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Flash Fiction 2020

 

30 days. 30 prompts. 30 Words.

#WVFlashFic20

Writers Victoria decided to run Flash Fiction again in 2020, after it was so successful when run in celebration of our 30th year in 2019.

Every day for thirty days, we posted a prompt on our Twitter and via email for participants to write 30 words about – the theme for 2020 was ‘focus’.

With so many of us working from home or relegated to self-isolation during this time, we felt it was important to keep our creative flames roaring. For the month of April, Flash Fiction was designed to be a daily writing practice, to help participants focus and nurture their creativity.

A winner was be chosen by the Writers Victoria staff every day of the competiton. As a prize the winner was mailed a personalised postcard from a Writers Victoria staff member. We then took all of the daily winning entries and voted for an overall winner – who was awarded a free workshop of their choice from our program!

You can revisit last year’s theme and see all the winning entries on our website.

 


FLASH FICTION 2020 WINNER

We are thrilled to announce that the overall winner of the Flash Fiction competition for 2020 is Sandrina Dorigo, for the following entry:

APRIL 6: BLIND

She moved to the city. Home teased and followed on great, northwesterly winds, rolling in on moody, pluming clouds. It came blinding, stinging, raining rust. She choked on home.

 

We also had two runners-up, whose entries we decided to give special mention to for their excellence:
 

APRIL 4: BLUR
She could taste the hall’s memories – a blur of limbs, music, desire. People danced here, once. Closeness, unrationed. She ticked her chart, left the door unlocked. She would return. – Marion Taffe

APRIL 29: FIXATED
I don’t have enough limbs to live like this. Look at this immigrant body, floating heavy between two nations – arms fixated on being Australian enough, legs pulling back to Bangladesh. – Munira Ahmed


DAILY WINNERS

Thank you to everyone who took part in #WVFlashFiction20 this year. Here are the winning entries for each day of the competition:

APRIL 1: EYEBALL
Last summer, she snuck me into the lab and had me marvelling at eyeballs she’d gouged from cadavers. I’ve stayed, yearning for another glimpse of the complexity beneath her surface. – Abhilash Mudaliar

APRIL 2: CONCENTRATE
She opened the window, catching the yawn of a breeze. “Concentrate, or it’ll turn to tar,” warned the memory. She watched her mother’s hands spread warm sugar on the tray. – Andrea Rowe

APRIL 3: INTENSE
We scramble together down the bare dirt track. Liquid mud after an intense tropical downpour. One exit. No handrails. Each boot placement a calculated risk in gravity’s minefield. – Kerry Jewell

APRIL 4: BLUR
She could taste the hall’s memories – a blur of limbs, music, desire. People danced here, once. Closeness, unrationed. She ticked her chart, left the door unlocked. She would return. – Marion Taffe

APRIL 5: HOCUS-POCUS
Rattled and shook. Barely recognised hormones cooking him from the inside out. Stuttering like a shunted train. Her: calm, lit from within. Girl magic, some kind of hocus-pocus. – Carly Foster

APRIL 6: BLIND
She moved to the city. Home teased and followed on great, northwesterly winds, rolling in on moody, pluming clouds. It came blinding, stinging, raining rust. She choked on home. – Sandrina Dorigo

APRIL 7: HAZY
Over time, memories gentle and become hazy. But today I unpack the box. The weight of small objects; the smell of the tissue paper around them. They break me. Again.⁠ – Miriam Zolin

APRIL 8: MIRROR
The surface fogged up, a handprint became visible. He never believed her stories of portals to new realms, until now. With a deep breath, he followed her through the mirror. – Cassandra Nyholt

APRIL 9: CRISP
Smoothed corners. The texture of crisp linen under her fingers. She holds the pillow tenderly to her face. Inhales the freshly ironed scent. Takes an audible breath. Presses down. Waits. – Daniella Sciuto

APRIL 10: LENS
I’m telling you, there’s absolutely no way to tell without the Monster Lens. Look through here: human… human… human… monster. See? I told you. Monsters everywhere. Now get my clipboard.⁠ – Adam Fleet

APRIL 11: MYOPIA
He walked past the sink of dishes, the undressed kids, the overflowing washing basket. His domestic myopia – a daily infliction she found insufferable. She slipped the capsule into his coffee. – Christina Kyriakou

APRIL 12: CONVERGE
Where the river converges with the factory run off; where misshapen stumps litter the bank, I hear the sigh of the willows bending to trail leafy fingers through soft flowing water. – Leigh Rodgers

APRIL 13: SHARP
Her sharp pencil-marks fill all spaces, peel layers off sentences until they bleed blue. Would she be as ruthless in love? He breathes out softly, then starts to write again. – Suchi Govindarajan

APRIL 14: BULLSEYE
Tom flew the letter towards her window. Bullseye. He waited anxiously, his heart was enclosed within it. He watched as she picked it up, read it and closed the curtains. – Jessica Lothian

APRIL 15: GLASSES
Twin sundogs appear on the horizon. Caught between grief and wonder, Jane pulls over. Tears threaten but she smiles, remembering the light reflecting off her grandfather’s dusty old glasses. – Belinda McCormick

APRIL 16: PERIPHERAL
The noise grew louder with each step. An anguished screech, insistent, now deafening. In her peripheral vision, a movement. A parakeet above its nest. Wailing, screaming for its dead nestlings. – Sally Holdsworth

APRIL 17: VAGUE
The warning is a vague prickling on her skin, hair standing to attention. A whisper tangles through the trees, the lorikeets silent as stone. Behind, a swirling vortex of flame. – Danielle Baldock

APRIL 18: LASER
Only psychopaths choose to retain physical or mental imperfections,” the surgeon said, caressing the laser scalpel. “I will make you a beautiful conformist.”
The patient struggled helplessly against the restraints. – Sue Mitchell

APRIL 19: DRIFT
A person forces spoons of much into my limp mouth. I drift into memories.
You, me, swimming off the Italian coast. The sea sparkling, hypnotising.
The majesty of youth. – David McKenzie

APRIL 20: SPOTLIGHT
Immobilised in the spotlight the kangaroo is his. “Go on,” urges his mate, “do it.” But the young man’s finger is frozen. A shameful hesitation. He never did belong here. – Karen Downing

APRIL 21: SWAY
Enough. The word reverberated through the trees, a susurration of agreement that forced tiny hairs to attention. She dug her heels into the soil, grounding herself. She would not sway. – Tahlia Kloprogge

APRIL 22: CENTRE
Enough. Precious April, two years gone. Passed in my arms; buried beneath the Elm. The rescue centre calls… another dog available. I feel disloyal. Then her graveside flowers burst into bloom. – Sandra James

APRIL 23: READ
The five o’clock horrors are behind us as night falls. I open a storybook and read to my demons, now sleepy angels. I wonder where their dreams take them. – Susan Bennett

APRIL 24: MEASURE
‘Fascinating,’ says the doctor. ‘Fast-moving necrosis! If I can measure how long it takes to reach the brain—’ 
The patient bites his arm. 
‘Not long,’ I say, and run.
– Louise Zedda-Sampson

APRIL 25: RIVET
There was scratching at first. Scraping, then, hitting, banging, trying to get – ⁠
“It’ll hold,” he says.⁠
We huddle in the far corner and watch the rivets start to shake.⁠
– Jo

APRIL 26: CLARITY
Dipping my toes into the water, I breathed in the languid familiarity. January had arrived, announcing summer with stark clarity: sticky bodies, cut grass, watermelon. Carefree days, sunburnt nights. – Zachary Pryor

APRIL 27: DISTORTED
The shape on the horizon baffled her. A schooner perhaps? Then the battered, shabby, distorted remains of a vessel, her missing brother’s, drifted into the bay where she stood, waiting.⁠ – Michele Green

APRIL 28: GATHER
Daffodil sunlight scatters across the floorboards. Her fingers dance across the weft, needle and thread.
Each stitch forms a delicious, delicate gather. 
Fit for a queen, not for her. – Rebekah Cotterill

APRIL 29: FIXATED
I don’t have enough limbs to live like this. Look at this immigrant body, floating heavy between two nations – arms fixated on being Australian enough, legs pulling back to Bangladesh. – Munira Ahmed

APRIL 30: FOCUS
Their meeting accidental. Their attraction mutual. Yet they left it unattended. Choosing to focus on their studies. Years later they meet again, so much regret. Neither doing what they studied. – Shyamala Benakovic

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