Hello 2024, and welcome back to another year of Flash 405! Our first contest, with the theme “Host,” will be judged by Sam Burt, Fiction Co-Editor for our “POP!” issue.
Flash 405 is Exposition Review’s multi-genre short-form writing competition, awarding cash prizes and online publication to the winners. Submissions will open on February 4, 2024, via Submittable.
Before submitting, we encourage you to check out the full prompt below. You can also see further guidelines and see past contest winners by visiting our Flash 405 page.
Learn more about our first contest of 2024 below:
– February 2024 Round –
The Judge: Sam Burt
Sam Burt is a freelance editor and proofreader living in London. Since completing a master’s in creative writing, he has been a bookseller for Phlox Books and Waterstones, freelanced with industry-leading publishers, and set up the East London Indie Book Club to champion innovative writing from small presses. He has edited fiction and nonfiction for publications including F(r)iction, An Inkling, Bandit Fiction, and Beyond Words. His own fiction has appeared in Popshot Quarterly; Ink, Sweat and Tears; and Here Comes Everyone (forthcoming), and his essays/reviews in The London Magazine, 3:AM, and Book Riot. Off the page, he can usually be found baking, volunteering at a local LGBTQ+ charity, and missing shuttlecocks.
The Theme: Host
From Sam:
“A host might be many things. The presenter of a radio show or beauty pageant. A geographical entity. A biological organism harbouring another—parasitical?—lifeform. The person who owns the home you’re standing in. But at its core, to host is to hold, to accommodate, to make space for, to include.
I’m excited to read stories that explore what it means to be a good host—or a bad one. Who makes the rules, and what are the consequences if they’re broken? What happens when the expectations of a host and their guest are misaligned? How does the act of hosting alter the host, and the hosted? Does hosting imply displacement—is it about exclusion as well as inclusion—and if so, what gets lost along the way?”
Ready to start writing? Please reach out to expositionreview@gmail.com with any questions.
Good luck!
– Submissions open February 4–March 5, 2024 –
Photo credit: Andrew Neel