Friday 2 February 2024

2023 Best Small Fictions Nominations

 

Every year we are more and more impressed with the quality of submissions and the wide variety of stories that come through our queue -- no mean feat when authors only have a weekend to write, polish and submit their work.  This year, we've decided to start nominating work for awards.  It's a nice chance for us to honour some of our authors, and with luck, introduce some of our Write-In stories to wider audiences.

Congratulations to the following stories and authors, whom we've nominated for this year's Best Small Fictions:

2023 Best Microfictions Nominations

Every year we are more and more impressed with the quality of submissions and the wide variety of stories that come through our queue -- no mean feat when authors only have a weekend to write, polish and submit their work.  This year, we've decided to start nominating work for awards.  It's a nice chance for us to honour some of our authors, and with luck, introduce some of our Write-In stories to wider audiences.

Congratulations to the following stories and authors, whom we've nominated for this year's Best Microfictions anthology:

Friday 1 December 2023

2023 Pushcart Prize Nominations

Every year we are more and more impressed with the quality of submissions and the wide variety of stories that come through our queue -- no mean feat when authors only have a weekend to write, polish and submit their work.  This year, we've decided to start nominating work for awards.  It's a nice chance for us to honour some of our authors, and with luck, introduce some of our Write-In stories to wider audiences.

Our first nominations are in!  Congratulations to the following stories and authors, whom we've nominated for this year's Pushcart Prize:

Monday 26 June 2023

'There's Always Time For One More' by Laura Cooney

You need to understand that there are endings, and then there are endings.

So, we reach the final curtain, sure, but can you hear any singing? Nope! Here we go, writing the last one! The real last, last one. May this sweet ending last forever and ever… and ever more. 

'The Encore' by Chris Albin

I’m a masochist. I could be anywhere in time and space, yet I come back here to this moment. I know it by heart now.

There’s the Kid at the front of the crowd; fifteen, overweight and with long curly black hair. He wears a black trench coat even though it makes him sweat like a pig. On his wrist is a black Naruto- bracelet, he still thinks counts as Metal. Currently, he is headbanging his little dweeb heart out.

In the back, there’s me; thirty-five, still overweight, slightly less black, and slightly more red plaid. I’ve been nursing the same lukewarm beer for a while now, watching him go at it. Avoiding eye contact.

God, he looks so happy.

I want to leave, but the envelope in my pocket keeps me anchored. Then, on cue, the final riff dies off and the crowd goes wild – the Kid is the loudest. I cringe and take one final swig, before moving in for the kill.

I elbow my way through the crowd unnoticed because I’m a tourist in the Kid’s world. In here music only matters when it’s loud and screaming. In here having a depression makes you interesting and the only place to show positivity is in the crowd and nowhere else. Here rebellion is conformity.

I hate how happy he looks.

But I’m just a ghost. I slide the letter into the pocket of the coat, and he doesn’t even notice I’m there-

Then the band breaks into the encore, I take a final beer to go and step into the December night. I don’t fade away, nothing timey-wimey. Just another tourist to the Kid’s world, leaving.

Only the letter in his pocket remains – two sentences. 

Keep trying, bud. Maybe you’ll find it for both of us.

'Bard' by Suzanna Lundale

The scene opens on a river scene. Plentiful swans are placidly swimming. The camera pans to a bridge – not a modern bridge, but a Tudor-era wooden bridge. A young man in early-modern dress leans on the bridge, watching the swans.

“Master Will,” says a female voice. “Well-met, indeed. I wondered if I might find you here.”

The young man smiles shyly. “Mistress Anne. Would it sound a lie if I confessed I was just thinking of you?”

Voice-over: [dreamy, sultry feminine voice] You have read his stories, seen them play out on stage and screen.

The camera irises out. We see the same young man walks in a dense wood, telling himself a story about a fairy queen and her kingly husband, who seeks to embarrass her after she snubs him. Not all of what he says is audible, but the audience can make out the names – Titania and Oberon.

Voice-over: [same voice] But what of the mind that conceived them?

The camera irises out. We see a montage. Will traveling to London. Will meeting men at alehouses, getting deep into discussion with them. The Globe being built. An early rehearsal. Culminating with criers touting Julius Caesar. The montage slows to show us a bit of the “Ides of March” speech.

Voice-over: [same voice] This fall, in theaters everywhere, the tale of William Shakespeare, the Swan of Avon, THE BARD.

'Situation Vacant – Still' by Rachel Burrows

She lies in the dark, reliving the whole sorry interview, trying to block out when she had s…
shit – she had said,  ‘A seag..’
Oh Lord, so ‘she could steal people’s sandwiche…’
Surely she …, how could she have been so clum…
see – she knew she shouldn’t  have applied for the stupid…
…post-traumatic stress now, thinking about when they asked about her reasons for wanting part-time and she said so she could walk the …
don’t go there, don’t go there, don’t go…
there’s a flashback to her saying she was most proud of the way she could balance a …
why hadn’t she mentioned Times Ed prize for …
disaster, disaster, dis..
after all that work and effort on the application…
for months, for nothing, for absolutely no…
thing is, they put her off with the, ‘we aren’t quite ready for you, there’s been a problem, we don’t seem to have your…’
details they didn’t need, yabber, yabber, always talking without think…
in the morning it will feel better won’t …
it was ex-crut-iat-ing and even the radio being on, and all the voices can’t stop her thinking about the answer to the question the students panel asked, and she can’t block it out because it’s right there frozen infront of her screwed up eye…
‘I would like to be a seagull, because
I like looking down on peop..’
Almighty God in Heaven – that’s what she answered, to that question, in front of the headteacher about what animal she would most like to …
B – o-l-l o-c- 

'Time to Call It A Night' by Tilly Greenland

Well, that’s it, that’s all I’ve got brain for.  My thoughts are becoming fuzzy and spell check is having to work very hard as I mis-click the keys on the keyboard.  And I keep using the wrong mouse.  Maybe got enough energy for one more... cup of tea before bed.

'The Nick of Time' by Suzanna Lundale

“Hi, are you a friend of Annika’s? I’m her brother, Nick.”

“Oh, I– Yes, she’s a colleague, but I only just arrived this term. Pleasure to meet you. Are you also in Time Studies?”

“I am, but more on the experiential end.” Nick gave a winning smile, and Annika knew with conviction that he imagined a little starburst over one tooth and a little ‘ting!’ like in the cartoons.

“Oh, you mean you actually time travel?!”

“Yes, I do,” he practically purred, popping open the business card case he always kept close to hand. “I’m something of a private detective…through time.” He fixed his gaze on the punch bowl by Dr. Erickson, staring into what he no doubt imagined was the middle distance.

“Nick of Time Investigations,” read the woman from the card. Annika wondered how she managed it without laughing, but some people seemed to find her brother charming.

Nick tried to suppress his crow of delight at hearing the name out loud, so it came out as a snort. “That’s my little witticism. Nick of Time, get it? Because I’m Nick!” Again the grin with the glinting tooth.

This proved a bridge too far for the woman. She muttered some excuse and walked hurriedly away. Annika would have to find out who she was and apologize, so she didn’t think the whole family is mad. Nick was still gazing after her when Annika sidled up to him. “Strike out?”

Nick started and looked down at his sister. “Nah. She’ll be back. Just in the Nick–” Annika groaned, which made him grin all the harder as he finished, “of Time!”   

'The Manuscript' by Cath Humphris

Imagine his hand, his bony fingers gripping the quill lightly, at the sloping desk in the stone room, where comfort is of secondary importance. Cold winter sunlight slants in from a biforate mullioned window, unfiltered. It sharpens the folds of his rough brown habit. 

The sleeve is pushed back to the elbow, exposing the lean brown arm that on other days wields a hoe, gathers in hay, empties the latrines. His wrist is angled carefully above the creamy surface of a freshly scraped parchment, lest he leave an unintentional stain. 

The other desks are cleared of all but the scars of sharpened quills and graffiti.  

Imagine the ink, in a stout pottery jar, and his tonsured head, bowed, gleaming, as he marks the curves  of a capital, snake-like. Now thick, then thin, neatly turning the tail with the last drop. He watches the glossy shape appearing and drying as he measures the distance for a smaller, downward line to follow. Knows without tracing how to place the three cross-marks. Parallel, perfectly balanced.

Thus, each letter, faithfully copied.  Blindly constructing not just a text, but a work of precise beauty in a language he cannot read, but knows by heart. For how many pages has he never touched the inks on the far side of the room, the blue, the red, the gold?