Flash Legend

 

I

The Night of the Last Dreams

by Donna L. Greenwood

II

Their Soil Freshly Turned

by Chris Panatier

III

What You Will And Won’t Do
(About The Man In Your Garden)

by Joely Dutton

 

IV

The Eyes

by Andrea DeAngelis

V

Extra Parts

by Rachel Sudbeck

VI

What Happened at Crimson Lake

by Erin Perry Willis

VII

The Man in the Green Hat

by Amanda Pollet

VIII

Magdalene

by Maura Yzmore

IX

La Puerta

by Mark Purnell

X

Revenge of the Ponderosas

by Michael Carter

Flash Legend is now closed.

Check back at noon (PST) on May 15th, 2019 for results.

Slackers rejoice!

Procrastinator’s Special keeps late entries open
until 11:59pm PST Saturday, May 11th. 

“Legend remains victorious
in spite of history.” 

– Sarah Bernhardt

Submit to Flash Legend

We’d wager that if you’re a fan of the dark and offbeat flash fiction that we publish, you’ve probably found yourself drawn to campfire stores, folklore, or an urban legend or two back in the day. These tales make for some of the most tantalizing and unsettling forms of storytelling, preying on our primal fears and anxieties and blowing them up to outlandish, often menacing proportions.

Tall tales of bigfoot sightings or run-ins with chupacabra pique our sense of fascination with the unknown. The thought of Elvis or Tupac secretly alive, and Paul McCartney secretly dead, compel us to question what we think we know. Whether the call is coming from inside the house or that raging pimple turns out to be a throbbing nest of spiders, urban legends play with our expectations, alternately pulling the rug out from under us or serving up a healthy dose of irony. 

And sometimes they’re just plain weird.

Enter Flash Legend. This contest encourages writers to take well-worn urban myths and repurpose them in clever, compelling, and shocking new ways. You don’t need to rely solely on new angles to established campfire tales and stories that a friend of a friend’s bald uncle’s hairdresser swears is true. You can concoct your own unique urban legend and fit it into the fictional world you create. We take the definition of “legend” loosely, as well; there’s room for folklore and fable here, too, and why not throw in some tinfoil-hat-worthy conspiracy theories while you’re at it? 

The top three entries will win cold, hard cash (USD):

$250 for Flash Legend winner

$125 for 2nd place

$75 for 3rd place

We also give mad props to 4th-10th place,
publishing them in our Flash Legend mega-issue
and in a future print anthology, with contributor copy included.

Submit to Flash Legend

Follow these guidelines, and you could have some extra coin in your pocket, and some bragging rights as the Flash Legend winner.

– All submissions must absolutely be under 1,000 words, and we tend to look more kindly on 750 or fewer because…SASQUATCH!

– All contest submissions will be read blind, so we won’t be playing favorites. Sorry, apparition of Mom.

– Please paste your submission into the corresponding field. Do not list your name anywhere in your submission or we’ll assume that you don’t know how to read.

– Costs $6 to enter during the Early Bird period, and $7 $9 to enter during the Procrastinator’s Special  after that (sorry, no refunds). 

– We reserve the right to extend deadlines if necessary (and you can expect our usual week-ish Procrastinator’s Special—with corresponding increase in submission fee for you slackers).

– Submissions must be previously unpublished work, and you will retain copyright (duh). By entering this contest you give us permission to publish your work—if selected for our Top 10—both online and in a future print anthology.

– No limit on how many entries you can submit, but you must submit them one at a time. Don’t just mash them all in there.

– Early Bird deadline is March 31st, 2019. Contest soft deadline is end of day (PST) May 5th, 2019.  Procrastinator’s Special final deadline is end of day (PST) Saturday, May 5th, 2019. Winners announced on May 15th and we’ll unleash the Flash Legend mega-issue shortly thereafter.

– And, most importantly, this is a FLASH LEGEND contest, so you must include some sort of urban legend . But again, this can be in any form imaginable.

So that means you can go all…

or all…

or all…

or all…

or even all…

 

“Bloody Mary… Bloody Mary… Bloody M—”

Submit to Flash Legend