Flash on the Fly Winning Stories for December 2023

On December 10th, I announced a surprise micro-fiction contest challenging writers to write a 200-300-word winter/holiday story. Typically, the Flash on the Fly contests request up to 1000 words in only 2 days, but since ’tis the season for giving, I gave writers 7 days and offered the same prize amount of $50.00.

I received 90 submissions and at least 1/4 of those stories were very strong contenders, but I narrowed it down to 4 stand-out stories that I absolutely loved. While each is dark and tragic, steeped in gorgeous prose and creativity, they each hit me a bit differently which made it hard to select a single favorite.

So in that spirit of giving–or maybe it’s insanity–I decided to select all 4 stories!

In order of thematic flow, here are the winners of the December Flash on the Fly microfiction contest. Click the title to read each story.

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