Category: Competition

A Myth

Heain Joung

My parents never hugged each other, but I was born.

Heain Joung is a Second Prize Winner of Briefly ‘Write 10’ 2024. Originally from South Korea, she holds an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from Sussex University. She now lives in the UK. Her short fiction can be found in Full House Literary, Flashback Fiction, FlashFlood Journal, SugarSugarSalt Magazine, Tiny Molecules, among others. Find her on Twitter (@heainhaven).

Briefly ‘Write 10’ 2024 asked writers for ten-word stories on the theme of DESTINY / HISTORY. It took us many many many re-reads to choose our winners. The selected stories stood out for innovative use of language, for making us feel and think, as well as careful engagement with the theme.

Briefly Write is a little literary space with big ideas. We publish a twice-yearly Zine of bold and brief micro poetry, prose and photography. We host two annual competitions – Write 10 and the Briefly Write Poetry Prize – and other occasional collections, including Briefly Think, a themed call for thoughtful short essays. We publish succinct, meaningful reviews of poetry and fiction, with a focus on debut collections and environmental themes. We also provide writing inspiration and personalised feedback in the Briefly Zone.

Notice

Emily Munro

Home for sale. Secure door. Own flood defences. Low price.

Emily Munro is a Second Prize Winner of Briefly ‘Write 10’ 2024. She is a writer and filmmaker based in Glasgow. See more on her website.

Briefly ‘Write 10’ 2024 asked writers for ten-word stories on the theme of DESTINY / HISTORY. It took us many many many re-reads to choose our winners. The selected stories stood out for innovative use of language, for making us feel and think, as well as careful engagement with the theme.

Briefly Write is a little literary space with big ideas. We publish a twice-yearly Zine of bold and brief micro poetry, prose and photography. We host two annual competitions – Write 10 and the Briefly Write Poetry Prize – and other occasional collections, including Briefly Think, a themed call for thoughtful short essays. We publish succinct, meaningful reviews of poetry and fiction, with a focus on debut collections and environmental themes. We also provide writing inspiration and personalised feedback in the Briefly Zone.

Ruins

Ilias Tsagas

Kids are playing in the temple, rearranging blocks of history.

Ilias Tsagas is a Second Prize Winner of Briefly ‘Write 10’ 2024. He is a Greek poet writing in English as a second language. His poems have appeared in journals like Apogee, AMBIT, Under the Radar, Poetry Wales, streetcake, SAND, FU Review, Tokyo Poetry, Plumwood Mountain and elsewhere. Ilias will be an Artist in Residence at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly 2024.

Briefly ‘Write 10’ 2024 asked writers for ten-word stories on the theme of DESTINY / HISTORY. It took us many many many re-reads to choose our winners. The selected stories stood out for innovative use of language, for making us feel and think, as well as careful engagement with the theme.

Briefly Write is a little literary space with big ideas. We publish a twice-yearly Zine of bold and brief micro poetry, prose and photography. We host two annual competitions – Write 10 and the Briefly Write Poetry Prize – and other occasional collections, including Briefly Think, a themed call for thoughtful short essays. We publish succinct, meaningful reviews of poetry and fiction, with a focus on debut collections and environmental themes. We also provide writing inspiration and personalised feedback in the Briefly Zone.

1847

Clodagh O Connor

Crops failed. People departed. Only birds harvest blackberries this year.

Clodagh O Connor is First Prize Winner of Briefly ‘Write 10’ 2024. She loves to read and is working on becoming a writer. She particularly enjoys the challenges of tiny fiction.

Briefly ‘Write 10’ 2024 asked writers for ten-word stories on the theme of DESTINY / HISTORY. It took us many many many re-reads to choose our winners. The selected stories stood out for innovative use of language, for making us feel and think, as well as careful engagement with the theme.

Briefly Write is a little literary space with big ideas. We publish a twice-yearly Zine of bold and brief micro poetry, prose and photography. We host two annual competitions – Write 10 and the Briefly Write Poetry Prize – and other occasional collections, including Briefly Think, a themed call for thoughtful short essays. We publish succinct, meaningful reviews of poetry and fiction, with a focus on debut collections and environmental themes. We also provide writing inspiration and personalised feedback in the Briefly Zone.

Write 10 – The Published Stories 2024

Tiny stories have power.

This year we asked you to write destiny / history in exactly ten words. And that is exactly what you did (except two entrants who submitted 11 👀).

What can you convey in ten words?

We had stories about mood swings, witch hunts and homecomings. From ravens to dinosaurs, biographies to pizza parties, we travelled across time, space and shadows, through small choices and momentous decisions, into time loops and repeating mistakes, into the pages of newspapers, ruins and happily ever afters…

Judging so many wonderful tiny stories was a joy and a challenge. It took us many many many re-reads to narrow our choices down to the handful we are sharing below.

As usual, we read all entries anonymously. Our chosen stories were the ones that did the most with their ten words (plus title), used language innovatively, made us feel, made us think, and best responded to the theme.

The stories we chose to share are moving and in motion, shape-shifting, shift-shaping and sure to demand re-re-reading all the way home.

Share the words, share the love, share the joy of language. Let us know what you think! And please do write – and share – many more tiny stories.

Daniel & Elinor

First Prize

Clodagh O Connor, ‘1847’

Second Prize

Ilias Tsagas, ‘Ruins’

Emily Munro, ‘Notice’

Heain Joung, ‘A Myth’

Helen MacDonald, ‘One moment to end – or save – our marriage’

Patricia Flaherty Pagan, ‘Future Fire Grew inside Her’

In 2024, we will pay more writers than ever before. We are fully funded by donations on Ko-fi and don’t take anything for ourselves as editors. Find out more here.

Briefly Write is a little literary space with big ideas. We publish a twice-yearly Zine of bold and brief micro poetry, prose and photography. We host two annual competitions – Write 10 and the Briefly Write Poetry Prize – and other occasional collections, including Briefly Think, a themed call for thoughtful short essays. We publish succinct, meaningful reviews of poetry and fiction, with a focus on debut collections and environmental themes. We also provide writing inspiration and personalised feedback in the Briefly Zone.

Briefly Write Poetry Prize 2023 – Results

…smeared and stinging with translation…

In its third year, the Briefly Write Poetry Prize continues to inspire, delight, challenge, entertain and move us. We are so grateful to have had the chance to read such a diverse array of short poetry.

Many re-reads and painful decisions later, we’re excited to share our winners, shortlisted and longlisted poets. Each of these explored, crafted and created new worlds, moments and memories. We hope you enjoy discovering these poems as much as we did.

The quality (and quantity!) of submissions still astounds us. Thank you to every single person who entered for sharing your words, stories and experiences. Thank you for supporting our poets, for taking the time to discover new pieces and for simply being here (however you stumbled across this page). Thank you for your comments and encouragement, for all the love and support you have shown our little literary space. And thank you for the poetry.

The Briefly Write Poetry Prize will be back next year. In the meantime, do keep revisiting, re-reading, re-listening and discussing. And keep writing, keep creating, keep sharing.

With wishes for many more literary discoveries together,

Daniel and Elinor

FIRST

Mesrure Onal, ‘small mercies’

SECOND

Elisabeth Flett, ‘amsterdam’

THIRD

Ava Patel, ‘Do You Think About the Sea?’

SHORTLIST

Begüm, ‘now, where was I’

Hana Damon-Tollenaere, ‘Summer Night / Desperation’

Devaki Devay, ‘It’s’

Sarah Dickenson Snyder, ‘You Are Not Your Death’

Alice Louise Lannon, ‘Spring’

Thomas Mixon, ‘Intercostal’

Fiona Ritchie Walker, ‘Rehearsal’

LONGLIST

Sara Backer * Linette Marie Allen * Creana Bosac * Esther Yumi Ko * Clara Burghelea * Jack Cooper * Michael Okafor * Adrija Ghosh * Zoe Davis * Susi Lovell * Rosalind Moran * Martins Deep * Kelli Lage * Leyelle * Rishika Srivastava * Jayant Kashyap * Rikki Santer * Liz Verlander * Jonathan Gwaltney * Arundhathi Anil * Edward Hughes * Abi Pate * Jennifer Elise Wang * Anna Kibbey * Amelia K. * Claire Taylor * Sudipa Chakraverty * Lei Kim * Linda McCauley Freeman * Adam Sampson * Karin Hedetniemi * Sobur Adedokun * Angharad Williams

Read more:

small mercies

Mesrure Onal

seated across me my parents both
heads tilted in question
olive-skinned and hard of hearing
hardly anglophone

I shrug with a close-mouthed smile
hiding my bloody tongue
smeared and stinging with translation
a passing stranger’s barbs

I cannot chew nor cry nor spit them back out

and so the train shudders beneath me as I swallow them all whole

Mesrure Onal is a Turkish-born and British-raised digital nomad. She mostly works as a writer, editor, and translator for children’s books and small businesses. Her writing tries finding those fistfuls of ink that can make different people from different places feel the same tug at their heartstrings.

amsterdam

Elisabeth Flett

and so we went to amsterdam

you, brushing top soil
off the coat in which you were buried

me, forgiven
for all the mistakes I made in your absence

sitting in silence
as we watched the cyclists go by
the sky no more blue and bright
than the day on which we first met  

Elisabeth Flett is an award-winning writer, theatre-maker, musician and general feminist trouble maker. A regular performer at Speakin Weird and a competitor in the 2023 Loud Poets Slam (North East Heat), Elisabeth won University of Aberdeen’s Literary Lights Non-Fiction Prize in 2021 and the July 2023 City of Poets Tiny Prize. Her writing has been published by Hysteria, Coin-Operated Press, Leopard Arts, Bits and Pieces, Queer Out Here, Apricot Press, Glasgow Zine Library, Penumbra Online and Out on the Page.

Do You Think About the Sea?

Ava Patel

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).

Rehearsal

Fiona Ritchie Walker

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.