Of Constraints and Contests

How a contest winner grew out of writing constraints

As some of you may know, I have a long history of being a bridesmaid, not a bride, when it comes to writing contests. Lots of longlists, finalist awards, and second or third prizes, not so many firsts. So I’m over the moon to be the first prize winner in the 2025 Flash Fiction Contest from The Sunlight Press. As my flapper heroine, Ruby, might say, it’s the cat’s pajamas!

I recently had the pleasure of attending a talk by my friend Lisa Borders, author of the new comic novel Last Night at the Disco, and after the event we talked about the challenges of finding time to write while also working non-writing jobs. Lisa, a novelist, has learned to make the most of chunks of time spent at writing retreats. As a flash writer, my ‘retreats’ are often more like staycations. The biweekly Sunday afternoon writing group is a sacred space for me and a small group of fellow writers who share prompts and comment on our work, but also make sure we have uninterrupted time to write.

We often start with random words, images, a broad theme, or a combination of elements, then set a timer to write for 20 minutes or an hour. “Sam and Ruby” came out of a prompt to write a story or poem that starts in medias res, drawing readers into dramatic and high-stakes action. Another element was to include a slang term from an earlier era.

“Holy cats!” yelled Sam.

“What’s happening?” Ruby asked, her heart a bat, a butterfly, some fluttery thing flapping desperate wings. Ruby looked behind her and saw a jagged crack had formed in the road behind them where the blacktop had fallen in the middle, like a cake taken out of the oven too soon.

I didn’t finish Sam & Ruby’s story in that first session, but it was burning in my mind all that next week, and when we met again (a week early, as we sometimes do), I was ready to take up their tale again. The second draft benefited from a new prompt to include a mythical place, which is how King Solomon’s Mines made it into the story. It also helped define Ruby’s romantic, adventure-loving side. Sam & Ruby already felt like family to me, and the story’s coda, with the older Sam & Ruby telling the story to their grandkids, felt like a fitting place to end, and also gave me a new place to begin when I wrote the final draft.

Three constraints—limited time to write, the use of specific elements, and a word limit of 1000 words—somehow came together and worked their own magic. Like Aunt Dora’s bourbon-laced pecan pie, it’s a recipe worth trying.

Read “Sam & Ruby on the Brink” here.

Read the judge’s comments on the three winning stories here.

Thank you to the editors of The Sunlight Press and the contest judge, Kelli Short Borges for supporting my story.