Call for Entries: Flash 405, February 2024: “Host”

Exposition Review

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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:

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Expo Recommends: “POP!”

Exposition Review

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What should I read next? It’s a question we all ask ourselves time and again. Even with the countless stories, poems, essays, scripts, art, comics, and films to discover, to fall in love with or to detest, it can be a challenge to choose. Enter Expo Recommends, a curated selection of readings brought to you by the editors of Exposition Review.

Our 2024 annual issue submission season is in high gear. For Vol. IX, our editors chose the theme “POP!,” seeking that surprise inherent in a “POP!” and the conflict that arises from it, characters and ideas that burst off the page, in language that crackles and snaps.

Heading into our last few weeks of submissions (our deadline is December 31), we want to give you—our readers, writers, submitters, and community—an extra dose of inspiration. So whether you read Expo Recommends for the recommendations or you want to get a leg up on the competition with a behind-the-scenes look into the preferences of our editorial team, we hope you’ll enjoy our “POP!”-inspired Expo Recommends. And when you buy your copies of the books from our Bookshop, Exposition Review gets a cut!

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Flash 405, August 2023: “Secret” Winners

Exposition Review

The winners of “Secret” are secret no more!

We ended this season of Flash 405 with a flourish—a final round judged by Vol. VIII: “Lines” contributor L Mari Harris. Her call for submissions asked for secrets—positive, negative, happy, peaceful, sad, angry. No topic was taboo, but each word had to count.

We received many wonderful entries, and are excited to reveal the winners of “Secret”:

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Call for Submissions for Vol. IX: “POP!”

Exposition Review

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Exposition Review is delighted to unveil the theme for our ninth annual issue: “POP!”

Submissions will be open September 15–December 31, 2023. We accept work in all forms: fiction, flash fiction, nonfiction, poetry, scripts for stage & screen, experimental narratives, visual art, film, and comics.

Read more about the theme and how to submit:

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Flash 405, June 2023: “Crescendo” Winners

Exposition Review

For our June Flash 405 contest, judge Shze-Hui Tjoa sought writing “that isn’t afraid of its own intensity, of being too much,” and “language that swells with momentum and power.” Spanning fiction to nonfiction to the stage, her selections all crest unexpectedly and pack a powerful punch.

Learn more about Shze-Hui’s selections and read the winning pieces below:

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Call for Entries: Flash 405, August 2023: “Secret”

Exposition Review

We’re thrilled to round out our 2023 Flash 405 season with our next contest, “Secret,” guest-judged by the wonderful L Mari Harris!

L Mari’s own flash was featured in our latest issue, the subject of which—“Our Mothers”—knows a thing or two about secrets.

Flash 405 is Exposition Review’s multi-genre short-form writing competition, awarding cash prizes and online publication to the winners. Submissions will be open August 4–September 5, 2023.

Learn more about our final contest of 2023 below:

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Flash 405, April 2023: “Flight” Winners

Exposition Review

For our April Flash 405 contest, guest judge Lucy Zhang wanted to read about flight, asking, “How do we fly, but also how do we float, fall, or glide?” In the winning pieces, imagery around her theme—birds, planes, space—soared in unexpected ways, with poignancy and whimsy.

Learn more about Lucy’s selections and read the winning pieces below:

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Exposition Review, Vol. VIII: “Lines” Launch

Exposition Review

Exposition Review is thrilled to share our latest issue, Vol. VIII: “Lines”!

This edition explores connection. Between parents and children, artists and fans, friends and lovers, robots and humans. To one’s city and across borders. Via humor and through grief. The lines within this issue are both physical and metaphorical, and throughout—like on our cover specially designed by Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin—illustrate the moments when art intersects reality, when we scrawl over the way the world appears and redesign what is into what could be.

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Call for Entries: Flash 405, June 2023: “Crescendo”

Exposition Review

Exposition Review is pleased to share the theme for our June 2023 Flash 405 contest judged by our own Fiction Co-Editor Shze-Hui Tjoa: “Crescendo.”

Flash 405 is Exposition Review’s multi-genre short-form writing competition, awarding cash prizes and online publication to the winners. Submissions will be open June 4–July 5, 2023.

Read on to learn more about Shze-Hui and her prompt:

Continue reading “Call for Entries: Flash 405, June 2023: “Crescendo”” →