FEBRUARY FLASH FICTION CONTEST WINNERS
This Month’s Theme — HORROR HAIKUS
(Stories Listed In Alphabetical Order by Author’s Last Name):
NIGHTMARE HAIKU #16 by Darryl Dawson
Silent graveyard steps.
Wind, disguised as voices. We
never rest in peace.
(untitled) by Brian Rosenberger
penny on train tracks
distant lover checks his watch
train on schedule
KEEPSAKE by Sandy Shelonchik
The ocean is blue
Like the color of your eyes
That hang in my room
HONORABLE MENTION:
(Stories Listed In Alphabetical Order by Author’s Last Name):
WIND BLOWN by Jill Bauman
Wind carried the words
Ears caught them all, then tossed them
Into gaping mouth
TRAVELER by Cecilia Dockins
Down the road of Lost:
between dead trees and still wind
I hear the wolf’s howl.
THE TRUNK by Elizabeth Massie
In an attic trunk
I lie, chained for ninety years.
Can you not sense me?
CRIMSON END by Rachel
Red seeps through my lids
Dreams of burning creep to life
Waking me for death
OFFICIAL RULES FOR APRIL 2016:
With the opening act of Spring upon us, we thought we’d take a look at the other end of the life cycle.
This month’s theme — THE AFTERLIFE
It is THE question human beings have always asked, yet will never be answered — what happens to us after we die? Well, here’s your chance to chime in, provided you can do so in 100 WORDS OR LESS. All religions, myths, and beliefs (including you own) are fair game, which means stories of heaven, hell, purgatory, reincarnation, the River Styx, the Pearly Gates, etc. all meet our criteria.
Submission deadline is May 6th, 2016
Please submit your story via the form below or simply e-mail us directly by CLICKING HERE.
ANNOUNCING AN EXCITING PARTNERSHIP
FROM LAMPLIGHT MAGAZINE & NECON E-BOOKS
We here at Necon E-Books have always been huge fans of Lamplight Magazine. As it turns out, the feeling was mutual … and by working together, we can provide our writers even greater exposure. Lamplight’s Editor Jacob Haddon has joined our panel of judges, and all WINNING and HONORABLE MENTION pieces will be published both here on our site and in Lamplight’s Monthly Newsletter (plus in our end-of-year Anthology as well). That’s right, this contest just became a double-market; how much more bang can you get for your 100-word-submission buck?
Necon E-Books reserves the right to republish all WINNING and HONORABLE MENTION pieces (i.e. all those published on our web site) in our annual Flash Fiction Anthology. Otherwise, all rights revert to the authors as soon as the winners are announced each month.
The first week of each month, we’ll announce as many Winners and Honorable Mentions as we see fit and publish their work on this site. Then, at year’s end, we’ll collect all the pieces previously published on our site into the annual NECON E-BOOKS FLASH FICTION ANTHOLOGY. In addition to having their work published online, all included authors will receive a free copy of the anthology.
A Few Other Rules & Reminders …
• Authors are now free to submit however many stories they want. However, only your top voted submission will be considered each month. Part of the purpose of this contest is to give exposure to as many writers as possible, and we feel limiting authors to one publication per month is a fair way to assure that. Please submit work either directly in an email or attached as a text, RTF or MS Word document.
• We sometimes receive stories that are rife with small but fundamental errors (such as typos and grammatical mistakes). Please consider this a gentle reminder from the judges to all of our writers — your competition is quite fierce, and careless, unprofessional mistakes in your manuscript may be held against you. In other words, please take the time to proofread and spell check your stories; after all, they’re only 100 words long! As Charles L. Grant used to say, if a writer doesn’t bother to treat his own submission professionally, why should the publisher?
