Congratulations To Alina Stefanescu, Winner of Our 2015 Ryan R Gibbs Flash Fiction Contest Judged by Ander Monson: 

Stefanescu’s winning flash fiction, “White Tennis Shoes,” appears in our Winter Issue. Of the piece, our judge Ander Monson had the following to say:

What impressed me about Alina Stefanescu’s story “White Tennis Shoes” is how unstable the narrative feels throughout. The short-short or flash form is both a confinement and an opportunity: it’s so short that just straight-up condensing narrative’s a fool’s errand, since what’s good about most fiction isn’t the story itself but the other stuff that inhabits its close-in ecosystem, like the details of how cleaner shrimp dart in and out of eels’ mouths and benefit both species. By focusing on the small moments within the story and following the sentences until they develop and surprise the rest of the plot, even at the risk of destabilizing the bigger story, she’s found a way to create a lot of complexity and weirdness and pleasure in a quite small space.

Congratulations also to our finalists this year, who made the contest so exciting, and to our runner up, JoAnna Novak, whose stunning work also appears in our current issue:

  • JoAnna Novak – All That Hustle (runner up)
  • Lucy Biederman – Little Novel: Love in a Time of Steel, Cast Iron, and Lead
  • Kavita Das – Feeling the Truth Take Shape
  • Gwen Kirby – An Apology of Sorts To June
  • Sam Martone – Roadrunner Girl
  • Brenda Peynado – The Haunting
  • Gleah Powers – Desert Solitaire

About our contest:

For the Ryan R Gibbs Flash Fiction Contest, New Delta Review seeks fiction of 1500 words or less that stun. We look for a full narrative in a small package, where every sentence contributes something necessary and integral to the whole. As our 2015 judge Ander Monson stated, “What [we] really want is to be surprised by something forceful and bent to its will.”

See our past winners and judges here.

Judge: Ander Monson
Prize: $400 and publication in the Winter Issue of NDR. All entries will be considered for publication and eligible for our annual Matt Clark Editor’s Prize of $250.
Deadline: October 15, 2015 (extened deadline)
Entry Fee: $10

Submit here.

Additional Submission Guidelines:

  • All entries must be previously unpublished and original work of the entrant.
  • Each entry must be accompanied by an entry fee.
  • Maximum two separate entries per entrant.
  • All work must be submitted through Submittable.
  • Submissions will first be read by the staff of New Delta Review, and finalists will be passed on for judging.
  • Family, friends, and previous students of the judge are ineligible for participation in the contest. Current students and faculty of LSU are ineligible.

publicity2014_DSC_0030_smallerAbout this year’s judge: Ander Monson is the author of books of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, most recently Letter to a Future Lover (Graywolf, 2015). A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award in criticism and the New York Public Library Young Lions award in fiction, he runs several literary projects, including the magazine DIAGRAM, the New Michigan Press, and Essay Daily.

About Ryan R. Gibbs: This award is in honor of Ryan R. Gibbs (1981-2012), a gifted editor for New Delta Review, an incredible writer of fiction and screenplays, a talented photographer, and, above all, a dear friend. New Delta Review is honored to host this annual award in his honor, made possible by a generous endowment from his parents.