Tag: BRILLIANT Flash Fiction

ISSUE 13: MARCH 2017

~ Brilliant Flash Fiction ~ 1 Comment

IMG_7934Flying Man
By Matthew Duffus

Pants and shirt pressed, tie tucked between the third and fourth buttons, he pedaled into the March wind. Once around the town Square, he dodged traffic and cut down a side street that would dump him onto the main quad in plenty of time to turn in the work he’d spent the weekend compiling before his 2 PM Calculus I lecture. His advisor had warned him not to go down the rabbit hole of Rajnipal’s Third Theorem, but after two years of proofs and equations, he was about to come out the other end. He’d be famous—reasonably so. Not cover of Time famous, but well-known enough to snag one of the ever-dwindling number of tenure track jobs on offer at flagship institutions.

Just as he squeezed the handbrake in preparation for the turn onto University Avenue, a car door swung open before him, followed by the chatter of a cell-phone-holding coed. “Can you believe she wants me to pay for the dress myself? I mean—oh my God, something hit me!” Continue reading “ISSUE 13: MARCH 2017” →

LOST IN TRANSLATION WRITING CONTEST!

~ Brilliant Flash Fiction

IMG_7933Prompt: the dubash
No Entry Fee
Word limit: 500 words, excluding title
Deadline: JUNE 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: KJ Hannah Greenberg Continue reading “LOST IN TRANSLATION WRITING CONTEST!” →

ISSUE 12: JANUARY 2017

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img_5696THE COLD AFTER THE SNOW
By T.M. Spooner

The gritty scrape of metal against pavement woke Ted from a way-too-short night of sleep. Due to heavy snow he and his wife, Priscilla, had arrived late last night and it was barely eight a.m. He went to the bedroom window of his wife’s childhood home to find Priss, as he affectionately called her, shoveling the front sidewalk. She wore a red cap and scarf, recently knitted by her mother, and her green eyes squinted against the winter glare and her entire face looked hurt. It’s the kind of look that made Ted’s heart cast out to her.

Ted slipped into a pair of jeans and pulled on a wool sweater and hurried downstairs. The morning air was as cold as Priss had promised it would be on the heels of such a big snowfall.

“Need some help?” he asked. Priss didn’t hear and kept on. Continue reading “ISSUE 12: JANUARY 2017” →

THIRD ANNIVERSARY WRITING CONTEST!

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img_5254

Prompt: Overseas Travel

No Entry Fee
Word limit: 300 words, excluding title
Deadline: MARCH 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: Kirby Wright

Continue reading “THIRD ANNIVERSARY WRITING CONTEST!” →

AFTERMATH – WRITING CONTEST RESULTS

~ Brilliant Flash Fiction ~ 7 Comments

Many thanks to the 450 international writers who entered this contest—and we extend our deepest gratitude to Judge Abigail Favale for offering her time and expertise to choose the top three prizewinners.

Dr. Abigail Favale
Dr. Abigail Favale

First Prize: Erin O’Loughlin, Brother Fox
Second Prize: Susan James, Home for the Holidays
Third Prize: Anne Anthony, Bathroom Break

Judge: Dr. Abigail Favale
Theme: Aftermath

 

 

FIRST PRIZE: Brother Fox by Erin O’Loughlin

Judge’s Comments: This piece does everything a flash fiction piece should do. A benign yet beguiling beginning, zooming out to reveal a potential tragedy unfolding in real time. I read it with a slow-dawning dread that climaxes at just the right moment, the moment of the “flash.”

Brother Fox
By Erin O’Loughlin

Imagine the fox, the only spark of color in this bright landscape. All that endless powder white, broken only by a flash of red—there—then gone again. There is more life than you know, under all these layers and layers of snow.

Imagine how he cocks his head listening (the skill is not unique to the male of the species—vixens do it also). You can see he is straining his senses, listening for the soft scrabble under the snow. Then, ears high in the air, he dives headfirst into the snow, body flailing awkwardly as the front paws find purchase under all that cold white. And he will come back up with a limp little mouse in his jaws. So far this might be an acute sense of hearing, an expert dancer’s timing. But the strange thing is that nine times out of ten, a fox that dives to the north will catch his prey. A fox that leaps and dives to the south will lose it. Somehow a fox’s body is aligned to the magnetic north. In tune with it. If his quarry lies that way, the hunt will be good. An innate geo-location, gift of the wintry gods that govern small creatures. Continue reading “AFTERMATH – WRITING CONTEST RESULTS” →

ISSUE 11: SEPTEMBER 2016

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img_0991Ernesto
By Melissa Hunter Gurney

Ernesto left his wife and she forgot what flowers looked like. He used to buy her flowers on Sundays and she became so used to them she hardly saw them anymore. That’s why he left—she didn’t see him. She saw the workings of their life together. The way he woke up before her and the coffee was already made—a cup placed on the space between burners. Now, there was no cup, no coffee, no freedom from rolling over into the middle of the bed. The middle wasn’t a luxury anymore, a place to spread out. Now the middle was merely empty and she stayed on her side unless she was having one of those crying fits where she throttled herself onto what used to be his side hoping to catch his scent engraved in the fibers. When he left she didn’t change the sheets for 2 months. They were white and her body stained one whole side beige—his side was crisp and un-festered.  Continue reading “ISSUE 11: SEPTEMBER 2016” →

2017 AFTERMATH WRITING CONTEST!

~ Brilliant Flash Fiction ~ 2 Comments

img_8981Prompt: “AFTERMATH”
No Entry Fee
Word limit: 500 words, excluding title
Deadline: JANUARY 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: Dr. Abigail Favale Continue reading “2017 AFTERMATH WRITING CONTEST!” →

ISSUE 10: JUNE 2016

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IMG_5089White Flowers at Dusk
By Jay Merill

Manon is an ingénue in life’s high drama. Love has gone, she feels alone. As though on some empty stage. Luc had ended things on the day they were to run away together, the timing as perverse as that. She’d sped to meet him through the Paris streets, seen him standing by the roadside all awkwardness and tight anxiety. A part she had never seen him play before. And she’d thought, Oh but he seems like a stranger; had a premonition of what was to happen. Since that moment she’s felt feverish; hardly able to keep still. Already one week ago now but her restless mood goes on.

It is evening. She’s been walking for hours in a circle which began in the Place Maubert then spread outwards. Eventually she arrives at the suburbs. Sees the high-rises in dull unpainted grey, the dome of a church. Now a canal, some factory complex. A gypsy encampment by a railway cutting, the wrecks of old cars. All unreal as stage sets. Her pent-up agony is unabsorbed. Continue reading “ISSUE 10: JUNE 2016” →

SPECIAL DELIVERY WRITING CONTEST!

~ Brilliant Flash Fiction ~ 12 Comments

IMG_1386Prompt: “It Came in the Mail”
No Entry Fee
Word limit: 500 words, excluding title
Deadline: SEPTEMBER 15, 2016
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: Paul Beckman Continue reading “SPECIAL DELIVERY WRITING CONTEST!” →

SECOND ANNIVERSARY – WRITING CONTEST RESULTS

~ Brilliant Flash Fiction ~ 2 Comments

Many thanks to the 253 international writers who entered this contest. We would also like to thank UK reviewer Paul Gray for his invaluable assistance.

Ty Spencer Vossler
Ty Spencer Vossler

First Prize: Churn by Laura Lindsay
Second Prize: On Her Knees by Tim Dadswell
Third Prize: White by Chang Shih Yen

Judge Ty Spencer Vossler comments: “Oh … my … God! How difficult it was to place the top three finishers in this contest. Each story was unique, deeply satisfying, and well written. Congratulations to every one of the twelve finalists. Each story was amazing, and it was a privilege to have read them. Keep up the great work. The cream always rises to the top, and you are all there.”

FIRST PRIZE: Churn by Laura Lindsay

Judge’s comments: “This is such a powerful tale. This author has a finger on the pulse of what makes a story great. The idea of using a small child, and a dispossessed man to create tortured relief and retribution—brilliant! This story caused me a physical reaction as if a cold finger had touched my heart. I really loved this! At this moment I am picturing the hanging tree and the rope still suspended from the branches.”

Churn
By Laura Lindsay

Walking. The man had walked most of the night, pausing only occasionally to cough, hawk, and spit. Rain began to pelt the dirt, drops shattering like spidersacs dropped and burst open to reveal a thousand within.

At a crossroads ahead, a child played beneath an enormous oak, digging a small branch into the earth and flicking it toward the tree’s trunk. Now and then, she would spin around to flare her long dress, purple-crimson-purple. As he neared, he saw they were toadstools she was gouging and flicking. A large circle of red-spotted toadstools. Fairy-ring, he remembered from when he was young.

She was chanting something he never got to hear, for one vigorous flick made her lose her balance on the rain-slicked mossy roots below her and she landed on her backside.

“Here!” he called. “I’ve got you.” Continue reading “SECOND ANNIVERSARY – WRITING CONTEST RESULTS” →