Flash Fiction Contest 2015: The Winner Revealed
By Jo Eberhardt | December 13, 2015 |
Red Rain by Stefano Corso
After twelve months worth of competition, the time is finally here to announce the grand prize winner of the 2015 WU Flash Fiction Contest. Thank you again to everyone who participated in making it such a wonderful experience.
Before we jump in to the grand announcement, I’d just like to share a little story. After posting the prompt and finalist’s stories last week, we had a an email from Stefano Corso, the photographer responsible for Red Rain. He reached out to thank us for using his photo, and to compliment the authors of all the stories, which he enjoyed. As a special bonus, Stefano has donated a signed print of Red Rain for the winner. Thank you so much, Stefano. If you’d like to see more of Stefano’s work, you’ll find his website here.
Let’s take another quick look at our grand prize. All our finalists have already won a beautiful “Edit” poster from Three Figs Villa, as kindly donated by the generous Cyd Peroni, and the overall winner will receive:
- A signed copy of Dave King‘s Self-Editing for Fiction Writers
- A signed copy of David Corbett‘s The Art of Character
- A 15-page manuscript critique by bestselling author Catherine McKenzie (double spaced, normal margins, Times New Roman 12pt font)
- A one-hour Skype lesson with Scrivener expert, Rebeca Schiller
- A free, non-transferable pass to attend the next Writer Unboxed UnConference (does not include travel or hotel expenses)
- A copy of John Vorhaus‘s Poole’s Paradise
- A copy of Erika Liodice‘s Empty Arms
- A copy of Grand Central, a compilation of stories featuring Erika Robuck
- A signed print of Stefano Corso’s Red Rain
And now, announcing the winner of the 2015 Writer Unboxed Flash Fiction Contest…
Choosing a single winner in this competition was incredibly difficult. I would love to be able to award a prize pack to every finalist. But, as Connor MacLeod knew all too well, there can be only one. Nonetheless, I would like to take a moment to congratulate the runners-up.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
4th Place: Pauline Yates with Entry 10: Steps
3rd Place: Kate Magner with Entry 7: Three Courses
2nd Place: Larissa Thomson with Entry 9: “Our hotel is in the middle of a city block…”
GRAND PRIZE WINNER
Please join me in saying an absolutely HUGE congratulations to the grand prize winner:
Tonia Marie Harris
Tonia Marie Harris writes poetry and speculative fiction. Her work has been shortlisted for the Mashstories.com competition, appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, and been published in Twice Upon a Time, an anthology of retold fairy tales. She claims her muse is a cross-dressing goblin with a penchant for drinking and Kafka novels. Chocolate is her kryptonite. You can also find Tonia on Twitter.
Please enjoy Tonia’s prize-winning story, Entry 4, in is encore performance.
He says you have gone translucent and gives you a red umbrella for your birthday. It is the same shade of red as the dress you wore the first time you kissed him.
A red that reminds you of the Orient, of a girl who stole an old man’s bike. How free she was and you look down on those streets now, sun-bleached. You want to tell him how that girl seeped from your skin when he became a viper.
Here is color. Black and blue. The sick green of a thumbprint on your forearm.
Clouds scuttle across the sky like crabs and you can smell the ocean through the open window. The salt water taffy of it dries your throat with longing. The rain comes at last and he watches you leave from the kitchen window.
Around the corner, he can no longer see you. His girl with the red umbrella. The heart becomes an anvil in its chest. Heavy. Tapped by some unseen instrument. You grasp for an iron railing at the end of a familiar street.
A bike leans against the store where he sent you for cigarettes.
Some girls, you think, never stop being impetuous. They trade umbrellas for stolen bicycles.
Some girls study maps and memorize the names of streets vipers don’t know.
You lift your face in the rain and laugh. How funny it is to become more real even as the world, soaked, turns to rice paper.
Congratulations, Tonia!
Jo Eberhardt is a writer of speculative fiction, mother to two adorable boys, and lover of words and stories. She lives in rural Queensland, Australia, and spends her non-writing time worrying that the neighbor’s cows will one day succeed in sneaking into her yard and eating everything in her veggie garden.
That’s totally wicked, Tonia Marie Harris!!!!!!
Congratulations to all of the participants and winners.
Great Job miss awe-inspiring Jo Eberhardt!
Thanks, Brian. It was such a great experience. I loved reading everyone’s entries every month!
Tonia, I am so happy to see your name in FIRST PLACE. Huge congratulations to you. And to come in fourth behind Larissa and Kate has made my day. Big thanks to Jo for running this competition, and to the judges for their tireless efforts in deciding the monthly winners. Well done.
Congratulations, Tonia! Once the winning entry was decided by the judges (a ‘blind’ reading in which extra care was taken to ensure names and entries were known only by one outside assistant) and the winner’s name was revealed, I did a little happy dance for you–and I loved your entry!
Congratulations to ALL the finalists. We very much enjoyed reading your stories this year. Write on!
Congratulations Tonia.
The strength of your story is evident in its quiet subtlety and your choice of language and subject.It deserves First Place without a doubt.
Nice work.
Loved all the stories. Congrats Tonia! Your story stuck with me and melds with the picture forever. Beautiful and poignant imagery your words. So much to hold it makes the heart ache.
A special thank you to Jo Eberhardt for this wonderful opportunity and for the all her hard work in managing this year-long contest. It was a truly selfless act that benefited many writers.
Seconded! Thank you, Jo! I know this was no small task!
I have to third that. Jo is extraordinary in her commitment and love for what she does.
Thanks so much. It really was a pleasure. :)
A big congratulations to you, Tonia! Your story is so beautiful and poetic.Well deserved!
Also a big thank you to Jo, who has managed this contest all year. It’s a big job!
Congratulations to all the winners, but especially to Tonia. It was an honor to compete against you. :)
Congrats, Tonia! I am so proud of you! This story is so strong–your voice is so distinctive. Well done, my friend!
A wonderful story. Congratulations are well-deserved, Sonia! And, congratulations to the runners-up. I enjoyed all your red umbrella stories, and after a year of reading Flash Fiction, am still amazed at the worlds that can be created with 250 words.
And, may I also add my thanks to Jo. Even though I entered only once, I found the Flash Fiction both instructive and entertaining, so much so that by May I was looking forward to the first Saturday of the month.
I’m so glad you enjoyed the contest. I looked forward to the entries each month, too. There’s so much talent in this corner of the interweb!
I am still shaking, an hour after I heard I won this.
Thank you, Writer Unboxed, for holding this contest. It’s been not only fun and entertaining, but challenging and I’ve learned more about voice from this experience. Thank you, Jo, for all your work on this year-long competition. And a special thank you to the other contestants. It was, as others have said, an honor.
I’m over the moon and still unbelieving, but so happy. Again, thank you to everyone who put this together and to everyone who donated toward the prizes. I’m so full of joy and gratitude right now I could dance. In fact, I will dance. :)
I’m dancing with you, Tonia. Congratulations!
Congratulations, Tonia!!!! SO well deserved! You crafted such a powerful story with images that lingered in my mind and heart long after I’d finished reading it!!
I’m so thrilled to be included on this list here behind yourself and with Pauline and Kate – and,like Pauline, it totally made my day! Thank you so much to the judges!
Also, Jo, thank you for hosting and facilitating this contest. It was such fun to be a part of; I imagine it was an enormous amount of work, but I truly hope you and the team at WU will consider doing it again!
Tonia, great work and some vivid, under-the-surface stirrings in that small tale—big congratulations!
Jo, a big candy cane (peppermint, of course, none of these new-fangled chipotle flavors) to you for all your hard work. Oh, wait—do they have candy canes in Australia? And congrats to all the other word-wranglers who tried their hands at this flashy fiction stuff.
They do indeed have candy canes on this side of the world. Thank you. :)
Congratulations on your well-deserved win, Tonia! You’re a poetess indeed.
I enjoyed reading all the entries. Thank you, composers.
And Jo, you are a peach. I have an idea how much time and effort this contest required, but you made it look easy.