The Southern California Review is excited to announce our new competition Flash 405!

Flash 405 is a multi-genre flash competition, awarding prizes and online publication to the winners. Accepting entries every other month, Flash 405 is judged by one of our managing editors or a guest judge. Some judges will choose to have a theme, some will not.

Our next round will be open November 4th – December 5th, 2015. 

We accept:

• Fiction. A complete story, no more than 405 words (Get it?).
• Nonfiction. A complete story, no more than 405 words.
• Poetry. One poem, no longer than 5 lines (including prose poems).
• Stage & Screen. A complete scene, no longer than 4 pages. Please format according to the standard unpublished playwriting or screenwriting format.

How does it work?

• Submissions: You submit your flash work. Multiple and simultaneous entries are allowed. Previously published work is not. Each entry is $5.

• Judging: We read your work. We deliberate, we fight, we eventually narrow it down. Our managing editor or guest judge chooses 1st and 2nd place, which will be announced by the end of December.

• Prizes: The winners will both receive publication on the website. They will also receive a cash prize — but here’s the fun part. The more entries we receive, the larger the prize! Here’s a breakdown:
  • 1st prize: Online publication + 40% of all entry fees.
  • 2nd prize: Online publication + 20% of all entry fees.
  • Honorable Mention: Up to 5 pieces will receive honorable mention and online publication.

Is your interest piqued? Get your engines started, because our next round is almost here! Read on to learn more:

November 2015 Round

Submit Now!

The Judge: Abigail Mitchell

Abigail Mitchell is one of our awesome managing editors, as well as the Poetry Editor for Vol. VIII. Currently living in London, she spent two years in Los Angeles earning her MPW from the University of Southern California.

Abigail was the grand prize winner of the Canada International Film Festival’s 2015 screenplay contest, and her writing–fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction–can be found at Unbroken Journal, The Nervous Breakdown, The Butter, and more. She tweets as @_abbimitchell.

The Theme: Roots

From Abigail:

“The thing about Southern California is that it’s full of people (like me) who aren’t from Southern California. Sometimes, we assimilate. We start to think it’s normal to wait twelve minutes for the next train. To drink pumpkin spiced lattes in the fall… over ice. But sometimes we miss the places we’re from, or the people we’ve loved, and sometimes we struggle to feel like we belong. Sometimes it’s hard to put down roots in a desert.

The first Flash 405 contest invites entries that explore themes of belonging, homesickness, and growth. It welcomes your origin stories, your good riddances, your odes to your mother’s cooking. We want you to think about roots: about staying true to them, rejecting them, or putting them down anew. What does home mean to you–or to your characters? How does it feel to belong?”