Flash 405 is brighter than ever for June 2025! We are thrilled to introduce our incredible guest judge, Melissa Llanes Brownlee, and share her chosen theme for this round: “Illumination.”
Flash 405 is Exposition Review’s multi-genre short-form writing competition, awarding cash prizes and online publication to the winners. Whether you write prose, poetry, or experimental flash, we want to read your short-form supernovas.
– June 2025 Round –
The Judge: Melissa Llanes Brownlee
Melissa Llanes Brownlee (she/her), a native Hawaiian writer living in Japan, has work published and forthcoming in Wigleaf, The Threepenny Review, Fractured Lit, Pithead Chapel, Cutleaf Journal, and Prairie Schooner, and honored in Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and Wigleaf Top 50. Read Hard Skin (2022) and Kahi and Lua (2022) and preorder Bitter over Sweet (2025) from Santa Fe Writers Project. She tweets @lumchanmfa and talks story at melissallanesbrownlee.com.
The Theme: Illumination
From Melissa:
“In the darkness that we are living in, I want you to shine your creative light. I want you to radiate truth. Be incandescent. Be brilliant.”
Entries will be accepted starting June 4 through July 5, 2024, and are accepted via Submittable. You can also find the full contest rules and read previous winners on our Flash 405 contest page.
Please reach out to expositionreview@gmail.com with any questions.
Good luck!
– Submissions open June 4 – July 5, 2025 –