There must be a lot of anger out there, because the Flash Rage contest resulted in one of our very best turnouts ever. That means the competition was especially cutthroat this time around, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Great to see such a wide variety of subject matter, with the rebellion, revolt, resistance and pure rage themes not only taking political and sociocultural overtones but also branching out to cover inanimate objects, vengeance-minded animals, dinners from hell, staple-gun mayhem, coups at the old folks’ home, and Vlad the Impaler’s wife. 

We’re still putting together the details of our next quarterly flash fiction contest, but within a few days we’ll open our annual Shadow Award poetry contest for submissions. So keep an eye out for that as we’re looking forward to our annual diversion into dark and offbeat poetry.

Without further ado, let’s get to the goods.

Close-but-no-cigar mentions go to the following writers:
(who hail from the USA, U.K., Canada, and Germany)

Quinn Alexander
Raluca Alexandru
Michael Carter
Jack Caseros
Amanda Chiado
Dan Diehn
David Gilbert
Daniel Greene
Wiebo Grobler
Chris Holaday
D I Hughes
Cleo Keahna Uran
Jacqueline MacDonald
Jennifer McCarthy
Erin O’Shea
Amy Rossi
Sandra Schmidtke
J Schnader
William Stoddart

The Top 10 that you’ll find below will be published in our forthcoming Flash Rage mega-issue, which will run over the weekend. They will also be included in our third-annual Prize Winners Anthology print issue this fall. You can check out our Prize Winners Anthology Vol. 2 here.

But you’re probably not reading this part anyway, so…

Honorable Mentions go to:

10th Place – “No Names Left to Say” by Lisa Mecham (California, USA)

9th Place – “Better This Way” by Christina Dalcher (Virginia, USA)

8th Place – “Lydia and Jacob” by Fred Nolan (Texas, USA)

7th Place – “Welcome to Europe” by S. K. Azoulay (Israel)

6th Place – “Illumination” by Jessica Granger (Ohio, USA)

5th Place – “The Memory of Elephants” by Christina Dalcher (Virginia, USA)

4th Place – “Healing Powers” by Timothy Gustafson (Minnesota, USA)

And now on to stories that really take the cake.

3rd Place ($50)

“Indigenous Rising”
by Philip Webb Gregg (U.K.)

2nd Place ($100)

“Give Me the Gas”
by Lazarus Gray (Australia)

1st Place ($200)

“Gettysburg”
by Christopher Stanley (U.K.)

Congrats to the winners and a huge thanks to everyone who participated in the Flash Rage contest. Once again it was a blast to read the insanity you cooked up. We literally couldn’t do this without you. Check back over the weekend for the Flash Rage mega-issue.

Tags: contest