Artwork courtesy of the multi-talented Susan Ryplewski!
Book coming this October from Big Table Publishing!
Mark your calendars!
Author: nancystohlman
Guest Judge for 9th Annual Dialogue Only Contest (2018)
The Dialogue Only Contest is back! Contest officially opens on June 1, 2018.
Enter Now:
9th Annual Dialogue Only Rules and Guidelines
The Rules: Compose a short story entirely of dialogue. You may use as many characters as you want. Your entry must be under 2000 words. Your entry does not have to follow standard rules for writing dialogue. Your entry cannot use any narration (this includes tag lines such as he said, she said, etc.). These are the only rules. Manipulate them however you see fit. Check out past winners and read our tips for writing good dialogue before submitting your entry.
The Winner: The winning entry will be the story that most effectively uses dialogue to deliver a powerful and engaging story as determined by our panel of judges.
Prizes: A minimum of $500 will be awarded, with at least $300 going to the grand prize winner. Our five finalists will also be published on the website. To date we’ve awarded over $10,000 to our contest finalists including over $2800 during our 8th Annual Contest. For every entry over 50, an additional $5 will be added to the total prize money.
2018 Prize Structure:
1st Prize: $300 minimum + $3 for every entry over 50
2nd Prize: $100 minimum + $1 for every entry over 50
3rd Prize: $50 minimum + $1 for every two entries over 50
4th Prize: $30 minimum + $1 for every 4 entries over 50
5th Prize: $20 minimum + $1 for every 4 entries over 50All prizes will be paid in USD via PayPal within 30 days of the announcement of winners.
Judges: All finalists will be chosen by the Staff of Bartleby Snopes. Five finalists will be submitted to the final round of voting. The order of winners will be determined by the staff of Bartleby Snopes and our two guest judges. All decisions regarding contest winners are final. Meet our guest judges below.
About Our Guest Judges:
Nancy Stohlman is the author of many books, including the forthcoming Madam Velvet’s Cabaret of Oddities (Oct 2018), The Vixen Scream and Other Bible Stories, The Monster Opera, and Fast Forward: The Mix Tape, which was a finalist for a 2011 Colorado Book Award. She is the creator and curator of The Fbomb Flash Fiction Reading Series, the creator of FlashNano in November, and the co-founder of Flash Fiction Retreats. Her work has been published in over 100 journals and anthologies including the Norton anthology New Micro: Very Short Stories and had been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Denver and teaches at the University of Colorado Boulder. Find out more about her at www.nancystohlman.com
Caleb Echterling’s New Year’s resolution is to write more stories in the 4th person, as soon as he figures out how to break the 5th wall into the 6th dimension. His work has appeared in Jersey Devil Press and Twisted Sister Lit Mag, among others. He tweets funny fiction using the highly original handle @CalebEchterling. You can find more of his writing at www.calebechterling.com.
Join me at the Flash Fiction Festival UK this July!
Read original article on the Festival blog here:
Sculpting Flash Fiction & Flash Books
with Nancy Stohlman
I’m so excited to be part of the second annual Flash Fiction Festival!
I’m going to be teaching two classes that both come primarily out of my 15 years as an editor. The Sculpting Flash Fiction class is my love letter to the art of editing—for me this is where the real magic happens. My own first drafts are fast and uncensored, but the sculpting of those ideas is the real dance and my favorite part. I hope to not only give some concrete tools for editing flash fiction but also to inspire an appreciate for this part of the process, which I fondly call the “puberty” of our work, where everything changes and starts to find itself.
The Flash Fiction Books class also comes out of my work as an editor. I’ve worked with authors on all sorts of books from novels and memoirs and nonfiction books, but it wasn’t until 2007 that flash fiction appeared in my world. Over the last decade flash writers have become more sophisticated in their storytelling but are often lost when they go from the individual story to the book length concept. My intention with this class is to help writers pan out and see the big picture—and embrace the creativity involved in generating a completely different artifact.
Both of these classes are usually taught as 3 or 4-week online workshops, so we’ll be compressing a lot of information into a small space in Bristol, but I hope it will flood you (as the whole weekend will!) with new ideas and a new direction.
Fun fact: I spent my early childhood in both Germany and Spain as a military brat, so travelling to Europe is always very nostalgic for me. But the last time I visited the UK it was 1981 and I was a little girl—I remember the year clearly because Charles and Diana had just gotten married and Charles and Diana memorabilia was everywhere: from Christmas ornaments and t-shirts to life-sized wax figures. It’s ironic that I’m finally returning the same year as another royal wedding!
I’m really looking forward to communing with fellow flash fiction lovers this July. Feel free to contact me ahead of time for questions about my classes or even to join me on one of my upcoming Flash Fiction Retreats with writer Kathy Fish in Costa Rica and in Italy. I can’t wait to meet so many of you in person finally! It will be like a big flashy reunion!
“Tiny House” in New Flash Fiction Review
Read Original Here
Tiny House
by Nancy Stohlman
After the rapture I decided to buy a tiny house. The realtor met me in the driveway.
That’s not a tiny house, I said. That’s a Barbie house.
You say Barbie house, I say tiny house the realtor said. Wait until you see the inside.
The realtor opened the flimsy door. The walls were made of pink vinyl with drawings of bookshelves and framed family photos and a two-dimensional television. That’s for easy collapsing the realtor said. The whole house can fold up into this suitcase—he held up a pink suitcase—which most people find extremely convenient.
The fridge door can open the realtor said, opening and closing the door several times. And your oven comes with a roast chicken already cooked.
It looks delicious I lied.
Yes, it does he agreed. The house comes with wine glasses but no actual wine, of course.
Of course.
Into the bedroom there was a walk-in closet with tiny hangers and a vinyl bed that folded down from the wall. A cat sat unmoving on the bed.
I’m allergic to cats I said.
Oh, you won’t be allergic to this one he said.
As we stood there one of the vinyl walls started to buckle and he pushed it back into place.
The best part about this house are the amenities he says, taking me outside to the carport and a pink Cadillac. The car comes with the house.
Wow, that is a perk, I say.
Yes it is. You may be asked to sell some Mary Kay skin care products, but I think you’ll find that the moisturizer is great.
Yes, I’m sure it is.
Hold on he says, checking his phone. I need to take this.
While he steps to the corner where the two vinyl walls meet, I look in the closet. A nurse’s uniform, a tennis outfit. A pink ball gown.
Good news he says, I’ve been authorized to throw in the Barbie ice cream maker—it makes real ice cream and other frozen treats.
Hmmm.
And the Barbie helicopter and landing pad.
Well I have to be honest—it wasn’t quite what I had in mind, I said. I was thinking of a tiny house made of wood or something. You know, like a tiny real house. Like they have on tv.
Oh you won’t see a house like this on tv, he agrees. And actually, you won’t find another house like this in the entire state—most of them have been recalled.
Okay, let me think about it.
Don’t take too long he says. A deal like this won’t last forever.
