2015 Flash Fiction Contest

Contest Judge: Laura Ellen Joyce

Prize: $300, online publication,

publication as a limited-run broadside or micro-chap,

and a copy of the judge’s latest book

Laura Ellen Joyce selected Caitlin Scarano as the 2015 Flash Fiction Contest winner for her piece, “Pitcher of Cream.”

Laura said this piece “was haunting and beautiful and every word was chosen with care.” She also said “The story felt complete: a whole world in a few hundred words. The chilling ambiguity of the missing children and the unreliability of the narrator made this a perfect flash fiction.”

Caitlin Scarano is a poet in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee PhD creative writing program. She was a finalist for the 2014 Best of the Net Anthology and the winner of the 2015 Indiana Review Poetry Prize, judged by Eduardo Corral. She has two poetry chapbooks. This winter, she will be an artist in residence at the Hinge Arts Residency program in Fergus Falls and the Artsmith’s 2016 Artist Residency on Orcas Island.

This year’s finalists were Ashley Hutson, Gary Joshua Garrison, Emily Kiernan, Ari Laurel, Marsha McSpadden, and Jan Stinchcomb. Kitsune Hirano received an honorable mention.

About the Contest

The winning flash fiction piece will be published on The Conium Review Online Compenium site. The story will also be made into a broadside or micro-chap that will be given away for free to attendees of next year’s AWP conference. The winning author receives $300 and a copy of the judge’s latest book.

This year’s contest judge is Laura Ellen Joyce. Laura Ellen Joyce is the author of The Luminol Reels (Calamari Archive, 2014) and The Museum of Atheism (Salt Publishing, 2012). She lectures in film and literature at Edinburgh Napier University. If you are a family member, coworker, or student of the judge, you are ineligible for this contest.

Contest Deadlines

Submissions must be received between August 15th, 2015 and October 15th, 2015. All submissions must include a $10.00 entry fee. The winner will be announced in December.

Submission Guidelines

All manuscripts must be submitted through our Submittable page between August 15th, 2015 and October 15th, 2015. Your submission may include up to three flash fictions; each individual piece should be under 1,000 words. Upload your submission as a single manuscript file. Your name should not appear anywhere on the manuscript. The judge reads blind, and she will recuse herself from considering any manuscript where the writer is identifiable. In the unlikely event that the judge is unable to select a winner, The Conium Review editorial staff will make the final decision.

In the “Biography Statement” field, please include a two or three sentence third-person bio. This bio will not be viewable by the contest judge. If you win the contest, your bio appears alongside the published story in The Conium Review Online Compendium.

Submissions must be unpublished, original work. Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but you must withdraw your story immediately if it is accepted elsewhere.

This contest abides by the Council of Literary Magazines & Presses code of ethics. Thank you for submitting!

About the 2015 Contest Judge

Laura Ellen Joyce’s first novel, The Museum of Atheism, was published in November 2012 by Salt. Her second novel, The Luminol Reels, was published by Calamari Archive in August 2014.

Laura was project coordinator of the AHRC Global Queer Cinema network between 2012-2013. She currently lectures in film and literature at Edinburgh Napier University. Her research interests are in experimental literature, gender and sexuality, psychoanalysis, pornography, and ecocriticsm.

Praise for The Luminol Reels

“A fierce and deadly little fantasia that bites its way deep into your brain.”–Brian Evenson, author of Fugue State
“Joyce’s hand is as unflinching in its force as any of the deathly actions rendered to the bodies on any page . . . Like its namesake, The Luminol Reels coats the floor of every surface it presents with a stain that won’t be easily forgotten.” –Blake Butler, author of Three Hundred Million and Scorch Atlas
“In The Luminol Reel‘s, Laura Ellen Joyce finds the blue-glowing, b-movie heart of Plath’s and Ballard’s atrocity exhibitions and the parapornography of reliquaries. Joyce may write: ‘This one is for the sickos,’ but this is a book for readers who are into David Lynch, Aase Berg, Bluebeard (any version), hagiography; ‘splatter gurlesque’ and media theory. In other words: people who want their reading to feel like drinking ‘luminol margaritas.'” –Johannes Göransson, author of The Sugar Book
“Joyce’s work dares you. It doesn’t give a fuck about its being because it’s already bleeding out in the sand.” –Elizabeth Mikesch, author of Niceties: Aural Ardor, Pardon Me
“This powerful collection slashes unapologetically at the injustices and violence perpetrated against women across geographical and ideological borders, forcing us all to examine our own complicity in these ubiquitous crimes . . . The Luminol Reels [is] a strong testament about inequality and a book with a depth that belies its thin spine.” –Gabino Iglesias, author of Gutmouth