanks also to the 110 writers who entered this contest and shared their creativity with us.
FIRST PRIZE: Stephen Lodge, AXE THE QUESTION
SECOND PRIZE (tie): Claire Lawrence, Amitay Dubash
SECOND PRIZE (tie): Faiza Bokhari, Chicken Tikka Sandwich
Judge: KJ Hannah Goldberg
Theme: the dubash
First Prize: AXE THE QUESTION by Stephen Lodge
Judge’s comments: I’m a sucker for a playful tale. Our literary venues are brimming with doom and gloom, with proscribing darkness as the new “sexy” in short fiction. Thankfully, this writer’s piece was perky. The bit of groaning that results from this work’s bad puns and other low brow humor, too, helps readers get through their days.
AXE THE QUESTION
By Stephen Lodge
This is a thankless job, thought Aaron Schultz, as he made his way to the Presidential Palace atop the Boulevard Of Heroes in Ringstad, the capital of the Republic Of Belzon. If only I could get out of this country. But Belzonians are not allowed passports unless granted by the President and he never travels outside Belzon for fear of a coup attempt if he left the country. So, for the foreseeable future, I am tap-dancing for idiots, translating stuff from one side of the desk to the other that no one wants to hear, which I mostly make up anyway to appease their easily bruised egos and maybe prevent a war or two. Continue reading “LOST IN TRANSLATION – WRITING CONTEST RESULTS”
BRILLIANT FLASH FICTION 