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We had an open prompt this season. Our only guidelines were that the entries be fiction with a minimum of 250 words, and a maximum of 750 words. So, enjoy the creativity and diversity!
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Thank you to our contest sponsor:
Thanks to our guest judge:
Best-Selling Author, Professor of Writing at Reedsy, Noah Charney WOW! was honored to have guest judge Noah Charney choose this season’s top winners. Thank you, Noah, for sharing your time and efforts to choose this season’s winners. Noah’s bio: Dr Noah Charney is the best-selling author of more than 30 books, including a Pulitzer finalist. His latest book is The 12-Hour Author: Everything You Need to Know to Get Published and Become a Successful Writer (Bloomsbury). A professor of art history, he teaches online for the Smithsonian, the National Gallery (UK), and Yale. Noah is Professor of Writing at Reedsy Learning, where he teaches weekly masterclasses and guides students through the creative writing course How to Write a Novel.
Visit Noah’s website at www.noahcharney.com.
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About the How to Write a Novel course:
Reedsy’s novel writing course provides writers with everything they need to finish their first draft. They’ll learn about the craft of writing, from plotting to character development to dialogue through premium video lessons. Students can work through the lessons daily or at their own pace – it’s entirely up to them. With a flexible schedule, tailored writing goals, and feedback from critique partners, they’ll get the skills, encouragement, and accountability they need to finish their draft.
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About the Reedsy Learning Membership:
Students can add a Learning Membership to unlock weekly live masterclasses by Reedsy’s professor of writing, Noah Charney. They’ll also get guest lectures from an incredible roster of teachers, including editors, book coaches, and bestselling authors.
In addition to the masterclasses, members get tickets to six online conferences on every stage of the publishing journey — from planning and drafting to querying and self-publishing. Each conference comes with the unique opportunity to ask questions to publishing professionals, including literary agents and editors at Big 5 publishers.
The membership can be purchased on its own or as a supplement to the course.
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Now on to the winners!
Drum roll please....
1st Place: Mary Beth McGruder
Southport, North Carolina
Congratulations, Mary Beth!
Mary Beth’s Bio:
Mary Beth McGruder is a native Nashvillian who moved to the North Carolina coast in 2024. She writes upmarket fiction, often with speculative elements, about grief, love, and the things families hand down without meaning to. Before turning to writing full time, she spent more than twenty-five years in user experience design and product storytelling. Recently signed with The Bent Agency, she is revising her debut novel for submission to publishers. She lives near the water with her husband, Bryan, and their Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Mrs. Bigglesworth, and is at work on her next novel. Learn more at www.marybethmcgruder.com.
Printable View
Sixteen Hours From Now
By Mary Beth McGruder
Someone presses a watch into my palm as the train lurches away.
“You lose this yesterday, sixteen hours from now,” he says.
I know the line by heart. I mouth it with him, the way you mouth a prayer you stopped believing in a long time ago. By the time I look up, he’s gone into the next car. The metal in my hand is heavier than it should be, warm from his skin. Warmer than skin should be.
It is my watch.
I haven’t seen it in four months. The face is crazed with cracks from the morning it hit the platform floor, but behind the fractures the second hand is moving. I stopped this watch. I know I stopped this watch. I pulled the crown myself and felt the tick die under my thumb before I buried it in a shoebox at the back of the closet, under the program from the funeral, under the shoes she’ll never grow into.
The second hand moves anyway.
I wore this watch when I stood waiting on the platform. Late again, always late, and she was pulling at my hand because she wanted to see whether the train had a face. I’d told her once that all trains did, and she’d believed me with her whole weight leaning forward. I checked the time. Just one minute, just to see how late. And the screech came. The horn. The guard’s voice, already too high. Then a gap in the sound where something should have been, and the crowd surging forward, and my hand holding nothing.
I move through the carriage, braced against the sway, searching for him, ready to beg. Take it back. Whatever this is, undo it. No one looks at me. Commuters folded into themselves, into screens and paperbacks, and every one of them is reading the same page. I’m almost sure of it. The same page, unturned. A woman by the window blinks, but only when I blink. I stop watching her.
In the next car there’s no sign of him. When I ask the conductor if he saw a tall man in a navy coat, he says, “Half the train, love,” and clips my ticket. His punch leaves no hole. He moves on.
Back in my seat I turn the words over. Yesterday, sixteen hours from now.
I leave the watch on the seat. When I reach the lavatory I feel it in my coat pocket, ticking against my hip. I drop it in the bin. I wash my hands and look up and it is on the edge of the sink, face down, vibrating faintly against the porcelain. I set it on the cold metal rail by the door and walk the length of two cars before I feel its weight again, in my closed fist this time, my fingers already wrapped around it as though I’d been holding it for hours. The crystal is warm. The tick has found my pulse and matched it.
The train carries me past my stop. I close my fingers until the case cuts a crescent into my palm and wait.
I have been here before. I will be here again. The lurch. The shout. The platform rising into view.
The man in the navy coat steps from the next car. He reaches for my hand. His fingers are cold where the watch was warm. He is smiling the way people smile at funerals: with the mouth only, the eyes doing something else entirely.
“This is your stop,” he says.
The doors open. The platform is right there, ordinary, rain-stained, full of people going home. I could step through them and keep walking. I could climb the stairs, unlock my door, open the closet. I could learn to sleep without listening for her breathing down the hall. I could stop setting out two bowls in the morning.
I could let the watch stay broken.
The doors close.
He nods, as though I have answered.
I close his fingers around it.
The crescent in my palm is already a scar.
“You lose this yesterday,” he says, “sixteen hours from now.”
The train lurches away.
I know the line by heart.
***
What Mary Beth Won:
2nd Place: Joanna Miller
United Kingdom
Congratulations, Joanna!
Joanna’s Bio:
Joanna lives in Derbyshire on the edge of the Peak District with her partner, three dogs and a cat. Her micro and flash stories have been listed in various competitions, including Edinburgh True Flash Fiction Award, Fish Flash Fiction Prize, Tadpole Press 100 and the London Independent Story Prize. She has been published by Bath Flash Fiction, Writing Magazine, the Scottish Arts Trust, Free Flash Fiction, Wildfire Words FF150 and WOW! Women on Writing.
Printable View
Provenance
By Joanna Miller
“Magnifique,” he said, pausing in front of the shop window.
She turned back.
“Let me guess.” She shrugged off her petulance and linked her arm through his.
Amidst the clutter of porcelain, books, and old prints, a fish kettle stood proud, crafted from gleaming hammered copper, heart-shaped brackets securing the riveted iron handle.
“Shall we?” He held the door open for her.
Nodding, the dealer retrieved it from the window display. “A handsome piece, indeed. Rescued from an abandoned château.”
“How wonderful,” she said. “I like it. It’s got integrity.”
They brought the kettle back to England, swaddled in her yellow cashmere cardigan, dropping it off at the warehouse where he stored the halved possessions of his previous marriage. When at last they moved into their forever home, the kettle was carried ceremoniously to a deep shelf above the Aga; a resplendent reminder of all the heady days they’d spent wandering Honfleur’s cobbled streets, ducking squally showers, lingering in their own pool of sunshine.
Always the romantic, he continued to seduce. Toasting her with champagne at the Moulin Rouge, feeding her oysters on Bateaux Mouches dinner cruises. For summer holidays, they’d motor the long stretch to the south of France in his soft top, negotiating hairpin bends to arrive at St Tropez, where she’d blush when he vowed hers were the most beautiful breasts on the beach.
As time passed, though, she began to tire of his predilection for all things French: fine wines and foods, Hermès silk cravats, and, more recently, his Parisian mistress.
“C’est la vie,” he would shrug, like that excused everything.
The qualities she’d once found endearing became predictable and irritating. The age gap widened. The poissonnière, as he insisted on calling it, was retired to a dusty kitchen armoire, brought out only for infrequent soirées, when he would set about polishing the dulled surface, restoring its former glory, ready to grace the long oak dining table.
“Ooh là là,” she muttered as he carried it into the room, opening the lid with a flourish, revealing a perfectly cooked whole halibut. And for the rest of the evening, sitting beside the flickering patina, detached from its charms, she maintained her composure behind a raised wine glass, watching him posture, fattening himself on their guests’ compliments.
But it wasn’t until later that night, when his mistress’s son rang to tell him of her passing, that she realised she was finally done with him. Behind the closed bedroom door, he cried for hours, still insisting they had only ever been friends. And, for the first time, she pitied him, offering no comfort.
Just a year later, sitting alone in the damp auction house, she waited for lot 150, determined to witness its fate, while the musty smell of people’s lives layered the air, and she contemplated how a cooking utensil could outlast them, outlive him.
“The bid’s on the telephone. Do we have any more bids?” The auctioneer scanned the room. “Fair warning.”
She saw the gavel rise, heard the clack as it fell, and exhaled, thankful that her part in the story was complete.
***
What Joanna Won:
- $300.00 Cash Prize
- $25 Amazon Gift Card
- Publication of winning story on WOW-WomenOnWriting.com website
- Interview on WOW!’s blog The Muffin
3rd Place: Lydia Blundell-Patel
Cheltenham, United Kingdom
Congratulations, Lydia!
Lydia’s Bio:
Lydia Blundell-Patel recently decided to take her love for reading and writing full time, retraining as a secondary school English teacher after a career in marketing. She writes a blog on Substack about these twin passions, as well as how to live a more creative life more broadly and making sense of life in her late twenties. Lydia has had a personal piece published in The Independent and a short story in Confluence magazine. She is in the trenches of drafting her first novel. She lives in Cheltenham in the UK with her husband and beloved black cats. You can find her on Instagram at @Lit_with_Lyds and on Substack here: Lydia Rose Substack.
Printable View
Salon Madonna
By Lydia Blundell-Patel
The boss — heavily pregnant now but showing no signs of slowing down — gave me a curt nod and gestured to the sofa. I dutifully perched and browsed the colour charts, knowing I’d choose the same inoffensive nude I always did.
Teenagers occupied two of the five seats, and a third lounged on the sofa beside me. She took up a lot of space, given her skin-and-bones frame. This wasn’t ideal; girls spend too much time laughing at god knows what on their phones and not enough time making decisions. They slowed things down, and I needed to get back to work.
I caught snippets of conversation about university applications and travel plans over the fierce stream of Vietnamese chatter between the technicians as I took my seat. The one beside me was clearly younger than the other two. She was in uniform, and wore her long hair pulled back into a ponytail. Its rich base of burnished gold streaked with ashy highlights reminded me of the hay bales at the stables I used to work at over summer. She directed anxious questions about colours and shapes to the one a few seats down, who mostly ignored her in favour of her phone. Sisters, I thought. I was less sure about the one sprawled on the sofa – a friend, perhaps, or just a hanger-on.
The technician pressed a button under the counter and the electric file whirred to life, chipping away last month’s work. Quick glances to my right confirmed that the younger one had all the looks. Her side profile boasted a ski slope nose and lips that pouted without a needle’s stimulus. The sister shared these strong features but with less desirable results, like the artist had grown tired and let his brush dawdle on the canvas.
“Miss?”
I turned abruptly back to the technician, embarrassed to be caught staring.
“Just the nude, please,” I replied with a tight smile, pointing to the colour chart.
The jarring door chime rang out and a middle-aged woman swept in. This time it wasn’t just me — everyone in the salon stared. The woman’s face was chiselled from olive rock, with large dark eyes forming deep caves in the edifice. She wore a tatty woollen trench coat over a tracksuit, but carried it like a ball gown. All talk in the salon stalled as she glided towards the older girl and deposited a fistful of £20 notes on the counter.
“For you and your sister, please,” she said sternly, a thick Italian accent taking me by surprise.
She kissed both girls, telling them not to be late for dinner. The older one feigned resistance, craning her head in the opposite direction, before succumbing. When this dazzling woman stooped to embrace the girl beside me, I saw her hair was similar — a bed of gold flecked with grey and hints of red.
The tableau suddenly made sense: the mother was a Caravaggio Madonna and these were the fruits of her loins. I pictured the home — a cluttered kitchen table made of solid though dog-eared wood, pots humming on the stove, impassioned exchanges — and suddenly longed to go with them. Looking at the faces of the two women sat between the girls, shy smiles brightening their features, I knew I wasn’t alone.
As the mother turned to leave she caught sight of the third girl, who remained prostrate on the sofa with her concave midriff bare to the ceiling.
“You too!” she boomed, affecting shock before scooping the waif into her arms.
This one didn’t even dabble with resistance, but folded into her like she’d been starved of affection for months.
When she left, her band of girls following soon after, the salon deflated like the sun had suddenly disappeared behind a cloud. In the afterglow of the Madonna’s warmth, we were strangers again. I thought of the meal deal withering on my desk back at the office, and something in me recoiled.
“Miss?”
The technician was holding up two bottles of polish in near-identical shades of beige. I glanced between them for a few seconds, then at the abandoned colour charts.
“Actually,” I began, rifling through the cards, “I might – one second.”
A name caught my eye on a row of glittering metallics.
“Please can I go for this instead?” I pointed to a fake nail labelled ‘Burnished Gold.’
The shadow of a smile flitted over her drawn face before she turned back to the shelves.
***
What Lydia Won:
- $200.00 Cash Prize
- $25 Amazon Gift Card
- Publication of winning story on WOW-WomenOnWriting.com website
- Interview on WOW!’s blog The Muffin
 RUNNERS UP (In no particular order):
Congratulations to the runners-up! It was very close, and these stories are excellent in every way.
Click on their entries to read:
The Sailboat by Jennie Bricker, Portland, Oregon
Unclean by Emily Freeborn, Orange County, California
A Murder of Crows by Deb Grohs, Sioux Falls, South Dakota
The Great Defrost by Laura Heaton, East Patchogue, New York
I Luv You Mommy by Emily Cardinas, California
The Eurasian Collared Dove by Kyle Bynum, Turlock, California
The Milk Gone Sour by Amelia Díaz Ettinger, Blue Mountains, Eastern Oregon
What the Runners Up Won:
- $25 Amazon Gift Card
- Publication of winning story on WOW-WomenOnWriting.com website
- Interview on WOW!’s blog The Muffin
HONORABLE MENTIONS (In no particular order):
Congratulations to our Spring 2026 Contest Honorable Mentions! Your stories stood out and are excellent in every way.
The Waiting Room by Kendra Ryan, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Baked Alaska as a Love Language by Amy DeFlavis, Doylestown, Pennsylvania
The Picture Show by Cortney Branche
Sonia by Mihaela Stoicovici, Tokyo, Japan
All the Best, Father Christmas by Sumi Watters, United Kingdom
Mandrake Emporium by Gaynor Wooldridge, United Kingdom
Bullet Train by Kyle Bynum, Modesto, California
Garage Sale by Sandra Thom-Jones, Healesville, Australia
The Last Thing She Took by Quantiea Oppong, Atlanta, Georgia
Matriarch by Hannah Andrews, San Diego, California
What the Honorable Mentions Won:
IN CLOSING:
This brings the Spring 2026 Flash Fiction Contest officially to a close. Although we’re not able to provide a prize to every contestant, we will always give our heartfelt thanks for your participation and contribution, and for your part in making WOW! all that it can be. We hope to read more of your work. Write on!
Check out the latest Contest:
https://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/contest.php
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