Experimental Short Story Contest Announcement

The FlameFlower Experimental Short Story Contest is now beginning, hosted by Tantra Bensko, MFA, the winning story exemplifying the genre at the experimental writing site, and taking $50, and much ado. The deadline is July 4th, 2010. Stories of any length, previously published or not, are allowed entry.

The contest costs 8 dollars to enter, and any number of entries is allowed, each with a fee. It is judged by Tantra Bensko according to greatness of literary quality, and exploration beyond traditional fiction. For example, a character may be a flow of consciousness through a room, or a plot may leave off the need for conflict altogether. These are some of her favorite types of experimentation, which she incorporates into the genre she calls lucid fiction. However, any type of innovative work may win, and anyone, may win, even if never published before.

Interwoven with the experimental writing site, is the FlameFlower site itself, a holding place at the moment for the contest winners, and a few other poems and short stories to help flesh out what is meant by experimental writing. The poems and stories will have commentary, and other links and information, at the experimental writing site in the exclusive section.

Tantra teaches experimental fiction writing though UCLA Extension Writing Program, and www.writerscollege.com. She has over 100 creative writing publications, an experimental chapbook called Watching the Windows Sleep coming out from Naissance Press, and publishes literary theory extensively in magazines. Some of her publications include Bewildering Stories, which has taken several of her stories and essays, and including some in their Quarterly Reviews as well. Cezanne's Carrot Magazine has given her two awards, and the latest anthologies she is in are Surreal South and Quantum Genre. She has a column at Unlikely Stories, and a book called Tantric Metaportals.

She is hosting this contest and maintaining the resource site in order to promote literary excellence, and understanding of explorations in consciousness, and social improvement through writing. She also maintains groups on Writers Digest and Facebook based on experimental writing.

Details of entry are available on the sites where the winning entry will be displayed. More contests will follow. To learn more about experimental writing, see the Web site for links to articles, presses, magazines and more.