Member-only story
First Line Fiction’s Final Six — The Contest’s Cream of the Crop
The stories and their authors making the Shortlist roster
While I have entered countless writing contests — well, not countless since I know my submissions total over 100 — I have never hosted or judged a writing competition.
And I thought writing was difficult!
Judging the work of your peers is a wonderful and terrible thing. With the same decision, you make half those you are connected to and invested in happy and the other half miserable. With that in mind, I say ‘congratulations’ and ‘I’m sorry.’
Liberty Forrest joins me in saying that we received many wonderful and excellent submissions. We love that you willingly threw yourselves out there, offering up your best fiction.
“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
–Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing
(more than ever, Ray!)
Cutting the list from 24 to 12 was tough. Chopping another half-dozen to the final six was brutal. Liberty and I looked at each story through several lenses, leaving technical scoring in the background and allowing other, more artistic aspects to come forward.
