I

Gabriel

by Jo Withers

II

The Mountains’ Bones

by Neil Clark

III

Donny’s Small Engine Repair

by Michael Carter

IV

Mary, Mary

by Rin Willis

V

The Way She Stretched Whatever Limbs Were Left

by Robert Taylor

VI

Inhale, Exhale

by MM Schreier

VII

Our Bellies Full at Last

by Margret Wiggins

VIII

Periphery

by Luke Sprunger

IX

The Lake Michigan Monster

Jen Myers

X

Bait 

by Nicki Blake

That’s all, folks…

Check back on Oct. 29th at 9am PST
for full results!

Slackers, rejoice!

Procrastinator Special keeps late subs open
until end of day (PST) October 22nd, 2021.

“Where there is a monster,

there is a miracle.”

– Ogden Nash

Submit to Flash Monster

Back at it again with the contest that started it all. We’ve been running Halloween contests since 2014, and October 31st is indeed a hallowed day on the Molotov calendar. (Hell, your editors even got married on Halloween last year!) So hunker down in the lab and stitch together your most monstrous creations to celebrate the season.

Now, the theme for this one is pretty self-explanatory. But we’d also like to point out that you can go as literal or figurative with your monster as you want. We like literary approaches, but we also dig genre and pulpy takes as well.  Art house or grindhouse. Subvert the usual monster tropes or create something nobody’s ever seen before. 

You can check out some past Flash Monster issues here, here, here, here, and here.

The top three entries will win cash money.

$300 for Flash Monster 2021 winner

$200 for 2nd place

$100 for 3rd place

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

Submit to Flash Monster

Follow these guidelines, and your best nightmare could come true. 

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

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

– Please paste your entry into the corresponding field. Do not list your name anywhere or we’ll assume you won’t be able to accurately recite the words that break the curse.

– Costs $8 to enter. (Sorry, no refunds.)

– We reserve the right to extend deadlines if necessary (and you can expect our usual Procrastinator’s Special with corresponding increase in entry 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– Submissions must be previously unpublished work, and you will retain copyright (duh).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.

– Contest soft deadline is end of day (PST) Friday, October 15, 2021. Winners announced on October 29th, and we’ll unleash the Flash Monster 2021 mega-issue on Halloween!

– And, most importantly, this is a FLASH MONSTER contest, so you must include some sort of literal or figurative monster. But again, this can be in any form imaginable.

So that means you can do something like this…

or this…

or this…

or this…

or even this…

Submit to Flash Monster