Life is hard. Hope is good. To honor both of these facts of life, Write Action is sponsoring a Flash Fiction writing contest.
The winning entry will be a work of fiction no longer than 820 words. Writers can choose which of three possible themes are most inspiring.
1) “Planting seeds the day before the end” OR
2) “Hope in the dark” OR
3) “Fixing what can be fixed”
The piece should have a title, but no name or address. The name and address of the author, as well as the title should be submitted on a separate piece of paper. Deadline is September 25th.
Rolf Parker-Houghton will be this year’s judge.
His favorite flash fiction writers include Mark Twain ( See for example;http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/Telephonic.html ), Virginia Woolf ( see for example, http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/haunths.html ) and Fielding Dawson ( see for example http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/vrtclfld.html ) as well as Terry Bison, ( http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html )
The best way to peer into the mind of the judge to glimpse what he is looks for in a Flash Fiction piece is to read all of the above, very short stories. All of these excellent stories are composed with 820 words or less.
First submission is free, subsequent submissions require a $10 fee each, for up to three entries total.
Prizes: 1st: $100, 2nd $50, 3rd $25. In addition the first prize winner is invited to read at Write Action’s Literary Festival Spotlight Reading.
Send one copy of your story without any identifying information, along with a cover letter giving title, author’s name, address, email address, and phone number to Write Action Contest, P.O. Box 822, Brattleboro, Vt 05301
Submissions may be sent as an email attachment, one document including cover letter and multiple submissions if applicable, to: info@writeaction.org.Please place Flash Fiction Contest on the subject line.
Good Luck!
Sept 25
September 25 will be here in no time.
I am hoping that we receive many, many entries. It is amazing what one can do with 820 words.
(Next year, I think that we should cut it back to 802 words.)
We have started getting submissions
I have not started reading the submissions, but we have started getting them. I would like to have many to compare.
Timely Theme
I really like the theme you guys came up with this year, i.e., variations on hope in the dark. It’s tempting, even. 😉
Glad you like it
and we hope you are tempted to write a story.
A Haunted House, by Virginia Woolf
A Haunted House
by Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)
Word Count: 710
Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting. From room to room they went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure–a ghostly couple.
“Here we left it,” she said. And he added, “Oh, but here tool” “It’s upstairs,” she murmured. “And in the garden,” he whispered. “Quietly,” they said, “or we shall wake them.”
But it wasn’t that you woke us. Oh, no. “They’re looking for it; they’re drawing the curtain,” one might say, and so read on a page or two. “Now they’ve found it,’ one would be certain, stopping the pencil on the margin. And then, tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself, the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm. “What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?” My hands were empty. “Perhaps its upstairs then?” The apples were in the loft. And so down again, the garden still as ever, only the book had slipped into the grass.
But they had found it in the drawing room. Not that one could ever see them. The windowpanes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass. If they moved in the drawing room, the apple only turned its yellow side. Yet, the moment after, if the door was opened, spread about the floor, hung upon the walls, pendant from the ceiling–what? My hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the carpet; from the deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its bubble of sound. “Safe, safe, safe” the pulse of the house beat softly. “The treasure buried; the room . . .” the pulse stopped short. Oh, was that the buried treasure?
A moment later the light had faded. Out in the garden then? But the trees spun darkness for a wandering beam of sun. So fine, so rare, coolly sunk beneath the surface the beam I sought always burned behind the glass. Death was the glass; death was between us, coming to the woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the windows; the rooms were darkened. He left it, left her, went North, went East, saw the stars turned in the Southern sky; sought the house, found it dropped beneath the Downs. “Safe, safe, safe,” the pulse of the house beat gladly. ‘The Treasure yours.”
The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain. But the beam of the lamp falls straight from the window. The candle burns stiff and still. Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not to wake us, the ghostly couple seek their joy.
“Here we slept,” she says. And he adds, “Kisses without number.” “Waking in the morning–” “Silver between the trees–” “Upstairs–” ‘In the garden–” “When summer came–” ‘In winter snowtime–” “The doors go shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse of a heart.
Nearer they come, cease at the doorway. The wind falls, the rain slides silver down the glass. Our eyes darken, we hear no steps beside us; we see no lady spread her ghostly cloak. His hands shield the lantern. “Look,” he breathes. “Sound asleep. Love upon their lips.”
Stooping, holding their silver lamp above us, long they look and deeply. Long they pause. The wind drives straightly; the flame stoops slightly. Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall, and, meeting, stain the faces bent; the faces pondering; the faces that search the sleepers and seek their hidden joy.
“Safe, safe, safe,” the heart of the house beats proudly. “Long years–” he sighs. “Again you found me.” “Here,” she murmurs, “sleeping; in the garden reading; laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here we left our treasure–” Stooping, their light lifts the lids upon my eyes. “Safe! safe! safe!” the pulse of the house beats wildly. Waking, I cry “Oh, is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart.”
"They're made out of meat" by Terry Bisson
THEY’RE MADE OUT OF MEAT by Terry Bisson
http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html
“They’re made out of meat.”
“Meat?”
“Meat. They’re made out of meat.”
“Meat?”
“There’s no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They’re completely meat.”
“That’s impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?”
“They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don’t come from them. The signals come from machines.”
“So who made the machines? That’s who we want to contact.”
“They made the machines. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Meat made the machines.”
“That’s ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You’re asking me to believe in sentient meat.”
“I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they’re made out of meat.”
“Maybe they’re like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage.”
“Nope. They’re born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn’t take long. Do you have any idea what’s the life span of meat?”
“Spare me. Okay, maybe they’re only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside.”
“Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They’re meat all the way through.”
“No brain?”
“Oh, there’s a brain all right. It’s just that the brain is made out of meat! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“So … what does the thinking?”
“You’re not understanding, are you? You’re refusing to deal with what I’m telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat.”
“Thinking meat! You’re asking me to believe in thinking meat!”
“Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?”
“Omigod. You’re serious then. They’re made out of meat.”
“Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they’ve been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years.”
“Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?”
“First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual.”
“We’re supposed to talk to meat.”
“That’s the idea. That’s the message they’re sending out by radio. ‘Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.’ That sort of thing.”
“They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?”
“Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat.”
“I thought you just told me they used radio.”
“They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat.”
“Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?”
“Officially or unofficially?”
“Both.”
“Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing.”
“I was hoping you would say that.”
“It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?”
“I agree one hundred percent. What’s there to say? ‘Hello, meat. How’s it going?’ But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?”
“Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can’t live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact.”
“So we just pretend there’s no one home in the Universe.”
“That’s it.”
“Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You’re sure they won’t remember?”
“They’ll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we’re just a dream to them.”
“A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat’s dream.”
“And we marked the entire sector unoccupied.”
“Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?”
“Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again.”
“They always come around.”
“And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone …”
Other shorts
Do you enjoy Kawabata’s Palm of the Hand stories?
From Kawabata's Palm of the Hand stories
This beaut of a story may not be about Hope, but it is an amazing use of a mere 806 words.
“The Pomegranate”
In the high wind that night the pomegranate tree was stripped of its leaves.
The leaves lay in a circle around the base.
Kimiko was startled to see it naked in the morning, and wondered at the flawlessness of the circle. She would have expected the wind to disturb it.
There was a pomegranate, a very fine one, left behind in the tree.
“Just come and look at it,” she called to her mother.
“I had forgotten.” Her mother glanced up at the tree and went back to the kitchen.
It made Kimiko think of their loneliness. The pomegranate over the veranda too seemed lonely and forgotten.
Two weeks or so before, her seven-year-old nephew had come visiting, and had noticed the pomegranates immediately. He had scrambled up into the tree. Kimiko had felt that she was in the presence of life.
“There is a big one up above,” she called from the veranda.
“But if I pick it I can’t get back down.”
It was true. To climb down with pomegranates in both hands would not be easy. Kimiko smiled. He was a dear.
Until he had come the house had forgotten the pomegranate. And until now they had forgotten it again.
Then the fruit had been hidden in the leaves. Now it stood clear against the sky.
There was strength in the fruit and in the circle of leaves at the base. Kimiko went and knocked it down with a bamboo pole.
It was so ripe that the seeds seemed to force it open. They glistened in the sunlight when she laid it on the veranda, and the sun seemed to go on through them.
She felt somehow apologetic.
Upstairs with her sewing at about ten, she heard Keikichi’s voice. Though the door was unlocked, he seemed to have come around to the garden. There was urgency in his voice.
“Kimiko, Kimiko!” her mother called. “Keikichi is here.”
Kimiko had let her needle come unthreaded. She pushed it back into the pincushion.
“Kimiko had been saying how she wanted to see you again before you leave.” Keikichi was going to war. “But we could hardly go and see you without an invitation, and you didn’t come. It was good of you to come today.”
She asked him to stay for lunch, but he was in a hurry.
“Well, do at least have a pomegranate. We grew it ourselves.” She called up to Kimiko again.
He greeted her with his eyes, as if it were more than he could do to wait for her to come down. She stopped on the stairs.
Something warm seemed to come into his eyes, and the pomegranate fell from his hand.
They looked at each other and smiled.
When she realized that she was smiling, she flushed. Keikichi got up from the veranda.
“Take care of yourself, Kimiko.”
“And you.”
He had already turned away and was saying goodbye to her.
Kimiko looked on at the garden gate after he had left.
“He was in such a hurry,” said her mother. “And it’s such a fine pomegranate.”
He had left it on the veranda.
Apparently he had dropped it as that warm something came into his eyes and he was beginning to open it. He had not broken it completely in two. It lay with the seeds up.
Her mother took it to the kitchen and washed it, and handed it to Kimiko.
Kimiko frowned and pulled back, and then, flushing once more, took it in with some confusion.
Keikichi would seem to have taken a few seeds from the edge.
With her mother watching her, it would have been strange for Kimiko to refuse to eat. She bit nonchalantly into it. The sourness filled her mouth. She felt a kind of sad happiness, as if it were penetrating far down inside her.
Uninterested, her mother had stood up.
She went to a mirror and sat down. “Just look at my hair, will you. I said goodbye to Keikichi with this wild mop of hair.”
Kimiko could hear the comb.
“When your father died,” her mother said softly, “I was afraid to comb my hair. When I combed my hair I would forget what I was doing. When I came to myself it would be as if your father were waiting for me to finish.”
Kimiko remembered her mother’s habit of eating what her father had left on his plate.
She felt something pull at her, a happiness that made her want to weep.
Her mother had probably given her the pomegranate because of a reluctance to throw it away. Only because of that. It had become a habit not to throw things away.
Alone with her private happiness, Kimiko felt shy before her mother.
She thought that it had been a better farewell than Keikichi could have been aware of, and that she could wait any length of time for him to come back.
She looked toward her mother. The sun was falling on the paper doors beyond which she sat at her mirror.
She was somehow afraid to bite into the pomegranate on her knee.
Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker, in Contemporary Japanese Literature, edited by Howard Hibbett (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1977), 293-295.
Thanks Chris, Those Stories
Thanks for mentioning them.
What I read was gentle and sincere, and complex while also simple. They were masterful.
Another amazing, and very, very short story
I am not a christian, but I felt this short story which includes reminiscences of Christmas was beautifully written. It is very different from the other stories that I have cited, but like them offers an example of what can be done with less than 820 words, and in this case, a lot of semi-colons.
Vertical Fields
by Fielding Dawson
Word Count: 762
In Memory of C.D.K._
On Christmas Eve around 1942, when I was a boy, after having the traditional punch and cookies and after having sung ’round the fire (my Aunty Mary at the piano), I, with my sister, my mother and my aunts, and Emma Jackman and her son, got into Emma Jackman’s car and drove down Taylor Avenue to church for the midnight service: I looked out the rear window at passing houses, doors adorned with holly wreaths, I looked into windows–catching glimpses of tinseled trees and men and women and children moving through rooms into my mind and memory forever; the car slowed to the corner stop at Jefferson and the action seemed like a greater action, of Christmas in a cold damp Missouri night; patches of snow lay on the ground and in the car the dark figures of my mother and sister and aunts talked around me and the car began to move along in an air of sky–at bottom dark and cold, seeming to transform the car, my face, and hands, pressed close to the glass as I saw my friends with their parents in their cars take the left turn onto Argonne Drive and look for a parking place near the church; Emma Jackman followed, and I watched heavily coated figures make their exists, and move down the winter walk toward the jewel-like glittering church–up the steps into the full light of the doorway–fathers and sons and mothers and daughters I knew and understood them all, I gazed at them with blazing eyes: light poured from open doors; high arched stained glass windows cast downward slanting shafts of color across the cold churchyard, and the organ boomed inside while we parked and got out and walked along the sidewalk, I holding my mother’s right arm, my sister held mother’s left arm (mother letting us a little support her)–down the sidewalk to join others at the warmly good noisy familiar threshold: spirits swirled up the steps into the church and Billy Berthold handed out the Christmas leaflets, I gripped mine. I looked at the dominant blue illustration of Birth in white and yellow rays moving outward to form a circle around the Christ child’s skull as Mary downward gazed; Joseph; kneeling wisemen downward gazed; I gazed down the long center aisle at the rising altar’s dazzling cross and we moved down the aisle, slipped in front of Mr. and Mrs. Sloan and my buddy Lorry, Mr. and Mrs. Dart and my buddy Charles, Mr. and Mrs. Reid and my buddy Gene and his brother Ed–we then knelt away the conscious realization of our selves among music in the House of the Lord, I conscious of a voice that, slowly, coarsely, wandered–the I (eye) in see, hear me (I), we were on our feet singing, and the choir swept down the aisle, their familiar faces moving side to side as collective voices raised in anthem I held the hymnbook open and my mother and sister and I sang in celebration of God the crowded and brightly decorated–pine boughs and holly wreaths hung around the walls with candles high on each pew, I glanced at the gleaming cross–my spine arched, and far beyond the church, beyond the front door, beyond the land of the last sentence in James Joyce’s _Dubliners_ a distant door seemed to open away beyond pungent green of pine gathered around rich red hollyberry clusters, red velvet, white-yellow center of candle flame, white of silk, gold of tassle, and gleaming glittering eternally cubistic gold cross and darkness of wooden beams powerfully sweeping upward–apex for the strange smoky penuma that so exhilarated me, I who smiled and reeled in a vast cold cold gaze down at myself listening to Charles Kean’s Christian existentialist sermon in time before the plate was passed and the choir had singing, gone, and we were outside, I standing by my sister; my mother and aunts were shaking Charles’s hand, I shook that solid hand warmly, and I walked down the steps, my mother and sister and aunts again, again, once again it rushed through me taking my breath, my spine arched toward trees and streets walking slowly breathing deep I moved down the sidewalk, eyes crystallizing streets yards houses and all lives within; my perception forked upward through treetops into the vertical fields of space, and a moment later, in the crowded back seat of the car, as Emma Jackman started the engine, I breathed vapor on the rear window, and with my finger, I signed my name.
Entries continue to roll in
We have continued to receive entries, and I am looking forward to reading them all.
The deadline for submissions is September 25.
Details can be seen at http://www.writeaction.org
A Little more explanation of what we are looking for
The Commons printed a letter of mine, explaining the contest and how it relates to the word, “Pith”. You can read it at this link to the Commons.
http://www.commonsnews.org/site/site05/story.php?articleno=10589&page=1#.VBHZQ_ldXh4
The short version is, there is so much lacking in the Flash Fiction story that is merely pithy, and so much that is good and human, in the best sense of that word in the best of Flash Fiction. Some Flash Fiction stories rise above a tendency that the genre has towards mere wittiness, or surprise endings. Those are what we hope to read, and what we want to foster with this contest.
Keep sending them our way! You have two weeks left to get in your entry this year.
Today is the 24th. The Deadline is the 25th.
So, if you want to submit a story to WriteAction.org, you have, as of the time of this post, about 41 hours to do so.
READING: FLASH FICTION FIRST FRIDAY OF NOV. AT THE BLUE DOT
Write Action will host a Flash Fiction reading on the first Friday in December at 7 PM, at the Blue Dot Studio, in the Hooker Dunham Building.
“Hope” was the theme of the contest, and the people who submitted stories had many different takes on that general idea.
The chosen winners of the contest will be our first readers of the evening, followed by some of the other entrants.
If you entered a story in this year’s contest, and you would like to read in this event, please contact Rolf Parker-Houghton at 802 505 7653 or send an email to
booksfromvermont@yahoo.com
Rolf