Dear Readers,

Happy almost-summer! We hope you are looking forward to some down time as the days lengthen and the pace slows.

Today’s note is short. Here’s what is happening:

  • Thanks to writers who submitted to our spring 2023 Flash Fiction Contest. We are busy reading 175 flash stories (1,000 words or less) and will notify writers about the status of their work as soon as possible. Not only will we award a winner and two finalists with cash prizes, we will accept some entries for regular publication. Stay tuned.
  • We’re thrilled that award-winning writer Sabrina Hicks will judge our contest. Her flash story, “Memorial of Imaginary Lines,” was a finalist in our first flash fiction contest in 2018. Since that time, Sabrina Hicks’ work has appeared, among other places, The Sunlight Press, Stanchion, Cleaver, Flash Frog, JMWW, Brevity, Split Lip, Milk Candy Review, Five South Journal, and Pidgeonholes. She was the grand prize winner of the 85th Writer’s Digest Competition, first prize winner of Five South Journal’s 2022 Spring Flash Fiction Contest, and most recently the first place winner of Cleaver Magazine’s 2022 Flash Fiction Contest. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in numerous anthologies, including Best Microfiction 2023 and Best Small Fictions 2021, and has earned a spot on Wigleaf’s Top 50 (2020, 2021, and Long-listed 2022).
  • If you’ve submitted any work recently and haven’t heard from us, we will be in touch as soon as possible. We’re running two to three weeks behind due to the large amount of work submitted so far this year. We appreciate your patience!
  • On June 16, we close to all submissions until Tuesday, Sept. 5, after Labor Day. (We closed earlier to poetry on May 1.)

Thanks as always to our volunteer staff who step up and say yes to work, whenever we seem to need them most. And thank you to our readers who keep coming back for more, and to all the artists (writers and photographers alike) who trust us with their work and send it our way. And finally, thank you to our donors. Because of your contributions to our nonprofit journal, we continue to pay artists for their published work, and we couldn’t be happier doing so. If you’d like to donate, visit our Support page.

Wherever you spend your summer, make it a fun one!

Cheers,

Beth Burrell & Rudri Patel
Founders and Editors

 

In case you missed these recent pieces,  find links below – 

An interview with a writer who never expected to be one: Joseph Earl Thomas
A review of previous Sunlight contributor Karen DeBonis’s new memoir, Growth: A Mother, Her Son, and the Brain Tumor They Both Survived.
A poem that touches on leaving loved ones and places behind, “Final Approach,” by Sharon Corcoran.
An essay exploring one woman’s support of a friend mourning an unimaginable loss, “The Weight of Her Grief,” by Karen Zey.