by Editor
on February 13, 2022
HONORABLE MENTION, WINTER 2022
The Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition
BY MONA SUSAN POWER
Death-Giver stalks me since I hopped the Greyhound bus for Parris Island. My folks stood in the road, watched as I found a seat. The dust-smeared window made them look old and worn-out, though my father stood straight as the Wisconsin pines behind him, to remind me that I come from a long line of warriors. Hell, Natives were fighting this nation’s wars when it hadn’t made us citizens yet, my family included. I’m a third generation Marine.
A small crowd gathered to see me off, and I scanned their faces, trying to ignore the thought it might be for the last time. A man walked out of the woods and joined them, taller than everyone else, mighty arms crossed over his bull chest. He was naked to the waist, so I could plainly see he was split down the middle—the right half raven-black, left half green as the jungle. My hand scrabbled beneath my shirt to grab the war bundle that hangs around my neck; a protection bestowed on me in ceremony. The pouch was small comfort against Death-Giver staring at me through gritty windows. He faced me straight on to hide his intentions, offering neither the side of him that brings death, nor the side that brings life and triumph in war. He peered at me as if wondering what fate I deserve.
The next time I glimpse that powerful god, I’ve been in Vietnam for six months. I have family here: Pharaoh from Chicago, head shaped like an Egyptian king, Dipshit from New Orleans who can cook better than my Gran, Scribbler from South Boston, Eggs from Arkansas. There were more, but they’re gone now. My buddies call me “Geronimo,” though I’m not from that leader’s tribe—over here an Indian is an Indian. [continue reading…]
by Editor
on December 1, 2021
Ghost Train. Photo: Jesse Draper
Now Accepting Submissions: The Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition
What? Our biannual contest for sudden short stories incorporating a supernatural theme or element.
When? NOW.
Deadline: January 31.
Judge: Tara Lynn Masih, author of the novel, My Real Name Is Hannah, and editor of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction.
Length Limits: 250-1,000 words.
Cash Awards: $1,000 for the winner, $200 for each of two honorable mentions. Print and online publication for all three.
Recent Media Coverage of our competitions and publications: Here are some links.
Complete Guidelines and link to our electronic submissions system: Right HERE!
by Editor
on November 22, 2021
Tara Lynn Masih
Our Winter 2022 Screw Turn Flash Fiction competition opens to submissions on December 1—and we’re delighted to have award-winning novelist, flash-fiction crafter, flash-fiction teacher, and anthology editor Tara Lynn Masih on hand to choose our winner and two honorable mentions.
Tara is a National Jewish Book Award Finalist and winner of a Julia Ward Howe Award for her debut novel, My Real Name Is Hanna. Her anthologies include the acclaimed Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction. In addition to other collections, her flash has been anthologized in Flashed: Sudden Stories in Comics and Prose, Flash Fiction Funny, and W. W. Norton’s New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction, and was featured in Fiction Writer’s Review for National Short Story Month.
Awards for her work include the Lou P. Bunce Creative Writing Award, The Ledge Magazine‘s Fiction Award, Wigleaf Top 50 recognition (judged by Roxane Gay), a finalist fiction grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and Pushcart Prize nominations. She has taught flash fiction workshops around the country, and is Founding Series Editor of The Best Small Fictions and a Founding Donor to the Harry Ransom Center’s Flash Fiction Library in Texas.
Her second story collection, How We Disappear, is forthcoming from Press 53 and Blackstone Audio in September 2022. www.taramasih.com
Welcome Tara! It’s going to be fun working with you.
by Editor
on November 10, 2021
TV, Newspapers, YouTube . . . TGS Has Been Getting Around
You likely have already seen the Boston Globe review of 21st Century Ghost Stories—Volume II, the latest addition to our ongoing print anthology series. The Globe‘s take on the stories that are winners or honorable mentions in our competitions:
“[S]trange and smart and upends ideas of what a ghost story is, and expands, with verve and unsettling bizarrity, what it can be.“
And we’ve recently received some other attention as well.
There’s a television interview
There’s a newspaper feature article about us in the Maine Sunday Telegram.
In addition, for your listening pleasure, two of our stories have been narrated and uploaded to YouTube from the Classic Ghost Stories Podcast:
The Beast of Blanchland, by Rowan Bowman
and
Snake in the Attic, by Garret Johnson
Both are read—in his natural British accent, no less—by Tony Walker. Enjoy!
