2021 Winners:
Night Vision by Anna Gates Ha
(Don't) Remember Me Like This by Cyn Nooney
Girl on the Bike, Boy in Dayton by John Bensink
Girl in the Snow by Wendy Oleson
I Chose the Pencil by Richard Schwarzenberger
Sweets from Strangers by Tian Yi
We Don't Boil Babies by Alicia Dekker
Salt City Runaway by Gillian O'Shaughnessy
In Andromeda by Jonathan Cardew
Evening Clay by Josh Wagner
As Solid as an Ashtray and Emits More Smoke by Edie Meade
Grandma Kim at Forty-Five by Chloe Seim
Muscle and Might by Bob Thurber
Mi Porvenir by A.J. Rodriguez
Rabbit, Rabbit by Sally Toner
Account for What You Have by Alexandra Blogier
Marriage Market by Susan Wigmore
If This Were Tracy Island by Marissa Hoffmann
Oil Drills by Lauren Weber
Thursday Night at Lucky's Liquor Store by Shareen Murayama
Shortlist:
Henrietta by Kim Magowan
Wild Jill’s Bangin’ Karaoke Bar by Kayla Upadhyaya
Animals by Catherine Bush
Love, Exactly by Nikki HoSang
Buen Provecho by Amina Gautier
Waste Meadow by Greg Schutz
Harvest Moon by Kristin Saetveit
Little Tin Box by Jessica Daugherty
Make Dust Our Paper by Bill Merklee
Rustic Haircuts for Returning Ghosts by Nicole Tsuno
Almost Like a Heart by Jason Jackson
Freshman by Allison Renner
Blueberries by Adrienne Barrios
Lace in Your Hands by Lydia Copeland Gwyn
We invite writers to submit to the Fractured Lit Anthology 1 Prize from February 19 to April 19, 2021. Guest judge Kathy Fish will choose 20 prize winners from a shortlist. We're excited to offer the 20 winners of this prize $250, publication, and 5 contributor copies of the printed anthology. All entries will be considered for publication.
Kathy Fish has published five collections of short fiction, most recently Wild Life: Collected Works from 2003-2018. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, Copper Nickel, Washington Square Review, and numerous other journals, textbooks, and anthologies. Fish’s “Collective Nouns for Humans in the Wild,” was selected for Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018 and the current edition of The Norton Reader. Her newsletter, The Art of Flash Fiction, provides monthly craft articles and writing prompts and is free to all. Subscribe here: https://artofflashfiction.substack.com.
Fractured Lit is looking for flash fiction that lingers long past the first reading. We're searching for flash that investigates the mysteries of being human, the sorrow, and the joy of connecting to the diverse population around us. We want the stories that explode vertically, the flash that leaves the conventional and the clichéd far behind. Fractured Lit is a flash fiction–centered place for all writers of any background and experience.
Good luck and happy writing!
- Your $20 reading fee allows up to two stories of 1,000 words or fewer each per entry. If submitting two stories, please put them both in a SINGLE document.
- We allow multiple submissions. Each set of two flash stories should have a separate submission accompanied by a reading fee.
- Flash Fiction only. 1,000 word count per individual story is the maximum amount of words.
- We only consider unpublished work for contests. We do not review reprints, including self-published work.
- Simultaneous submissions are okay. Please notify us and withdraw your entry if you find another home for your writing.
- All entries will also be considered for publication in Fractured Lit.
- Double-space your submission and use Times New Roman 12 pt font.
- Please include a brief cover letter with your publication history (if applicable).
- International submissions are welcome, but we only read work in English.
- We do not read blind. The judge will read anonymously from the shortlist.