Force Majeure: a great and unexpected power. We’re looking for the best small things, any form, any content, any fine and wonderful creation.
ENTER between Jan. 1st and May 30th! Apr. 30th.
CONTEST RULES
Top prize for a single flash $300; two runners-up $100 each.
DEADLINE: 11:59 p.m. CDT, 30 May 2023.
Two ways to enter:
- Upload 1 flash (you’ll receive an ebook of the prize issue) – $5
- Upload 1–3 flashes in a single file (receive a print copy and an ebook) – $12
Enter as many times as you wish. Simultaneous submissions are fine; if a flash is accepted elsewhere, please notify us via a Message on the submission’s page within Submittable, or withdraw the submission. Winning flash must not be (scheduled to be) published in print, ebook, or internet/app format, nor posted online, before September 2023.
All entries considered for publication in Storm Cellar. Entries in any number do not count toward our regular submissions limits. No entries by agents on clients’ behalf.
What is a flash?
- Shorter than 1000 words
- Not more than 5 pages
- May contain fiction, nonfiction, hybrids, marks, or images, in any combination*
- May bend genre, form, brains
We encourage entries by Indigenous, Black, and POC, trans, enby, and women, LGBTQIA and +, morphologically atypical, disabled, and neurodivergent, fat, migrant and border-straddling, and poor authors, as well as members of other under-represented groups.
Authors who cannot pay the entry fee, because of financial hardship or lack of online payment in their country, should email the editors with the brief statement that they have need (explanation not requested), from the email address associated with their Submittable account, and attach one flash as a .txt or .docx or .pdf file; our email: StormCellar [dot] editor [at] gmail [dot] com.
Incarcerated authors may mail an entry and short author bio, postmarked by the deadline, to Contest c/o Storm Cellar, 601 E. Washington St. #4, Greencastle IN 46135, USA; no entry fee required; include SASE/postcard for reply; include someone’s email address if you desire ebook delivery.
Contest will be decided by the editors. Close friends, family, employers, and students within the last four years of the editors may not enter.
All prizes will be awarded. Contest fees go to prizes, production costs, and to pay contributor honoraria. No fees may be refunded. “Extra” flashes within uploaded files will not be read. We may disqualify any entrant for any reason. Entrants will be notified of their contest outcome by email, on or before June 30 in the contest year.
Handy link to examples of flash we’ve printed. Surprise us!
* (The magazine prints at journal size in grayscale.)
stormcellar.org 