Episode 35: Flash Fiction Contest
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Hello, my beautiful cinnabar moths or any kind of moth you’d like to be. Today on the writers triangle, I’m happy to announce our new writing competition. It is inspired by all of the fabulous writers on Twitter that participate in our hashtag finish the story. We’ve gotten some amazing flash fiction pieces over the past six months that we’ve been running the hashtag. And it has inspired me to want to publish these amazing stories and our E zine, which has me really excited because I really do love writers, I just think they’re so fabulous and creative and deserving of celebration, and notoriety. And so much work goes into being a writer, that’s not celebrated. One of the aspects of being a writer that’s not celebrated enough, it’s separated somewhat is flash fiction that writers produce. On Twitter. There’s basically tons of really great stories that have been written for free, published on the platform for free. And I’d like to see some of those authors being paid. I wish I could purchase every flash fiction story and reward every flash fiction story. But, you know, I’m not, I don’t have unlimited resources. My resources are finite. I wish that they were infinite because I absolutely would buy all of those flash fiction stories and some of the hashtags that celebrate fast fiction, one of the most popular ones, I think is
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VSS 365, and VSS daily. VSS daily, I think, is mostly high Q’s, but I’m not sure check out the hashtag and investigate that on your own. And VSS 365 is a specific writing prompt, I think it’s usually a word. I don’t know if it’s ever a phrase. And if you use the hashtag, it gets put up into, you know, that it’s searchable by that hashtag and gets celebrated under that hashtag. And our flash fiction on Twitter, writing prompt is hashtag finish the story. And I came up with the finished story hashtag as a way to promote the short stories and create engagement about for the easing basically, on cinnabar moth, and the website cinnabar. Moth literary collections. And I wasn’t really expecting the interest in participation and engagement, that the web that sorry, the hashtag has created. And the website is doing amazingly well. It averages around 25,000 views per month. And we have a lot of a lot of that is returning people coming to read the E zine, which is very exciting for me, and very gratifying because I think the stories are amazing, which is why I published them. But it’s another way to let art to let authors not Arthur slit authors, and maybe authors named Arthur, get out there and have the work to have their work seen and celebrated. I do think that by participating in these types of competitions, and participating in writing hashtags on Twitter, it’s a great way to gain followers and a great way to create content for your your social media feeds. Because the short stories can be populated, you can use the inspiration from Twitter and put them on Tik Tok. You can put them on Facebook, you can put them on Instagram or you know, your YouTube channel, whatever it is, you’re doing to promote yourself as an author these prompts really do get you seen, they get you seen by the other writers who are participating in these, these prompts with you. They get you seen by the author of the prompts, and everybody in their feed and their timeline. So I think writing these sorts of flash, the short flash fiction pieces on Twitter is a great way to increase an author’s profile and gain a following and gain interest in your writing about you as an author about your writing specifically, and also get interesting and you the person. I find it really interesting nowadays, it seems like writing a good book isn’t enough anymore, that you also have to be an interesting person or somebody that has some sort of, I don’t know, some sort of position in the world, if that makes sense. And my position that I’ve chosen to take is uplifting and supporting authors, especially authors who aren’t in the mainstream and whose voices may go overlooked, and finding new and creative ways of supporting authors that I get to know on Twitter. And that’s really what, you know, inspired this competition and doing it monthly so that 12 authors will get published that otherwise I wouldn’t have had published I wouldn’t may not have seen. And in doing the hashtag finish the story, I’ve been able to get to know a lot of authors of flash fiction and really enjoy looking at their timelines, getting to know their writing styles, getting to know them as author looking at their, their wider works. And the one the authors who have been participating regularly and finish that story, you’ll be seeing short stories from them full length
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3000 3500 words short stories from them in 2023, because I’m getting to know them, and through their participation in the finish that story, hashtag and playing with me and taking the writing prompt and crafting stories. We’ve had dialogues and conversations about their writing about their thinking about writing about their characters, about their approach to this prompt, and how they apply, you know, the phrase from the short story into creating a new story. So the finished story prompt is a look at the five, the five or six short stories that we publish. In, for example, in maize, e zine, and I find a phrase that speaks to me that I could write a piece of flash fiction about. And I use that as the prompt. And that phrase, then gets put into a flash fiction piece, and tweeted as a response to the prompt. So that’s how the story has come about. And that’s how I’m able to see all of them and read all of them and engage with all of them. And the authors who have participated regularly in this, I’ve started conversations with them, and gotten to know them as people aside, in addition to you know, writers, but also getting to know their personality, getting to their writing style, getting to know what, what their body of work is. And all of the regular participants have short stories coming out full length short stories coming out in 2023, with the ezine. So I think participating and prompts is a great way to create a relationship and to create engagement, and to get yourself known and to get yourself published. And the interesting thing about publishing is, once you’re published, it starts to snowball, right? Once you have one short story picked up or a piece of flash fiction picked up that changes your query letter, it gives you something to punch it up in and put in there. And it also gives you someone to ask for a blurb for your website. And I’ve written lots of blurbs for authors websites. Because I’ve gotten to know the author through short story writing through their short story writing. And I’ve approached authors and asked, Hey, could you write a book? Or could you write an anthology, from their submission of short stories to the E zine from their participation in flash fiction? One author in in particular has a a multiple, I’m not gonna say their name, because y’all know, I like everyone to tell their own story. But there’s one author in particular that our relationship started when they submitted a short story for our winter anthology that came out in December of 2021. And I just loved their writing style, and I got to know them on Twitter, and I really loved their political views. And that made me drawn to them. And we had some some things in common in terms of art we liked and views on history. And we started having a conversation together with about these views and about, you know, how we see the world and got to know each other. And I really enjoyed the writing. And I started reading the other writing that had been published and other places and getting to know their back catalogue, so to speak. And I was just enraptured with them. I just think they’re one of the most awesome people ever in life. And that made me say, hey, what do you think about contributing a short story for the E zine? And they were like all for it. And they’re like, sure, you know, what’s the what’s the prompt or what’s the theme? And I shared the theme and they wrote a short story, and I absolutely loved it. And I said, What do you think about you know, writing a book And do you have any book ideas that you’re working on? Or do you have any, a book that you’ve written and you just haven’t been able to find a home for. And that resulted in a three book deal
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with them for ideas that they have to have a development, a three book development deal. So the sorts of relationships that are forged on social media for me, they some of them become deeply personal, intimate relationships, where I really care about the author and care about their writing and care about their success, and caring about them as a person and start to work for ways to create opportunities for them. And that all started from, you know, responding to a short story, open call for short stories and engagement on social media. And when you’re on social media, for me, I don’t care about how many followers the author has. That’s not my bag, that’s not what I’m focused on. I think social media followings are really hit and miss. And I find that a lot of people, not everyone, okay, I’m not talking about everyone on social media. But I have found that a lot of people do use controversy as a way to build a following on social media. And that’s kind of a turn off. For me, I think some political conversations are really wonderful to have, I put my pollute my politics out there. And I think that’s completely okay, I put my point of view out there. And I think that’s completely okay. But I don’t just stream negativity, it’s there has to be for me, to enjoy a social media feed, there has to be a balance between the light and the dark, it can’t be dark and heavy and angry all of the time, because I just don’t have the spoons for that every day. So I find that I won’t engage with those. And those not Instagram, but those social media accounts every day that have those types of feeds, but I do engage with them sometime. However, they’re not going to be the the accounts that I get to know the people behind, there are few accounts that I have a personal relationship that have turned into that, but they weren’t that at the start of their account type of thing. And for authors, I love authors who do flash fiction, I love authors who talk about their personal life. I love authors who
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support and celebrate other authors and are really interested in being a positive force in the writing community that uplifts and celebrates ezines publishers, bookstores, libraries, other writers, poets, genres that they wouldn’t normally read and talk about what books they read, and celebrates the authors that they read. And that to me, makes me really excited to get to know this person, because I’m like, well, they’re really supporting the community. And they’re being an awesome community member. And that motivates me to create opportunities for them. And as a publisher, I feel like that’s the main thing that I do is I create opportunities for writers. And I celebrate writers. And the people that I want to be celebrating are those writers who speak to me who get me interested, whose timeline is diverse and interesting and positive with some politics sprinkled in, I always like the politics to be a little bit sprinkled in because I have very strong political views. And I try and support people who are like minded. And I know that can be frowned upon, and some people might feel it. That’s discrimination. It’s not, it really isn’t. I think everybody has biases, because bias is just another word for preferences. And it’s easier for me because for me as being part of the LGBTQ i plus community, you have to be a supporter of the LGBT, LGBTQ i plus community for me to feel comfortable publishing you. And for me to feel like you’re going to be a safe person for me, and a safe person for our audience. And we’re a majority black owned press. So you have to value black lives and support black lives matter because I want you to be a safe person for our audience. It’s not about saying somebody’s right or wrong as a person, it’s about saying what’s right or wrong for our audience, and the audience and following that we’re trying to build and as a publishing house, you do have to have an idea of who your audience is. And you do have to have an idea of who’s going to be reading your books, and who’s going to be engaging with you on social media, and I feel a responsibility to those people. Paul, and I feel a responsibility to those people to have a safe space if somebody’s disabled, or chronically ill a person of color, or part of the LGBTQ plus community to know that our timeline at cinnabar moth on Twitter is going to be a safe timeline for them to engage with. And I want them to know that all of our authors are going to be safe people for them to get to engage with his IV publishing someone’s book as me personally endorsing them, as a person, as an artist as an author. And I take that responsibility very seriously. And I want every single person we’ve ever published, for their timeline to be a safe space for anybody who follows us, to follow them and engage with them and not ever have to deal with bias that is against their identity, bias that’s going to be triggering for them, or trauma inducing for them. That’s not what I’m about. I’m about uplifting these marginalized voices and creating safe spaces for these marginalized voices. That’s an important thing to consider. So when I’m looking at the people who are participating in the writing prompt, and future, people who are participating in the competition, finish that story. When I’m thinking about what story is going to win. It is 90%, the story, and 10%, the author. So I’m looking at reading the story. Does the story speak to me? Is the story phenomenal? Would I want to publish the story? Am I excited about the story? And if the answer is yes, then I’m going to look at the author, I’m going to look at their feed, and look and see what are they posting on their timeline. And if they’re posting what I consider to be hate speech against the LGBTQ plus community, I’m not going to publish them. So if you’re not in front of the LGBTQ i plus community, then probably not the competition for you. But if you aren’t, and if you’re supporting marginalized voices, then it’s probably the competition for you, you have a shot in the dark. And the reason I’m putting this out there is I’m also wanting to be protective of writers time, and writers creativity and writers energy. And I think that social media can sort of be a time sink and an energy suck. For a lot of authors not knowing where do I put my energy? Where do I put my focus? What do I do to get myself out there? Because it can’t feel like and I’ve experienced this myself, it can feel like shouting into an abyss, and begging for attention, like, Hey, look over here. You know, give me a follow, pay attention to my, my timeline and give me a moment of your time. Because there’s so many competing voices.
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How do you get your voice to stand out? How do you choose? What relationships to cultivate? And what relationships to give your energy to? That’s a question that I asked myself. And that’s where it that like mindedness comes in? And are they going to be interesting for me to engage in? Do they give me joy? Do I feel uplifted? Do I feel happy after engaging with them? Do I feel lighter? Do I feel interested while engaging with them? And I’ve met so many amazing authors that the answer is absolutely. And I enjoy my time on Twitter. And I have so much fun. And I have this really close knit group of authors that I engage with almost every day. And almost every time I’m on Twitter, and I go outside of my my everyday group, and I look at what’s on my timeline, I look at people that follow us. And I try to diversify my engagement and make sure I’m uplifting and celebrating the artist and the poets and the authors. And people that have other stuff going on other easing, other genes that are out there, and other indie publishers that are out there and indie bookstores and all the things and publishing and a little bit outside of publishing and amplify their voice by retweeting them liking and engaging with their content. And that has forged a lot of really close knit relationships. And that feeds me and gets me excited about going on to Twitter and gets me excited about engaging. And that’s what made me so excited to start the competition with you know, publishing a new piece of flash fiction every month in the easing because I’m engaging with all of these people and they’re so exciting. It’s so exciting for me and they give me so much value added to my day and value add Like, I feel like my life and my mood, it’s a quick pick me up. And it’s fun and it’s entertaining. And it’s brain candy, you know, the stories that these authors have written for, you know, the finish the story, writing prompt, and it’s just, it’s so exciting to me when I do a prompt to get on there and read the stories. And that’s why a lot of them have short full length short stories coming out in 2023, as my thank you for creating that content and engaging with me, because I’m humbled and honored that they chose my prompt right to. And I think everyone who does a writing prompt on Twitter or does something to promote engagement, anytime someone chooses to engage with their content, that that person is worthy of celebration, and acknowledgement. And that’s what I’m, I’m focused on doing. Oh, and I meant to say, it also pays 25 bucks, I know that that may not be a lot of money to someone, but for me, I, I’ve always been happy to give 25 bucks. And I’ve always been happy to receive 25 bucks. So it doesn’t feel like a lot of money to feel free to just, you know, pick a Kickstarter and give them the 25 bucks that aren’t meaningful to you. And to me, it felt like a large enough sum of money to be like, respectful. And say you are a professional writer. And the definition of professional is once you’re paid to do something, you’re a professional at that thing, allowing people to have the pride of saying I sold a story. And I know it’s not life changing money. But I do think it can start you on the path to getting life changing money, because it gives you that entryway into publication. And I do look when I’m looking at authors. I do look, do they have other publications? I don’t do this for the E zine. And I’m not doing this for the competition. But when it comes to publishing an author’s book, I do look to see, do they have other publications? Because if they have other publications, I want to see, are they in line with our values as a press? Are they in line with my values as a person? Where did they published and what was it that they published? And also because I’m I’m a fan of their writing, if I’m at that point where I’m thinking of offering somebody, a contract for publication, I’m a fan of the writing. I only published books I enjoy reading, because I have to market them. And if I don’t like the book, I don’t know how to market it kind of thing. I think every process like this, that they publish what they like or not whoever read the book, saw something in it had a vision for marketing at and felt excited about it.
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reading short stories that authors have written or blogs that an author blog or you know, their medium page or what have you, whatever they have going on is a great way for me to get to know authors and their point of view as an author and how they write, and what genre is the best fit for them. As an author? Are they going outside of their norm? Are they staying in their norm? What are they doing with the novel that they’re writing. And all of this is sparked, from, in some cases from a piece of flash fiction on Twitter. And in other cases from a short story submission for the E zine and we do a an open call for that. And others, it’s just through engagement on Twitter and just people I find interesting that spark, hey, I enjoy conversating with you. And I’m hanging out having this engagement and interaction on social media. So I no go to their Twitter feed, I look at their pin tweet, I look at the links that they had in their Twitter bio, and I click on some authors, I end up clicking on their author page and reading what they have there and end up approaching them and asking them hey, would you be interested and you know, writing a book for publication on whatever date we had open up the time. Right now our our we’re not open for submissions. We’re closed until January of 2024. But I’m sharing all of the different ways that I’ve connected with authors along with you know, promoting the new competition that we’re doing starting in June. It’s going to start June 1. And you can reply to any of the finish the story prompt every finished a story prompt that I’ve done in the history of the finish the stripe prompt as long as it was a cinnabar moth finish the story, then I’ll automatically see the story and any story that is created after June 1 will be He, in the running for either July or I think in August, publication date, because I’m going to spend all of July reading through and talking with the team about which story wins and getting all of the author information and all of the business side of things that have to be done before we publish a story. Even if it’s flash fiction, and not has me just so excited about all of the new authors, I’m going to mean, and all of the flash fiction, all the really great flash fiction, I’m going to write and I have Greedy Guts when it comes to good writing. I love reading good stories, and I really enjoy reading. And I love authors, and I want to celebrate them, and I want to uplift them. And I want them to feel seen, heard and validated and know that that writing is a valid choice and career for them to pursue. And that has me really excited about the competition has been really excited about Twitter and social media, and what we’ve been able to accomplish as a press on social media, and terms of getting to know authors, and celebrating authors and uplifting authors.
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And I just feel so lucky that I get to do this as a job, right? Like what an awesome job to celebrate artists and to celebrate authors and be what I hope is more positive than negative thing in the world. And especially in the writing community and having these bursts of creativity when it comes to how else can I can I support and celebrate authors and what are some other ways that I can different avenues that I can take to amplify voices and get people noticed and get people seen and and shine a spotlight on them. And it feels really good to be at this place. Because this is what I envision when I started the press the press if you go back to, you know, our first episode of the podcast, and I’m seriously just so passionate and excited about this. And I hope y’all are too, I hope that I get to see lots of lots of y’all out there, you know, liking the hashtag and, and finishing the stories and you know, submitting that’s an easy, quick way, no muss, no fuss way to submit a piece of flash fiction, and then you get notified on Twitter. So everything’s on the platform that you’re already on it feels does very nice, neat, tidy, easy. And the the entry to me feels really open because you can do any story from any of you can pick any of the prompts. It doesn’t have to be the prompt of that week. It doesn’t have to be the prompt from that month. It can be any prompt, as long as it’s a finish that story. And it’s written after June 1. So between you know, the first of Jim 30 days has September, April, June. So I think June is 30 days day, my little rhyme, you know, between the first and the 30th of June, that will be the cutoff point for the gin entries. And then from the first to the 30th or 31st of July will be the cutoff for July. But the there will be 12 stories now every year. So this year, they’ll be I think five in 2022 Because I’m just starting it now. And that first month in June publishes in August, but starting from 2023 It’ll be 12 pieces of flash fiction. Has they’ll be a piece accepted for every month and I’m excited about it. I hope y’all are excited about it. Can’t wait to read what y’all produce. And thank you for listening to this excited ramble. It’s something I just literally published on Twitter. So forgive me if this episode was a little bit scrambled and hard to follow. You can always send me an email at submissions, submissions as cinnabar moth if you want to find out more information. And I’ll put all of the details down in the description of this video. Be sure to like and subscribe and Yeah. Talk to y’all later. Thank you so much to all of our beautiful cinnabar moss or any kind of moth you want to be. Or you can even be a butterfly but I’m not right Karen not trying to bite her rhyme. And I’ll talk to you soon. And I hope to read your stories. By