Call for Entries! Flash 405, August 2017: “Blue” with Angels Flight • literary west

Here it is, folks, your last chance to enter your short form writing in our multi-genre Flash 405 writing contest until 2018! Offering you a chance to win cash prizes and online publication, we’ll be accepting entries in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and stage & screen for our next round from August 4–September 5, 2017, via Submittable. This round has not one but two guest judges, fellow USC alumni David Lott and Michele Raphael, co-founders of another LA-based lit mag (and salon series) Angels Flight • literary west.

Read on to get inspiration on this month’s theme straight from your guest judges:

– August 2017 Round –

The Guest Judges: David Lott and Michele Raphael

David Lott is a writer, editor and ghostwriter. Formerly a rock and business journalist, his work has appeared in a number of publications, including the Los Angeles Times, Variety, Fortune, Forbes, the L.A. Business Journal, the Hollywood Reporter online, and many others. A guitarist-songwriter between bands, he is keenly interested in preservation issues, architecture and history. He received his Master’s in Journalism from USC Annenberg and co-founded the Los Angeles-based Angels Flight • literary west magazine and salon series with fellow USC alum Michele Raphael in January 2016.

Michele Raphael is a writer and editor, specializing in digital media, entertainment, pop culture, the arts, books, lifestyle and feminism. A 2014 National Press Foundation Fellow, she has written for Quartz, Variety, Billboard, Glamour, The Huffington Post, and Los Angeles Review of Books, among many other outlets. She previously held roles as a staff writer and “Cybertainment” columnist for the Los Angeles Times; a features editor for latimes.com; and a director of publications and special projects for the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center. She received her Master’s in Journalism from USC Annenberg and co-founded the Los Angeles-based Angels Flight • literary west magazine and salon series with fellow USC alum David Lott in January 2016.

The Theme: Blue

From David and Michele:

“Blue” is about how we live our lives—from the hospitable spaces to the emotions used to express and respond to that which is around us. It’s an exploration into form, whether fluid or ethereal, sentiment or thought. It’s a framework for how we interpret ourselves and all that is outside of us. The works of “Blue” take us into who and what we are and what we will become.

NOTE: FLASH 405, AUGUST 2017: “BLUE” IS A BLIND JUDGING ROUND. (See Submittable for details on blind submissions.)

Ready to submit your short form writing? Read the full rules here and get inspiration with the past winners and themes here.

Good luck!