Monthly Micro Longlist July 23

Many thanks to everyone who sent in a story for the NET prompt. We received 71 paid entries so the prizes fund is £77 for first prize and £51 for second. The People’s Prize will be announced with the results. Some absolutely amazing titles this month! And after launching our Monthly Micro workshop the day before submissions opened we have seen a real difference in the standard and scope of stories being submitted!

Longlisted Stories

  • A Mother Gives her Daughter Indra’s Net
  • All the things Beth from the corner shop told me when she first saw my bruises
  • Because…their faces never betray how they really feel
  • Catch of the Day
  • Despicable
  • Da Always Said He Would Take me Shrimping
  • Diamonds are a girl’s best friend
  • Drone Eat Drone
  • Elsie Bickerstaffe’s Window
  • Escape
  • Humans are for life, not just for Christmas!
  • How to tell my father I want to be an accountant
  • Internet Searches Since Your Diagnosis
  • Invasion
  • Manumission
  • Never Speak of This
  • Nodding Off
  • Sport on a Wednesday afternoon in winter
  • Study of an Empty Children’s Play Park After Summer Rain
  • The day after the moon landing, a dry-eyed GI bride stands next to an open casket in Clovis, New Mexico
  • The house where the man on trial for murder lives
  • The Lepidopterist
  • The Lepidopterist and the Common Cabbage White
  • The Making of a Militant
  • The Net Worth of Mary-Jane Casey
  • Things My Granny Taught Me
  • Trying to Find a Memory of You in the Dream-Catcher Archive

Good luck everyone – the shortlist will be announced on Monday when voting will open so you can vote for your favourite!

Meet The Writer – Shrutidhora P Mohor

Today on our blog we have a Q & A with writer Shrutidhora P Mohor who is a contributor to our final competition anthology, Swan Song

Can you tell us a little about your story in the Swan Song anthology?

Salt Colonies is a story which developed as a dream out of a relationship lived largely in my dreams. It is a story of an unstructured, undefined, asymmetrical relationship between a man as a mentor, and a younger woman as a learner/ devotee/ giver, the latter’s enthusiasm for love and life reflected in her passion for art as well just as the mentor’s emotional indifference towards life in general and towards her in particular is captured by his coldness for art even though he is a brilliant creator.

I have always been mesmerised by the dialectics of unequal relationships, where one partner has been a disappointed recipient, a seeker and yet a giver too, strapped in a need to give and receive at the same time. 

In this story we find them located in the wilderness of a deserted sea shore, ploughing through the mystery and pathos of an uninhabited seaside, an imagery which came to me from one of my holiday trips and the beach-side restaurant quite some distance away from the main resort.    

What draws you to entering writing contests?

I admit I enter international writing competitions frequently, deterred only by high entry fees, sometimes costing me 2000 INR for a single entry!

I love entering contests primarily because there is scarcely a more effective way of judging the worth of my writing and ascertaining if my writing can be counted anywhere within the perimeters of being of international standard. While it is always a good idea to compare my progress in terms of my own growth, my earlier writings with my present writings, it is also relevant to see where my writings stand vis-a-vis the writing community.

The setting of deadlines imposes a pressure in a positive way, pushing me to stay focused and engaged with my writing, which otherwise stands threatened very often by the mundaneness of my professional preoccupation.

Moreover, a contest entry is a heartening way to connect to the writing community. As we all go about submitting, encouraging each other, wishing luck to one another, sharing our disappointments and joys over the longlist and the shortlist, it makes me feel emotionally connected and gratified.   

Can you share some of your favourite writing influences with us?

I am a lover of classics in all its forms—music, films, books, although I am drawn equally strongly to contemporary and post-modern forms of art as well. So, say, for example, Gone With The Wind is as much an influence as Milan Kundera whose works I devoured as a precocious teenager. I have been a particularly visually driven reader, imagining and sometimes enacting entire scenes and mouthing dialogues secretly after reading books.

Jane Austen, Guy de Maupassant, Daphne du Maurier, W Somerset Maugham, D H Lawrence as authors have moved me (I have visualised each scene vividly in my mind and been intensely scrutinising of the film versions of their books). Hence I generally ‘see’ every scene that I write.

Where can we find out more about you and your writing?

Unfortunately my author website is yet to be launched, my limited technical skills causing me to go excruciatingly slowly on it. As a poor substitute, for some time to come, we have to make do with my social media accounts on all of which I am quite active and all my publications or competition listings are posted. On Twitter my handle is @ShrutidhoraPM, on Instagram @shrutidhorap, on Facebook @Shrutidhora P Mohor. 


BUY SWAN SONG HERE

Flash In Five

This month our Flash In Five comes from micro and flash fiction writer James Montgomery

Boys In Boxes (2023) (click title to read)

Idea: Satisfyingly, the idea for this flash started with the very final line: ‘our real lives are waiting, new and ours and unboxed’. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with that line for quite a while, but I knew there was something there, particularly in the use of the word ‘unboxed’. It intrigued me. Originally, I’d thought of doing some kind of story about dolls (?!) but – even before putting fingers to keyboard – I knew it lacked any kind of emotional resonance, at least for me. I hadn’t found the heart of the story. So, I left it alone for a while. A lot of my flashes start in this way; a phrase or collection of words that come to me when I’m doing anything but writing, which keeps me curious.

Development: One evening, I came across an article about those who had died from AIDS in New York in the late 1980s. Unclaimed bodies were sent to Hart Island to be buried in anonymity in a mass grave. The stigma and lifestyle associated with AIDS during this time meant many who died were estranged from their families. Furthermore, private burials were difficult to arrange, as many funeral directors refused to handle AIDS corpses or charged much higher fees. As a gay man, this broke me. Also, I couldn’t imagine how challenging it must have been coming to terms with your sexuality against this backdrop – although, having grown up in the 90s, I certainly experienced its aftereffects. The fact that so many victims were buried in mass graves, without even a coffin – or ‘box’… You can see how my brain started to join the dots together.

Editing: The decision to use first-person plural was fairly instant, as well as the title. I also quickly knew I wanted to use boxes as a repeating motif, to capture pivotal moments during the lives of these boys as they grow up and approach adulthood. I struggled with the first line to begin with, wanting to make the point that so many of these men were buried without even the dignity of a coffin, but it was a challenge to quickly orientate the reader and do all the things good flash should, plus include this kind of detail for the reader without any kind of context. There were also a couple of instances where I was trying to shoehorn the ‘box’ element in a tad too much. In an earlier form, that final sentence began, ‘We free our favourite cassette from its box’, but someone in my writing group pointed out that I needed to trust the reader more; they would recognise this motif even without it being explicitly stated. Also, it meant that the final ‘unboxed’ felt more earned when it arrived. My friend Sherry Morris provided excellent, thoughtful feedback, and my writing group Flash Corral helped further refine it.

Looking back, there were two editing tips that really helped me, which I can recommend. First of all – and we’ve all heard this one repeatedly – but I read it out loud again and again and again, which helped get the rhythm just right. Secondly, and this is a little more unusual, but I became obsessed with a certain pop song around the time when I was writing this story. I would have the song playing on repeat in the background while I worked on it. I’m not going to reveal which song it was, but the track has a yearnful quality to it, which absolutely complemented the tone of this piece. It also helped me find the voice and feel of this story when coming back to working on it. This may be a technique other writers find useful when editing?

Submitting: I’d submitted to the quarterly Reflex Fiction competition a couple of times and never had any joy. Then Reflex announced its winter 2022 round would be the final one, and I knew I needed to have this story ready to submit. Over time, I’ve learned that having a hard and fast deadline is the best motivator for getting anything finished.

Reflections: I feel there’s so much you can learn from just drafting a single story. With this one, I feel like I learned a lot about the power of a motif, the impact sound and rhythm can have, and how infusing sentences with double-meaning can do so much heavy-lifting. I’m still pleased with lines like, ‘as everyday as pouring the last remains of dust from a cereal box’, and what that implies in the context of the story, and these boys smoking a cigarette with ‘Tommy or Rico or Scott’, breathing in ‘how it smoulders – the hit, the rush…’ These kinds of dual layers make a story so much richer. It’s a special story for me and, as it stands, it’s probably the flash I’m most proud of.


James Montgomery lives in Stafford, England. He writes flash fiction and micro fiction. To date, his stories have appeared in Reflex Fiction,Gone Lawn, Maudlin House and elsewhere. He is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. In 2021, he won the Best Micro Fiction Prize at the Retreat West Awards for ‘The Only Way I Can Make Sense of the Word ‘Recovery’ is to Smash it into Pieces’. He is a member of the Betas & Bludgers and Flash Corral writing groups.

Outside of writing, James works full-time for a leading and award-winning B2B marketing consultancy, directing energy, technology and engineering brands on their content marketing strategies. He has a CIM Diploma in Professional Marketing from the Oxford College of Marketing, an MA degree in Journalism from Staffordshire University, and a First Class BA degree in English Literature from Lancaster University.


Meet The Writer – Debbi Voisey

Today on our blog we have a Q & A with writer Debbi Voisey, who is a contributor to our final competition anthology, Swan Song and a member of the Retreat West team!

Can you tell us a little about your story in the Swan Song anthology?

I am fond of stories that are narrowed down to one location and that play out in real time, and I liked the idea of a disparate group of people being in this hospital waiting room, slowly revealing themselves and different, often surprising, ways they got to be there. Circumstances in life are rarely as they seem, and this story throws up some shocks and, I hope, challenges perception.

What draws you to entering writing contests?

The money! No, seriously, I do enjoy the buzz around contests, and it’s a great way of honing your skills and improving. Nothing like a deadline to get the creative wheels turning.

Can you share some of your favourite writing influences with us?

My tastes and loves are not classical like a lot of writers. The novella “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” by Stephen King was a major influence on me as a writer. That story stayed with me long after I read it and the ending was sublime. I have always admired and envied Stephen King’s talent for creating fathoms-deep characters you care about and that you have to know what happens to at all costs.

Where can we find out more about you and your writing?

I have a website at http://debbivoisey.co.uk where you can find details of all my work, my creative writing workshops, and mentoring. I also tweet a little bit @DublinWriter


BUY SWAN SONG HERE

June 2023 Monthly Micro Winners

Congratulations again to all of the shortlisted authors. Here are the winners!


First Prize Winner: In The Shade Of My Mother by Emily Macdonald

Why we chose it: A tender interpretation of the prompt, with a wonderfully telling title


Second Prize Winner: How To Carry Countries Inside You by Salena Casha

Why we chose it: A beautifully written reflection on home and family


People’s Prize Winner: In The Shade of My Mother by Emily Macdonald


Shortlisted Stories

Being It by Jan-Erskine Power – Read it here

The Green Green Grass Of Home by Jeff Taylor – Read it here

Almost by Fiona Dignan – Read it here

Dead Wood by Anne Soilleux – Read it here

When He Falls by Alison Wassell – Read it here

Telling The Tree by Jane Broughton – Read it here

A New Family Tree by Katie Holloway – Read it here

They Burn Women Here by Maria Thomas – Read it here


Emily and Salena win the cash prizes, and Emily also wins a ticket for our next online FlashFest

Well done to everyone!

We’ll be back with our next monthly micro comp in July – and then we take a break in August.

Meet The Writer – Finnian Burnett

Today on our blog we have a Q & A with writer Finnian Burnett, who is a contributor to our final competition anthology, Swan Song

Can you tell us a little about your story in the Swan Song anthology?

I actually wrote this story in a Retreat West workshop. It sort of fell out in five minutes and I loved it but I felt it needed some work. I took it to Matt Kendrick’s Writing Beyond the Lightbulb class and he gave me some excellent feedback. I loved the final version and I knew I wanted to send it somewhere I care about. Since it started with RW, it made sense to send it there first.

What draws you to entering writing contests?

I like to do a very few contests during a year – mainly ones that publish longlists and shortlists in anthologies. There’s such a thrill in celebrating with other people, sharing the joy and sometimes commiseration that comes with contest announcements.

Can you share some of your favourite writing influences with us?

I thrive in writing workshops. Something about writing in a group spurs my creativity and some of my best stories have come while listening to the click of other people’s keyboards. Beyond that, I read a ton of short fiction. Two of my favorite short story writers are Neil Gaiman and N.K. Jemison. Margaret Atwood’s Stone Mattress is probably the greatest example of masterful POV in the first three stories in that collection.

Where can we find out more about you and your writing?

http://finnburnett.com