No Entry Fee, Unlimited Entries
Send us your stories
written on the theme of EQUALITY
Word limit: 300
Deadline: JUNE 15, 2015
Submissions: email to brilliantflashfiction@gmail.com
Judge: LIZ NUGENT, Author of Unravelling Oliver
liznugent.ie
Prizes: 50 euro first prize (or equivalent amount in your currency)
25 euro second prize * 15 euro third prize
Winning stories will be published in
Brilliant Flash Fiction.
Tag: bff
ISSUE 4: JANUARY 2015
Gale
By Jemel Wilson
Her name was Gale, short for Nightingale. A badass black Caddy sitting on white walled tires. The grill looked like the car had on a fresh set of chrome braces. My grandfather purchased her with money he received from working on the old GM assembly lines. In those days it was hard to own much of anything, so when the neighborhood saw a black man in his twenties riding through the streets in a brand new black Cadillac, they knew you were doing damn well for yourself. It was a luxury that most didn’t get to experience. Other parts of the country were riding on public transportation unable to sit in the front due to the color of their skin.
My grandfather was the role model of the family and everyone listened when he spoke. Every sunny Saturday morning he’d wake my father to help him wash and wax the car. My grandfather would turn on the car radio and turn it up so that the neighbors could hear it on all sides. My father would unravel the hose, drag it out to the driveway and get the bucket of soapy water ready. Continue reading “ISSUE 4: JANUARY 2015”
LIFE IS GOOD – CONTEST RESULTS
First prize: Meaghan Hackinen
Second prize: Alan Morris
Third prize: Serena Molloy
Contest Judge
Ed Higgins, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Writing and Literature Ed Higgins has been teaching at George Fox University for over four decades. His classes have covered poetry, the modern novel, world literature, science fiction and much more. While officially retired now, he still teaches part-time. He’s also published an extensive body of his own poetry.
Here are his winning selections and why:
First Prize: “Cycling North Cascades Highway” by Meaghan Hackinen
I like the tightness of this piece, every word counts and intensifies the story. The imagery, too, is finely tuned, believable, fulsome without overwhelming other story elements. The narrator/protagonist comes off with panache and I love her wry voice. The Kerouac allusions might put someone off, but I found them apt and they contributed to the protagonist’s character. The kinetic imagery of the story’s close zooms down that hill with exhilaration—and I’m not even a cyclist.
Second Prize: “Life is Good” by Alan Morris
While a bit put off by the title here, fearing saccharine, I was quickly hooked. The dialogue seems real, as does the situation. The setting is nicely done with economy that’s supportive of the story. And the story’s ending affirmation is touching without slipping into feel-good cliché. The last line nicely snaps the lid on the whole story scene that’s been itself nicely played out. Continue reading “LIFE IS GOOD – CONTEST RESULTS”
ISSUE 3: SEPTEMBER 2014
Rumbling over Steel
By Ute Carson
I love trains, the slow local and the 200-mile-an-hour express. I have traveled on all sorts of trains over the years. As a child I fled westward from the advancing Soviet army with my family atop an ammunition transport.
There was the old steam engine chugging from Dubrovnik to Sarajevo on a narrow-gauge rail line with village women carrying chickens and lugging baskets of farm produce.
My face was soot-smeared with coal dust blowing in through the open windows.
I have shivered in air-conditioned compartments and perspired next to antiquated radiators. I have savored sumptuous meals in elegant dining cars and munched on snacks on wooden commuter benches. Decades ago, on a trip from Stuttgart to Istanbul I bedded down in a luggage rack strung like a hammock above the compartment seats. And once in a sleeper from London to Glasgow, I was awakened with morning tea.
A whistle, a hooting, and the wheels begin to sing on tracks that look like ladders stretched end to end along the ground. In Ukraine a station master in a red cap motioned with his hand signal as we passed through his little town, a herd of sheep on the left, an onion-shaped church steeple on the right. An elegant lady wrapped in fur stepped down from a first-class car in Turku, Finland. And in Italy students jumped onto the caboose of our departing train in the nick of time.
NEW WRITING CONTEST!
Our Next Writing Challenge:
“Life is Good”
No Entry Fee
Unlimited Entries
Send us your stories written on the theme,
“Life is Good”
Word limit: 300
Deadline: January 15, 2015
Submissions: email to brilliantflashfiction@gmail.com
Prizes: 20 euro first prize (or equivalent amount in your currency)
10 euro second prize * 5 euro third prize
FINISH THE STORY – CONTEST RESULTS
We asked you to finish this story:
Chicken Soup Ice Cream
She met him at an international student exchange.
He was German—not her first choice. But he was dark and subdued, unlike the Brazilians who talked too much and ran their eyes over every woman in the room.
“Hello. I’m Sharon,” she said.
He stood up. “My name is Hans.”
They drank plastic cups of fruit punch and communicated in simple English phrases until it was time to go, and then Hans grew agitated.
“Will you … can I … “ he began, fighting the language.
“All right,” Sharon said.
She wanted to see a movie but his English wasn’t good enough.
They went for ice cream instead.
“In Germany,” he said, “We have an ice cream shop that sells every flavor in the world … even chicken soup ice cream.”
187 entries were received! Winners were selected by John Givens.
Contest Judge John Givens teaches fiction writing workshops in Dublin. He got his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, studied art and language in Kyoto and worked in Tokyo as a writer and editor. Givens has published three novels in the United States and a collection of short stories in Ireland. His stories have appeared in literary journals in the US, Asia and Europe.
FIRST PRIZE (20 euro): Chris Minton
SECOND PRIZE (10 euro): Kate Raynes
THIRD PRIZE (5 euro): Petra McQueen
ISSUE 2: JUNE 2014
You
By Madhumita Roy
My monologue is directed at You.
Because You sit on the other side of the desk with a smirk on your face, which makes You resemble my cat, Ludo, when she smiles. New research claims that animals can smile and, therefore, I believe both You and Ludo are capable of smiling.
On rare occasions your smirk evolves into a wide grin.
These occasions are as follows: when rain-forests burn; or tsunamis wreak havoc in Asian countries; or when two hundred girls are abducted and threatened with rape.
Your face is extremely annoying.
Although there is a halo around your enormously big head, I think it is an illusion you have masterfully created to cut an impressive figure for a credulous crowd. You are not God, Godhead, Godfather, Godly, God-like, or any goddess. Continue reading “ISSUE 2: JUNE 2014”
ISSUE 1: MARCH 2014
W E I G H T
By Dawn Lowe
I saw a Good Samaritan beside the road and stopped the car.
He held a sign: SPACE SUIT FOR SALE
He was old, thin and wasted. The space suit lay in the dust at his feet, white and shiny, a US flag on its chest.
“How much?” I asked.
“$1,500,” he said. “Cash.”
I put the space suit in the back seat of my car and the old man got in beside it. The suit, seated like a passenger, was three inches taller than the Samaritan.
“Where’d you get it?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I was an astronaut.”
“What’s your name?”
“Does it matter? Once you’re grounded, they all forget.” Continue reading “ISSUE 1: MARCH 2014”
BRILLIANT FLASH FICTION 