Flash Fiction Challenge 2010

The Flash Fiction Challenge 2010 is an international creative writing competition, now in it's 3rd year, that challenges participants to create original stories (1,000 words max.) based on genre, location, and object assignments. The competition was named the Creative Writing Championships in the 2008 and 2009 competitions.

The event is organized by NYC Midnight Movie Making Madness, an organization that has been holding unique creative competitions since 2002 and is dedicated to discovering and promoting a new wave of talented storytellers. NYC Midnight aims to provide the prizes and exposure necessary for writers to take their next big step towards writing professionally.

Past winners are pictured below:

		2009 Rachael Dunlop (London, UK) Winning Stories - "Drowning in Fresh Air'', "Barbed", "A Sideways Step", and "Without Parallel" ● Click here to read the Interview with Rachael ● Click here for more information on Rachael and to read some of her work

		2008 Chelsea Bauch (Washington, DC, USA) Winning Stories - ''Playing for Keeps'', ''Among the Dead'', ''Dispatch from Earth by Dr. Aldous Godot, The Robotic Times'', and ''Still Life With Blue Dress''. ● Click here to read the Interview with Chelsea

More judges will be added before the competition begins, so stay tuned!

	Shelley Singer has written 13 published novels. The most recent is Blackjack, written as Lee Singer, a near-future thriller now in ebook and audio. She is currently finishing a fictionalized memoir titled The Pepsi Cola Ninth Street Grocery. Shelley teaches fiction writing and has worked individually with writers in every genre from memoir to mystery to science fiction to horror. She lives in Northern California and began her career as a reporter with UPI in Chicago, where she met many famous people, at least two of whom were murdered, and many not-so-famous who are still alive.

	Randall Brown is the author of the award-winning flash fiction collection Mad to Live (Flume Press 2008). He teaches at and directs Rosemont College's MFA in Creative Writing Program and holds an MFA from Vermont College. His short and very short fiction has been published and anthologized widely, and his essay "Making Flash Count" appears in The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction: Tips from Editors, Teachers, and Writers in the Field (Rose Metal Press 2009). From 2004-9, he served in numerous roles with the flash fiction journal SmokeLong Quarterly, including Lead Editor. He blogs regularly at FlashFiction.Net.

	Meg Pokrass - Meg's collection of flash fiction, Damn Sure Right (Press 53), will be out February 2011. Meg co-authored Naughty, Naughty (Balder Press), a book of flash fiction available in August 2010. She serves as an editor for SmokeLong Quarterly and runs the “Fictionaut Five” author interview series for Fictionaut. Meg has published over one hundred stories and poems. She lives in San Francisco with her creative family and seven animals. Look for Meg's work and information as well as writing prompts at www.megpokrass.com.

	Vanessa Gebbie is a Welsh writer, creative writing tutor, and editor. She is author of Words from a Glass Bubble - a collection of award-winning stories - and contributing editor of Short Circuit – a Guide to the Art of the Short Story (both from Salt Publishing, UK). She contributed a chapter to A Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction (Rose Metal Press, USA). Her second short story and flash collection, Storm Warning, will be published in November 2010. She teaches creative writing. For more information, please visit her website: www.vanessagebbie.com

	Alan Presley is the administrator of the Micro Award, an annual award presented for outstanding flash fiction of any genre published during the previous calendar year. Visit the Micro Award's official website at http://www.microaward.org. Alan is also currently serving in Naples, Italy as a United States Naval officer.

	Mark Budman's fiction and non-fiction have appeared or are about to appear in such magazines as Mississippi Review, Virginia Quarterly, The London Magazine, McSweeney's, Turnrow, Southeast Review, Mid-American Review, the W.W. Norton anthology Flash Fiction Forward, and elsewhere. He is the publisher of a flash fiction magazine Vestal Review. His novel My Life at First Try was published by Counterpoint Press to wide critical acclaim. He co-edited the anthology You Have Time for This from Ooligan Press; a new anthology is forthcoming in 2011 from Persea Books.

	Stace Budzko is published or forthcoming in Hint Fiction: Norton Anthology of Stories, Press 53, PANK, Hobart, Elimae, The Los Angeles Review, Night Train, The Collagist, Monkeybicycle, Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, Flash Fiction Forward, Brevity & Echo, Quick Fiction, The Southeast Review, Carve Magazine and elsewhere. The screen adaptation of his story “How to Set a House on Fire” was recently awarded Best in Show/Best Overall/Best Drama at Spotlight Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, and Westport Film Festival respectively. At present, he is a writing instructor at Emmanuel College as well as writer-in-residence at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.

	Patricia La Barbera has a BA and an MFA in creative writing and is a graduate of UC Berkeley's Professional Sequence in Editing. A spokesperson for her local writers’ association, Keys Writers, Patricia is also the author of a mystery novella, The Celtic Crow Murders, and her short stories and poetry have appeared in various magazines. Upcoming publications include flash fiction slated for two anthologies. She is on the staff of Every Day Fiction. She is originally from New York City but now lives in the Florida Keys. www.patricialabarbera.com

	Peter Blair is co-editor (with Ashley Chantler) of Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine (www.chester.ac.uk/flash.magazine), and has edited several anthologies of short stories and poems. His own fiction and poetry have appeared in various anthologies and periodicals, and he has been both shortlisted and a runner-up in the short-story section of the Bridport Prize. He is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Chester, where he teaches Creative Writing and has been a judge in the Cheshire Prize for Literature.

	Ashley Chantler is co-editor (with Peter Blair) of Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine (www.chester.ac.uk/flash.magazine) and editor of, among other short story and poetry anthologies, the flash fiction collection An Anatomy of Chester (2007). He is a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Chester and programme leader of the MA in Creative Writing.