Past Times Prize deadline looms! ⏰
Send us your historical flash fiction stories
There are just over 48 hours left to send your flash fiction stories set in the 1970s to be in with a chance of winning the first ever Past Times Prize here at WestWord.
Deadline: 31st August 2024 at 23.59 BST
Words: Up to 500 (excluding the title)
Entry fee: £6 submission only / £21 with feedback
Judge: Me! Amanda Saint
WestWord Founder and Managing Editor
I’m the author of two novels, As If I Were A River (2016) and Remember Tomorrow (2019) and a novella-in-flash, Pressure Drop (2024). My short stories, flash and micro fictions have been widely published in journals and anthologies, and placed and listed in many international prizes, including the Mslexia Flash Fiction Prize and the Fish Flash Fiction Prize, and nominated for Best Small Fictions 2023. I founded Retreat West in 2012, providing an online writing community, competitions and courses. From 2018-2023 Retreat West published 24 books and was named Most Innovative Publisher at the 2020 Saboteur Awards. I also write The Mindful Writer and The Tao of Storytelling.
PRIZES:
The winning and shortlisted stories will share up to 66% of the entry fees (after Submittable fees are deducted) .
1st: 20%
2nd: £15%
3rd: £10%
Shortlisted stories (max 7): 3% each
All winning and shortlisted stories will be published in WestWord in November 2024.
Upgrade your subscription and become a WestWord member to get a submission to this contest included, along with lots of other submissions and monthly workshops.
Upcoming workshops
Every month I host a Zoom workshop on different aspects of short fiction writing. Included with membership or just book whichever takes your fancy. Replay links are provided too.
Writing What We Don’t Know
31st August — 11.00-12.30 BST
Wherever we are in the world, whatever ethnicity, gender, age we are, whatever era we live in, we are all going through the same things as humans. Trying to find our truth, love, happiness and peace of mind. And this is at the heart of all stories we tell. Our characters are doing those exact things too.
So as writers, we can trust in our abilities as empathetic humans to be able to tell the stories of people vastly different to us. We can trust in the power of our imaginations to set our stories in the points of view of other people, in places in the world we've never been, and in places that we completely make up. But to do any of it well, we need to be coming from a place of truth and we need to trust ourselves and our characters.
In this workshop we’ll be looking at how we can effectively write what we don’t know.
Submission opportunities
There are lots of ways to get your stories published with us. Themed editions, rolling submissions for flash fictions and short stories, and lots of different competitions.
Hope to read your work and see you at a workshop soon!
With love,
