WestWord Flash Prize Winners
Judge, Amy Barnes, has chosen her Top 3 Dream-inspired stories!
We are so excited to bring you these dreamy winning stories in the 2024 Flash Prize. Our judge, , had the hard job of picking between the 8 brilliant shortlisted stories. Here are her thoughts on them all and her winners! Thanks so much, Amy. Huge congratulations to our winners and to our shortlisted writers!
Judge’s Report
I’m attracted to interesting titles like a cat to tin foil. This shortlist drew me in immediately from the interesting titles and kept me interested with unique characters and strong sensory details. The list is full of titles that skillfully framed the stories with mentions like: Dori Gray, Harry Styles, windshield wipers, Van Gogh skies, and dream sleep. Each of the shortlisted stories not only had intriguing titles, they also offered interior prose to match. It was a hard task to narrow this list to only three.
While I’m a sucker for a great title, the top 3 stories followed up with fantastic opening lines and great closing lines too, pulling me along from start to finish. The short list is made from stories of adventures, generations, dreams, emotions, movement, change, tough topics, whimsy. They were all full of intriguing characters, interesting backdrops, and a lot of imagination. Each author infused their own personality into their submissions. I’ve set a mental reminder to seek out other writings by all of them once their names are revealed. Without further ado (and a lot of agony in having to pick only this trio), here are my top three.
First place: Every Thirty Seconds by Shelley Kirton
Gravity always wins.
That first line helped “Every Thirty Seconds” win first place.The story-framing title was followed by that great opener line and a memorable main character name: Astra. There’s lovely alliteration, sensory details, an invisible time clock, lyrical prose that adds to the storytelling tone. The food details especially stood out like: thin, gravelly toast for their breakfast for so many years. She would now prefer a plump, sesame-seed-sprinkled and softly crisped bagel encircled with soft butter. She would enjoy the salty dribbles and nutty full-stops and lick her fingers, savouring the freedom of the moment. The reader gets just the right amount of flashbacks and foreshadowing. The main character’s name Astra means star, and this story is exactly that: a literary star. Gravity wins and “Every Thirty Seconds” wins too!
Read it here:
Second place: Infinity Pool by Joyce Bingham
One foot on the step, and I pause.
Again, a wonderful opening line that leads this second place winner. There’s a careful movement here and memorable sensory details that bring the reader along into the story. We are balanced with this main character at a life point. The author here uses just the right amount of expository description to set the scene further: The hewn rocks echo the noise of the seawater sucking in and out of the pool. The chatter of sun-kissed people drinking cocktails ripples through the water. The edge of the pool, the sea, and sky merge into infinity. There’s also lovely poetry infused into this prose - repetitions of sounds and phrases that set the scene and guide the main characters’ experiences.
Read it here:
Third Place: Marie Antoinette Comes To Marilyn Monroe In A Dream by Judith Segal
Marie Antoinette and Marilyn Monroe. What a pair! And what a story. From the opening sensory details to the closing, this story has more than just the two famous women. While the descriptions (and humor) are great, I’m again drawn to memorable sensory descriptions like: The smell of perfume is overpowering. Not Marilyn’s usual Chanel no 5 but musk, lavender and orange-water. The juxtaposition of the two women and their discussions is fascinating and unexpected. In the closing paragraph, this author manages to look at how both women find early ends, with common ground as the backdrop: make-up. All while giving Marilyn an untroubled sleep, that may be her last one.
Read it here:
Shortlisted
Read the 5 shortlisted stories here.
Congratulations to all!! What a fun list to be a part of! 🤍