I think about trees. I think about seeing a tree, being a tree. I think about holding, bursting.
I think about being a little seed waiting for spring and being small enough to fit in a closed palm.
I hate vastness. I won’t live long enough to forget it. And no, I don’t think about the sea.
Ava Patel won Prole Magazine’s 2021 pamphlet competition with her debut pamphlet ‘Dusk in Bloom’. She’s been published in webzines (London Grip; Ink, Sweat and Tears; Atrium; Porridge) and magazines (South Bank Poetry; Orbis; SOUTH; Dream Catcher; New Welsh Reader, The Seventh Quarry, DREICH).
That first summer in the cabin, my flat belly, you too new
to be fluttering like the wings in the eaves above us, ready to swirl
en masse across the moonlit sky, this next generation,
Pipistrelle bats learning to fly. Night after night I sat, reading, pretending
I wasn’t watching the clock, wasn’t listening for the last one home.
Fiona Ritchie Walker is a Scottish writer, now based in Bournville, Birmingham. Her poetry and short fiction has been published widely in collections and anthologies, most recently in Amsterdam Quarterly, Postbox Magazine and Magma’s Islands issue.
I wish someone had said when I dived into that well of fear. Where were those Buddhist monks when I didn’t use the blue sink in the upstairs bathroom for years after a thermometer shattered and left numberless glass slivers and tiny balls of mercury—Death, a clinging partner, making me walk downstairs to brush my teeth & stay up all night sometimes alone with the darkness.
Sarah Dickenson Snyder’s collections include The Human Contract (2017), Notes from a Nomad (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards 2018), With a Polaroid Camera (2019), and Now These Three Remain (2023). She’s had Best of Net and Pushcart Prize nominations. Recent work is in Rattle, Lily Poetry Review, and RHINO. See more.
I think it might be Too hot to bake cookies but Let’s try something else let’s Try taking the night off or Building a pillow fort or Unraveling Thread by thread The ways our stories might Have overlapped had Things gone differently
Hana Damon-Tollenaere was shortlisted in the Briefly Write Poetry Prize 2023.
There was nothing. On the walk I unfolded both my arms, but not a single leaf would touch my greedy floating ribs. I knew I carried needs they were against. I carried needs. They were against my greedy floating ribs I knew not a single leaf would touch. I unfolded both my arms, but there was nothing on the walk.
Thomas Mixon has poems in miniskirt magazine, Rattle, Radon Journal, and elsewhere. He’s a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee.
World bee day, it’s mother’s day, It’s a blue moon, it’s boba day, it’s national turtle day, it’s a Friday, it’s our anniversary, it’s the day we met, it’s your birthday, it’s your birthday again, it’s twenty years ago On this day, a picture On your phone: You were celebrating – God knows what. But still, Thank God you were.
Devaki Devay is a writer of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction. Their work can be found in several literary magazines, including Barren Magazine and Peatsmoke Journal, and has been included in Best Small Fictions 2023. Their debut poetry chapbook, LOOKING IN LIGHT, is out with Bottlecap Press.
face down on the street. All the way home I thought
about being lonely. I said hello to the old man in the lobby;
he told me my legs were lovely, that my husband had better
watch out.
Alice Louise Lannon is Scottish poet and writer of creative non-fiction, currently living in Vancouver, Canada. She holds an MLitt in Creative Writing from The University of Glasgow. Her publication credits include: Wet Grain, From Glasgow to Saturn, Querencia and Last Stanza Poetry Journal. At the moment, she is working on a book about the sea & storytelling & women’s narratives.
in a search of arms, I found pebbles along the way: unwanted truths that I threw back to the water
you are lonely
or maybe I misheard. How deep in the forest are we again? the clouds have gone green since, and the mud, perpendicular.
Begüm is an aspiring psychologist, who has been writing poetry for a few years now but only recently started to publicise her work. Most of her pieces are inspired by people she loves. She is now working on getting her first poetry book published.
Write 10 is the third instalment of Briefly Write‘s annual ten-word story competition. In 2021 and 2022, we followed a simple premise: Write 10 to Win 10. This year, we’re mixing things up a bit.
Theme: Destiny / History
The theme this year is Destiny/ History. Use this loosely or literally – the choice is yours (or is it?!).
We want to see creative interpretations of the prompt. We want to see a tiny story with a full narrative arc. Or a snapshot of a moment. Or a moment snapped and shot. MAKE. EVERY. WORD. COUNT.
More Winners, More Winnings
Send us ten words (plus a few more for the title). Send us a story that makes us fall out of our chairs, fall out with each other, fall into a daydream or fall head over heels. Choose your words carefully.
Then we will read them all. And again. Andagainandagainandagain. Then we will choose (carefully) the ones that fell just right… and reward them with praise, publicity and a few pound coins.
If you would like to help increase the prize pot, please consider supporting us here – every penny we receive goes towards paying writers and artists!
Competition Guidelines
Free to enter. One entry per person.
Only entries made using this form will be considered.
Story must be exactly 10 words and relate to the theme ‘Destiny / History’. Title is not included in word count.
Please do not submit work that is under consideration elsewhere. Once submitted, your entry cannot be withdrawn.
Opens: 10 December 2023. Deadline:21 January 2024 @ 23:59 GMT.
Entries judged anonymously. Editors’ decision is final.
Winning and shortlisted stories will be paid and published online. All entrants will be contacted by email.
Results published online by the end of March 2024. If this needs to change, an update will be provided here.
By entering Write 10, you are granting us first electronic rights only. Copyright reverts to the author upon publication.
If anything isn’t clear, send any queries to contact [at] brieflywrite [dot] com. Please do not email your entry.
The debut chapbook by Jasmine Flowers reaches for horizons near and far
Jasmine Flowers, Horizon (Flower Press, 2021)
Landscapes can be hard to tell apart. In her debut chapbook, Jasmine Flowers orients, disorients, re-orients – and thoroughly entertains her reader.
The long poem starts with voices ‘as they mingle in the wind’. Within two dozen pages, the reader traverses stars, miracles, ‘time, dirt, bone, wind, ash’, a fountain of youth, a leaky pipe and ‘the inkblot borderline’. The journey is as dizzying as you might expect.
The sand is gritty — tiny rocks, shells, and bones. Is this hell or paradise? Beach or desert? One sand or the other? Is there even a difference?
Lessons can be learned from life’s hardest moments. The aphoristic couplet that opens the fourth section – ‘The tightrope was flimsy, | which taught me a lot’ – is gloriously understated. The proximity of death, the challenges faced throughout life and the learning opportunities that emerge from even the worst scenarios combine in this striking image. The poet goes on to add:
Balance is a fragile line, and I don’t care for it. It’s never cared for me, and we like it that way.
Balance may a philosophical foe for Flowers but equilibrium is exactly what she achieves in her poetry. In front of the setting sun, the poet weaves carefully balanced images, subtle wordplay and a feeling that there is more to her words than first meets the eye.
Magic and the possibility of deliverance recur. Sometimes, however, these charms are thwarted. Asking for the world sometimes leaves the asker wanting:
Name a star or two for me. I named the universe: You.
In a world that seems ever more fragmented, fluid and overwhelming, the effort of naming is not a futile gesture. It is not easy, though. The reader is left pondering how we can ever define such vastness. What is left when every landmark has been stripped back and all we see is empty space? And what are we supposed to do with all the gaps?
I’m sitting here waiting, and I hope you notice — me — or the spaces in between the absence. Either one is fine.
For all the grandiose, galaxy-level language, the best writing is often the simplest. The poet succeeds when she moves from gigantic to everyday; in the second section, she disarms the reader with an image of brutal directness:
Does that make me a pencil? Is that why my life feels so smudgy?
Amid the ephemeral and the everchanging, ‘Horizon’ is a chapbook that cannot easily be erased.
Jasmine Flowers, Horizon (Flower Press, 2021). Available here.
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