The Contest Winners Are

Congratulations to the eight winners of Writer Advice’s 2024 Micro Fiction Contest! We’ll start posting on January 8^th.

Why? It’s a mystery right now, but I promise it’s a good reason.

Here’s the schedule for the work will appear each week.

• On January 8^th we’ll publish Suzanne Miller’s “Perfidy.”
• On January 15^th we’ll publish SD Powell’s “Buggered.”
• On January 22^nd we’ll publish Julie Greenberg’s “A Rave.”
• On January 29^th we’ll publish Pamela Jean Bruschi’s “Hilary’s Hilarious Hopes.”
• On February 5^th we’ll publish John Schembra’s “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane.”
• On February 12^th we’ll publish Jaime Gill’s “The Gift.”
• On February 19^th we’ll publish Darlene Kapur’s “What Megan Wants.”
• On February 26^th  we’ll publish B. Lawson Hull’s “Packed Away.”

FYI all of these are winners. We no longer rank them first, second, and third place.

We love these stories and hope you will too. Please come back weekly to read, enjoy, and share your reactions if you choose to do so. Many thanks!

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The Gift

By Jamie Gill

Trembling, sweat-slicked, adrift on exhaustion and ache.

Your squall tugs me back and the midwife offers you—an unwrapped gift. I press your skin tight to mine, as if to push your squashy perfection back inside.

My second birth. I forgot labour’s horrors and the intensity of this connection. We were one and now are two—but love can’t be cut like an umbilical cord. Limitless love, enough to fill worlds.

At last the midwife speaks, oh-so-gently. “Say when you’re ready.”

Two shapes wait outside, blurred through frosted glass and tears. Your parents. I tell myself this is love, too.

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Jaime Gill is a queer, British-born writer living in Cambodia, where he works for non-profits. He’s been published in Orca, Litro, Phare, BULL and others. He won a Bridport Prize and the Honeybee Literature Prize in 2024, and is a Pushcart nominee. More at www.jaimegill.com Illustration by Sewkhy Tan. 

EDITOR’S NOTE: We love the compression and the way the narrator digs into his feelings at that exact moment. Satisfying and eye-opening. 

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Leavin’ On A Jet Plane

 By John Schembra

Early in the morning, after a fitful night of off-and-on sleeping, I was awakened by someone sitting on my bed.  I opened one eye, not willing to come fully awake at that point, and was surprised to see my father sitting there, dressed and ready to leave for work.  I closed my eye as it was apparent he didn’t realize I was awake. He very gently brushed the hair off my forehead and away from my eyes. He took my hand in his and just held it, sitting quietly next to me. I laid there not moving or reacting, as he sat there for a few more moments.  He arose and slowly walked to the bedroom door.  Stopping, he turned toward me and said, very quietly, “I love you, son.  Be careful, and stay safe.” 

As he turned to leave, I replied, “I love you, too, dad.”  He paused for a moment, and I knew he had heard me. If I didn’t know better, I could swear he was crying.

Sixteen hours later I was in Vietnam.

 

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Award Winning Author of : M.P, A Novel of Vietnam; Retribution; Diplomatic Immunity; Blood Debt; Sin Eater; An Echo of Lies The List; and Southern Justness; www.jschembra.com

EDITOR’S NOTE: We love the father’s actions, the brevity, the impact of the ending. Such a good story, and since it’s memoir, I’m grateful the author is back.  

 

HILARY’S HILARIOUS HOPE

By Pamela Brusch

Hilary’s hopes were suspended above her keyboard, ready to take on any challenge she chose to place on the blank screen above it. Her head was choked with thoughts, saturated like a sponge, overflowing with unwritten words. Her mind was drowning in a sea of letters that she couldn’t unscramble fast enough to form into coherent sentences; sentences that were impatiently waiting for Hilary to create. The computer monitor in front of her was staring at her, demanding that she wait no longer to display her unspoken creations on its empty surface.

Hilary had been at the mall yesterday and had stood before a window display at a popular bookstore. Stacks of books from the ‘New York Times Best Sellers List’ crowded the space and were doing their best to stand upright. Notices of upcoming events, where ‘you could get a signed copy,’ were randomly taped to the window. Hilary had been disappointed to discover that the authors’ main purpose in choosing the title for his or her book was one that would attract the most customers in order to make the most profit – books about ‘How to Succeed in the Business World’, ‘Secrets From an Ex-Government Official’, ‘Hidden Affair of Local Celebrity Exposed’, ‘How to Improve Your Sex Life’.  Readers were waiting impatiently for the next bestseller to be published so they could have something to talk about with their friends and their colleagues over the dinner table; something to be displayed on their glass-topped coffee tables.

Whatever happened to the great American novel? Whatever happened to novelists like Faulkner,  Steinbeck, Galsworthy? Lee Harper, Charles Dickens, or Joseph Conrad? Authors who wrote with such passion and in such intricate detail that you believed you had just passed one of their characters on the street, or perhaps he was a neighbor who lived at the end of the road you lived on. Perhaps you entered a building or someone’s home for the first time and you knew what you would find further down the hall because you had previously visited it as a guest of the author. 

The screen before her remained empty. And to think for a minute that she was capable of writing the world’s, or at the least, the next great American novel! Well, that was just crazy, right? That was just hilarious. Hillary began to laugh uncontrollably, and then she began to cry.

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Pamela Brusch is a retired nurse who lives in the woods of Maine. She respects nature and enjoys reading, writing, creating ‘U-neek’ art, and her grandchildren.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: We think many readers will identify and be grateful that someone else feels this way.

A Rave

By Julie Greenberg

Photo Credit: Creative Common

Her boyfriend guides her through a swarm of bodies. Lights bounce off walls like lightning. Heads bounce to the beat of the music. A DJ wearing a marshmallow helmet conducts his audience in a chant. The jumbotron flashes… Magnolia, Marry Me! The crowd echoes back, “Magnolia Marry Me!”  

“Look at that!” she yells to her guy, “someone else has my name,” as she dances her way towards the exit sign, alone.

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Julie Greenberg works as a gallery educator and teaching artist for a nonprofit arts organization in Los Angeles. She has a teaching credential, BA in creative writing, and a library service credential. Mirroring her diverse professional career, Julie refers to her writing resume a genre jukebox, covering a multi-genre of publications.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Again, every word counts. This single delightful moment is unexpected and filled with irony. How does the ending make you feel?

Buggered

SD Powell

“I think we’re lost,” he said.

It was out of character for him to lie on a Sunday, especially after mass. But it was worth a trip to the confessional, an irritated wife—even car repairs. The sinful deception designed to end his nagging curiosity took months to plan. In front of him, the road stretched straight for miles. Perfectly spaced trees looked like pawns on an infinite chess board.

“You’ve been getting us lost for years, you old coot,” Rose said, as if she were telling him where he left his shoes again. She looked out the window at the rows of trees, all the same size. “I think we’re in the experimental orchard.” She pointed a crooked finger towards the passenger window. “I saw a sign a while back.” 

Tires whispered over desolate pavement. The polleny scent of the blossoms calmed him.

“Hey, Rose, look at that.” He leaned forward and pointed at something stuck on the windshield.

“What? A bug?” She rolled her eyes and her eyelids fluttered. His myopic focus was driving them into the ditch. She grabbed the dashboard. “Watch the road, Ira.”

He swerved back to the center of his lane. Rose’s shoulders and head swooped in a gentle semi-circle.

“Not just a bug. I think it’s a bee.” A hint of glee showed beneath the surface of Ira’s weathered face. He leaned forward to look at the windshield again. “See? There’s part of its wing, and some of its abdomen.”

“Watch the road, old man!” Rose said, but curiosity drew her in. “A bee? I haven’t seen a bee in—I  don’t know how long.”

His smile blossomed, deeply lining his freckled cheeks. “It’s a bee.”

“How can you tell? It looks like snot with a few bits flapping about.” She looked closer, aligning her bifocals. “I think you’re right, honey. Wow, a real one.”

“Look, there’s more.” Kack! A small winged creature hit their windshield and left a star-shaped crack. Springs and bits of wing shimmered in the sunlight. “Damned robees!”

“Well, you engineered them, dear,” Rose sighed. “Why did you bring us here? Did you miss them?”

Ira’s held back his bark and growled his reply. “I wanted to see if they messed with ’em.”

“Oh? What did you—” Another suicidal, metallic bee pockmarked Rose’s side of the windshield. She flinched.

“Yeah, look,” Ira said, pointing his shaky finger at the shiny corpse. “They engineered a protector drone.” The muscles in his jaw pulsed and tensed. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

“Some kind of kamikaze bee?” 

Ira ignored her and mumbled, “Damned military.” He hit the brakes and made a U-turn. “Okay, I’ve seen enough of this horse shit.”

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When he’s not pondering conspiracies of treasure buried by purple woodland creatures, SD Powell likes to hike, travel, and write fiction ranging from novels to micro-fiction. He was awarded finalist in writeradvice.com‘s 2023 flash fiction contest, and top ten percent of Oxford’s 2024 Flash Fiction Legends.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Of course I love stories about older couples that ring true, and the dialogue here is right on target. I love what I learn about these characters and the world they live in. Another excellent job. Feel free to send comments or questions, and I’ll forward them to the author.