We are so pleased to announce the winners of the last Flash 405 contest of 2016! In early August, our judge and Expo editor Annlee Ellingson posed the theme “Connect,” asking writers to consider and explore this idea in all it’s various iterations (you can read more here!), and the pieces we received did not disappoint.
The entries for this round spanned a wide array of unique interpretations of the theme, but the winning entries made connections that left us both surprised and submerged into different perspectives. We’ll let Annlee explain in her own words:
Judge’s Comments:
Amid all the words about connections in this round of Flash 405—about layovers between connecting flights and fists connecting with faces and would-be lovers connecting via social media (sometimes all in one piece!)—an impulse emerged among several of the entrants to reach through the page and cleave to the reader, even more so than usual, with less commonly used points of view. In the case of our winner Brothers, it’s the first-person plural, and in several of my favorites it’s the second person, speaking directly to the reader with the pronoun “you.” The trend was unexpected and gratifying evidence that the theme spoke to these wordsmiths’ best instincts and reflects what we’re all—as writers, editors, readers—hoping to discover in the written word.
– Annlee Ellingson
Congratulations to the winners! Read their work (and individual notes from Annlee) below:
1st Place:
Brothers by Mary Wysong-Haeri (Fiction)
2nd Place:
Lines by Lisa Renee (Poetry)
Honorable Mention:
As the Ceiling Flew Away by Genelle Chaconas (Fiction)
Ascent, Descent by Shane Cubis (Fiction)
Wrong Number by John Duhram (Fiction)
Ten Cent Beer Night by Matthew Fiander (Fiction)
Mermaid by Joyce Li (Nonfiction)
We hope you enjoyed the final selection of Flash 405 winners of 2016! We will reopen our short form writing competition in early 2017, but in the meantime, we are now accepting submissions (including flash) for our annual issue, which will be published in spring 2017.
Click here to get more information about submitting to Exposition Review Vol. II: “Surface,” which will accept submissions through December 15, 2016.