As a response an observed increase in the popularity of the form, the Dublin Review of Books has launched a one-time flash fiction contest.
The free, online magazine of book reviews and news will publish three short short stories selected by a DRB editor and Irish fiction writers James Ryan and Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, and award the author of the winning work a prize of one thousand euros (approximately thirteen hundred dollars).
Writers from anywhere in the world working in English may enter up to three stories of no more than five hundred words each, either via the online form or e-mail, by June 1. A ten-euro entry fee (approximately thirteen dollars), which the DRB will accept through PayPal, is required.
Judge James Ryan is the author of novels South of the Border (Lilliput Press, 2008), Seeds of Doubt (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001), and Home from England (Phoenix House, 1995). To read a short story by Ryan, check out issue seven of the Dublin Review (no relation to DRB).
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, who has studied medieval literature and oral tradition and has a doctorate in Irish folklore, has published short story collections including The Pale Gold of Alaska (Blackstaff Press, 2000) and Blood and Water (Attic Press, 1988), and the novel The Dancers Dancing (Blackstaff Press, 1999), which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize.
Also holding short short story contests this spring are the Bridport Arts Centre in England and New Millennium Writings in the United States, both with deadlines in June.