1,000 Word Herd Flash Fiction Competition: March 29 – April 5
1 week. 1,000 words. 2 custom prompts. $500 prize pool.
2021 Update: This page is the 2020 competition. Go HERE to see the 2021 competition!
UPDATE: The winners are live! Check out the full list of 20 top stories picked by our judges and guest judges here: http://tldrpress.org/index.php/2020/05/19/1kwhc-winners/
NOTE: The competition has begun! Please check your email if you have registered through Eventbrite (make sure to check your spam folder!) for your individual prompts and the link to submit by 12:01 am Eastern, April 5, 2020 (NOT evening of April 5, please check your timezone!). If you have any issues or queries, send us an email at tldrpress@gmail.com – good luck!
TL;DR Press is launching our first fundraising event: The 1,000 Word Herd Flash Fiction Competition! Sign up to participate in this week-long flash fiction competition, with $500 worth of prizes for the top 20 placing stories!
It costs £5 or $6.42 USD to register + tax/fees.
We as a press are also proud to offer each entrant guaranteed feedback on their story from the judges. Offering writers a chance for feedback is one of the Press’ core missions, along with our philanthropic mission to create anthologies to benefit charities.
We are also extremely proud to announce that Scarlett Thomas, Stephanie Victoire, and Dan White will be our guest judges, judging the finalists! Find out more about them below.
The competition begins at 12:01 am on Sunday, March 29, 2020 and end at 12:01 am on Sunday, April 5, 2020. You can find all of our rules and regulations here on our website.
Register via Eventbrite!
How can I join?
Sign up through Eventbrite before the competition begins on March 29, 2020. You will receive an email at 12:01 a.m. on March 29 with your individual prompts and the form to submit your story. You will have until 12:01 a.m. on April 5 to write a 1,000 word MAX flash fiction story based on those prompts.
How does it work?
The 1,000 Word Herd Flash Fiction Competition will last for one week (168 hours). Each entrant will receive two individual prompts at the beginning of the competition: A character and an object/situation. There are no genre restrictions. Each entrant must create a 1,000-word original flash fiction story by the end of the competition and submit.
The judges will read, score, and provide feedback on each story (2 judges/piece) to create a Top 20 Winners list, which our guest judges from outside our #tldrwriters community will pick their Top 3 stories from. The top 20 stories will be announced, and prizes will be given to the winners as well as an ebook publication made of the top stories to benefit First Story (more below under “Publishing”).
You can find all of the rules and regulations on our website, and our process outlined in our handy infographic!
Fundraising
We want to keep this competition as transparent as possible. This competition is partially a fundraiser to help cover the Press’ financial needs throughout 2020. The prizes are our first priority. The Press will not receive any donations from entry fees before prizes are fully funded.
The Press is run by a volunteer-only group of writers who take no compensation but it still has expenses, such as insurance, proof copy purchases, cover art, tax filing, software licenses, and other expenses of a small non-profit publisher. We work to be as low-cost and low-barrier as possible for the writers in our community, and to continue doing that we need to raise funds. So, what better way than a competition, where we can also support some of the amazing writers in our community?
We are splitting the ticket sales between the cost of the prize money and funds for the Press. The judges have kindly agreed to offer their time for free. We will ensure that the prize money is funded first, then any additional sales from tickets will go to the Press. In the event that we cannot fully fund the prize money, we will do everything in our power to raise the money through other means. We will refund any tickets sold should the competition be cancelled for any reason.
Prizes
1st Place: $125 and a free eBook copy of each of our TL;DR Press collections to date
2nd Place: $75 and a free eBook copy of each of our TL;DR Press collections to date
3rd Place: $50 and a free eBook copy of each of our TL;DR Press collections to date
4th-20th Place: $15 and a free eBook copy of each of our TL;DR Press collections to date
Register on Eventbrite, only 300 spots available!
Publication
The Top 20 Winners will be published in an eBook anthology in addition to their prize money. The anthology will benefit our charity of choice for this project: First Story, an English non-profit organization that encourages young people to write creatively for pleasure and agency. Their creative writing programmes equip young people with the confidence and skills to thrive in life and education.
Thank you to First Story for partnering with us!
Guest Judges
Scarlett Thomas is an English author who writes contemporary postmodern fiction. She has published ten novels, including The End of Mr. Y and PopCo, as well as the Worldquake series of children’s books, and Monkeys With Typewriters, a book on how to unlock the power of storytelling. In 2001 she was named by The Independent as one of 20 Best Young Writers. In 2002 she won Best New Writer in the Elle Style Awards, and also featured as an author in New Puritans, a project led by the novelists Matt Thorne and Nicholas Blincoe consisting of both a manifesto and an anthology of short stories.
She is a Professor of Creative Writing & Contemporary Fiction at the University of Kent. Her latest novel, Oligarchy, is available now.
Website: https://canongate.co.uk/contributors/256-scarlett-thomas/
Stephanie Victoire was born in London to a French-Creole Mauritian family. In 2010 she graduated with a BA in Creative Writing from London Metropolitan University. Her short story collection, The Other World, It Whispers, was published by Salt in 2016 and was longlisted for the 2017 Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Her story, ‘Memento Mori’, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017. Stephanie lives in London and runs workshops focussing on creative writing inspired by other mediums and has a keen interest in subjects such as mysticism, the occult, ancestry, native spirituality and cultural traditions. She is currently working on a new book, Wise Women Free.
Website: http://www.stephanievictoire.com/
Dan White is the writer and artist of Cindy & Biscuit, which has been twice nominated for the British Comic Awards. He is also the creator of Terminus, Insomnia, and his current project, Sticky Ribs. Other comic works include Zip City Comics, Beau & Me, Tony is a Werewolf, Wish List, and Christmas With Frank. He also edited the horror anthology Howl!
He co-hosts the popular comics podcast SILENCE!
Website: https://milkthecat.blog/
Community
Need some eyes on your entry, or just some encouragement along the way? TL;DR Press manages a writing community on Slack, apply here to join!