Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest 2024 | +$80 Cash Prizes

Submit your best work to the weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest 2024, and win cash prizes of over $80 for the winners and honourable mentions.

Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest 2024

The Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest 2024 is currently open for submissions. Writers all around the world are invited to submit their best work.

About Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest 2024

According to the organizers of the contest, the contest is a flash fiction of no more than 350 words that’s both about Christmas (or any other winter holiday) and simultaneously weird.

Exactly what that means is, of course, up to you because you’re the one with literary pretentions and a damaged psyche. All you have to do is make something about the Christmas season seem new and unsettling with a bit of that grinning like you’re not sure if it’s funny or creepy, and you make your fellow co-conspirators in this hell of existence a bit more bearable.

Entry Fee

Free.

Prompt Categories for the Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest 2024

There are three “Prompt Categories.” You have three ways to enter this year. The first two are the usual, and the third is the special sauce this year:

1. “Stocking Stuffer” – In this category, just write whatever the hell you want. Anything goes as long as it fits the rules and general guidelines down below.
2. “Weird Cards” – Head to Twitter or Tumblr or Facebook or Instagram and find an old card I’ve posted. Write a story inspired by it. Be sure to link the card when you submit your story.
3. Special “Weird Unreal Cultural Celebration” – Create a new holiday. But it also has to be from a new culture. Maybe even a new species on a new planet in period of history that doesn’t exist. I’m not talking “Merry Spaghetti Day!” I mean something like how the astral beings of the Fourth Allegorical Realm of Post-Unitarian Saturn celebrate alternate birthdays. Something truly weird. Lisa Owens’ story “The Holly Berry Ritual” from last year’s show, really stuck with me because it depicts a sort-of Christmas celebration in a surreal froggy-swamp-creature setting. I had no clue what to make of it, which is why it fascinated me. So I thought it’d be cool to try to imagine all kinds of weird holidays celebrated by things you didn’t even know had holidays. I hope this one generates some true oddities.

Support Us On Our Social Media Platforms

• Follow Our Facebook page for more writing competitions, fellowship applications, news and interesting updates in the literary world.
• 
  
• Join our WhatsApp group
• 
  
• Join our WhatsApp group for UK, USA, Australia and Canada residents. 
• 
  
• Join our Telegram group

Other Available Writing Competitions 

1. Jemila Abubakar Memorial Essay Competition 2025 5th Edition | Deadline: December 6, 2024
2. Bristol Short Story Prize 2025 | Deadline: January 31, 2025
3. Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest 2024 | +$80 Cash Prizes
4. Apply to Neiman Fellowship 2025 | $ 1,325 Stipend Per Week
5. J. Anthony Lukas Work­-in-­Progress Awards 2025 | $25,000 Cash Prizes
6. Sine Qua Non Creative Prose and Poetry Competitions 2024 | $2,000 Cash Prizes

Cash Prizes for the Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest 2024

Each honourable mention will receive a cash prize of $35, with at least a dozen. The category “winners” will each be paid $50.

Deadline 

December 1, 2024. 

Winners will be announced on the podcast/site as soon as I can get it out, hopefully before Christmas.

Submission Guidelines for the Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest 2024

1. 350 word max limit (title not included). No exceptions.
2. $50 for each “prompt” prize. $35 for every “honorable mention” (10-12). [I use Paypal but can make exceptions.]
3. Winners will be read on my podcast (preferably by you, but I can find others) and published on my site.
4. Submissions must be EMAILED to weirdxmascontest@gmail.com. Either paste it into the body or attach a file. Please include your name, but writer bios are unnecessary (until we get to the winners).
5. You can submit multiple stories, even multiple stories for each prompt. I will accept poetry, but it must be narrative.
6. Identify somewhere in the subject line or title if you’re entering it as a “Special” or “Weird Card” category entry. Otherwise, I’ll assume it’s for the general “Stocking Stuffer” prompt.

Read More