Our next Flash 405 contest is almost here! This round will be judged by our own Associate Editor Dave Gregory.
Flash 405 is Exposition Review‘s multi-genre short form writing competition, awarding cash prizes and online publication to the winners. You can read the full rules and find past contests and winners here. Entries for our next round will be accepted from June 4–July 5, 2020 via Submittable.
Read on to learn more about this month’s judge and theme:
– June 2020 Round –
The Judge: Dave Gregory
Dave Gregory spent two decades travelling the world as a backpacker, sailor, and tour manager for Princess Cruises, then retired to southern Ontario to marry the woman he dated in high school. He’s an Associate Editor for Exposition Review and a Pushcart-nominated author whose work has appeared in dozens of literary journals including Typehouse, Sky Island Journal, Firewords, Ellipsis Zine, Fictive Dream, Pulp Literature, & The /tƐmz/ Review. He was also a winner at the 2019 Eden Mills Writers’ Festival, Read at the Fringe event. Follow him on Twitter @CourtlandAvenue.
The Theme: International Travel
From Dave:
“Some say, ‘Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.’ They’re wrong—a book is one, an education is another—but in this time when international travel has come to a standstill and many are sheltering in place, I want to read a story set in an overwater bungalow in Bora Bora, or a campsite in the shadow of Uluru; a nonfiction tale about haggling with vendors in Machu Picchu and Istanbul, or that time you got lost in the streets of Taipei; a poem you were inspired to write after visiting the Sistine chapel, or getting a particularly bad sunburn in St. Lucia; a one-act play about a youth hostel fire in Vietnam; or a hybrid photo-video essay about your trip to a Guatemalan orphanage, or even the screenshots of texts you sent your mom when you’d run out of money in Sicily or Thailand.
Whether you travel by bus, train, plane, or boat—or from the comfort of your armchair—take me to a foreign land, I want to see the world through your words.”
Update June 5, 2020: “I proposed the theme wanting to read about the lifestyle from which I’d retired. While finalizing the details, the scope broadened to include a world upended, and an industry decimated, by a global pandemic. Current events have further expanded the theme to encompass a range of social issues: the immigrant experience, the refugee crisis, the slave trade and African diaspora, colonialism, border walls and their effect on communities straddling an arbitrary boundary, racial profiling at airports and checkpoints, or travel bans.
The “International Travel” theme has wide latitude for interpretation. It can be current or historical, and can involve any creative interpretation of the ‘International Travel’ theme.”
Update to Entry Fees & Donations to Social Justice Movements
40% of all entry fees will be dedicated to a donation fund or mutual fund in support of Black lives and Black writers. (The other 60% goes directly to the contest winners.) Exposition Review will also match funds.
For anyone who donates $5 to a charity in support of social justice, we will waive the $5 entry fee and they can submit to Flash 405 for free until July 5, 2020. Please email us your donation receipt and entry: expositionreview@gmail.com. No need to submit through Submittable.
Ready to starting writing? We accept short form narratives in the genres of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, stage & screen, and experimental. Please note that all submissions are blind.
Good luck!
