2022 Literary Event
Welcome to the Midvale Arts Council 2022 Flash Fiction Literary Contest!
Get ready for an intense literary experience that will test your imagination and writing ability - plus it's a lot of fun! We will have competition in both "Short Story" and "Poetry" categories with prizes for each. The event starts September 17th with a 48-hour writing window with winners announced September 23rd. Check out the rules below and get your fingers ready!
How To Enter
Very simple. Just send in your desire to enter and what category (or both) you'd like to be entered into. You'll receive another email on the 17th with another copy of the rules and your prompts. Send in your email to: admin@midvalearts.com.
What is Flash Fiction?
For this competition the entrants will be given prompts that must be included in their finished products. There will be a variety of prompts so you might end up with the same as others in the competition, but it's all about what you do with them. Each category will have different rules, so please go over the rules below to see what works for you. And feel free to enter both!
At 7 pm on September 17 each contestant will be emailed their prompts and a full copy of the rules. They will then have 48 hours to send in their completed effort for the judges. This means that all entries must be emailed back to Midvale Arts by September 19 before 7 pm. Writers will be allowed to send in changes or different entries, but the last one received before the deadline will be the only one that counts.
All questions and clarifications can be addressed to the Midvale Arts Council and will be answered before the deadline. admin@midvalearts.com
Short Story
All Short Story entries will have one main rule - the finished story has to be 1,000 words or less. This does not include the title. Each contestant will be given three prompts (A Location - An Object - A Partial Sentence) and the story must include them in some way. How much the prompts fit into your story is completely up to you, but keep in mind that the judges might be looking at more than just a "mention" of the prompt. As an example, you might have "A Hospital", "A Doll", and "I wish I would have..." to work into a story. Feel free to use those to practice.
Poetry
For your poems you'll be given five individual words that all must be contained in the finished poem. Your style of poem and its subject matter are yours to decide, but all of the words much be included. As an example, last year one of the prompt lists included the words: Shoulder, Wait, Attach, Enchant, and Nod. If you like, you can use those as a practice.
Rating
We do not want to put any restrictions on your writing, but keep in mind that winning stories will be placed on the Midvale Arts website and on our social media accounts. It is also possible that publications like the Midvale City Journal might like to run the stories (with author permission). With that in mind we ask that you do not include any graphic sexual content and know that while language is not an issue with your writing, it might need to be blocked out for publication.
Judging
We have several judges for this event and each story will be given to a set of three judges. They will score your story independently from the other stories they are reading, and we will take the combined average of those judges to create your score. We will then rank the stories from these scores. Any ties will first be separated by who had the highest individual judge score. If there is still a tie, we will assign three different judges to read the stories and break the tie.
Prizes
Prizes will be awarded for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in the competition with possible prizes being awarded for other things that stand out to the judges. This could be something like “Best use of location” or other such categories as the judges see fit. Winners will be announced on Saturday, September 24th, around noon.
Submissions
You can either send in your story in a Word document or a PDF. Please do not list your name on the main story. The top of the page should have only the title and the prompts you were given. The Admin for Midvale Arts will have the record of who sent which stories.
Feedback
If you would like feedback from the judges, please let us know in your email. After the contest we will send an email with notes from the judges. We can’t be sure of the length of those notes, but anything of value will be given to you.
Other Questions
Should you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. - admin@midvalearts.com
