And it begins at Ironwriters.com: all writers are invited to post a flash fiction piece of any genre from now until June 10 for the first month of the Iron Writers competition. Posting the stories will be closed on June 10 and voting begins. The piece with the most votes will be declared Iron Writer June 2021 and go on to compete in the quarterly competition. Winners of the quarterly will compete for the title of Iron Writer 2021. And then we begin again for the 2022.
The Iron Writer competition circuit begins and ends on June 3 as part of the celebrations for Space and Time magazine’s anniversary. Gordon Linzner began the magazine as a high school student back in 1966, making the magazine 55 years old today. Next year at this time we will not only be awarding an Iron Writer 2021 championship, but special awards called Linzners (in honor of our founder Gordon) to highlight the best fiction, nonfiction, poetry, art and cover from the year. Yes, there will be an awards presentation. But back to Iron Writers…
What should you write? A flash fiction story with a wordcount of 1,000 words or less incorporating all four prompt elements—three images and a sound. Create a log in for yourself on the site where you control posting and editing your work up until the deadline. After that, no changes should be made while voting is in progress. Feel free to share your piece to promote it and get votes, but voting is limited to one vote for each piece per person/IP address. So one person can vote for multiple flash stories, but only once each month. This discourages simply posting a piece on a like-for-like site to raise numbers.
Are there prizes? Yes! Each monthly winner will win a small prize to be announced along with the new prompts. This month it will be a copy of paperback copy of World’s of Light & Darkness, (the Space and Time/DreamForge Magazine anthology collaboration from Uproar Books) for US residents or an ebook copy gifted from Amazon for international residents. Quarterly winners will get a bigger prize such as a short story critique from me. The biggest prize, of course, will be awarded in June 2022 for the Iron Writer champion.
The top four pieces each month will be invited to read their pieces each month during a special presentation at SPECFAIRe (TBA) to be recorded and posted on the Space and Time YouTube channel and various social medias. Those that would like their piece read but are reluctant to perform can have someone read for them, or opt out and not participate.
This is the first month, so I expect some tweaks, questions and clarifications. You can always contact me via the form here. You can also subscribe here for updates on all things happening in my publishing universe.