Welcome—
welcome, welcome, welcome—
you are most welcome,
so very welcome
to the Defenestrationism.net
2025 FLASH SUITE Contest
Tell me, have you ever:
gone skinny-dipping in the rain on a Christmas Day?;
or sung to standing ovation on the longest day of the year?;
smoked a cigarette with your boss’ boss?
read a monster’s diary?;
or lost your favorite hat whilst stealing a Saudi prince’s sapphire from underwater turtles, only to escape by lemur-cover?;
got caught up with by the emptiness— that, nothing-not-yet, emptiness?;
yet somehow— amidst all the abstraction— it’s all about the back-and-forth of a tennis match?
Why, all this winter you have, on Defenestrationism.net during the 2025 FLASH SUITE Contest.
Hope you’re enjoying it as much as we are.
Fan Voting has now ended.
Publication Schedule:
click on the burgundy links to read each piece
as they publish, day-by-day.
Madeleine’s Wife
Monti Sturzaker
December 11th- December 13th
A Life in Seasons
Tracie Adams
December 14th- December 16th
The Vanishing of Viera
Jacob Anderson
December 17th- December 19th
Once a Good Girl
Ann Kammerer
December 20th- December 23nd
From the Life of St. Francis
John Manderino
December 24- December 26th
Evening of Earth
Douglas Cole
December 27th- January 1st
In Which We Stand Side By Side and Watch It All Burn
Holly Rose Scott
January 2nd-January 5th
Fan Voting:
January 6th- January 18th
Winners Announced
MLK Day (US), January 20th
Contest Guidelines
Meet the Judges
Meet the Finalists
(including a photo of our authors’ favorite chairs—
a Defenestrationism.net tradition since 2012.)
Monti Sturzaker can be found wherever there are words, or playing with her two rescue dogs, Echo and Whisper. She’s previously published in Andromeda.
Tracie Adams is a writer and teacher in rural Virginia. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in BULL, Does It Have Pockets, Cleaver Magazine, Trash Cat Lit, Anodyne, Bright Flash Literary Review, and others. Read her work at www.tracieadamswrites.com and follow her on Twitter @1funnyfarmAdams.
Jacob Anderson is an author from the Pacific Northwest and is majoring in Film at Arizona State. His works mostly fall into the genres of horror and fantasy, and has several works under consideration for publication.
Ann Kammerer lives in the Chicago area, having relocated from her home state of Michigan. Her poetry and short fiction have appeared or are coming in Fictive Dream, One Art, Open Arts Forum, Bright Flash Literary Review, Workers Write!, Chiron Review, Major 7th Magazine, Thoughtful Dog, and Ekphrastic Review, among others,andin anthologies byCrow Woods Publishing and Querencia Press. Her chapbook collections of narrative poetry include “Yesterday’s Playlist” (Bottlecap Press, 2023), “Beaut” (Kelsay Books, 2024), “Friends Once There” (Impspired, 2024), and “Someone Else” (Bottlecap Press, 2024). You can find her here: annkammerer.com
John Manderino is the author of five novels, two short stories collections and two memoirs. A novel titled Bopper’s Progress, was the winner of the 2017 Wundor International Fiction Award and a runner-up for the 2019 Maine Book of the Year, in fiction. Reason for Leaving (short stories) was Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year – Bronze Award Winner 2001 for Humor.
John has also written plays that have been performed at theater festivals and other venues and has had short stories published in periodicals. He is currently working on a novel titled And Jill Came Tumbling After and a short story collection titled The Man Who Made Jesus Laugh and Other Stories, which this piece is taken from.
Douglas Cole has published eight poetry collections, including The Cabin at the End of the World, winner the Best Poetry Award in the American Book Fest, and the novel The White Field, winner of the American Fiction Award. His work has appeared in journals such as Beloit Poetry, Fiction International, Valpariaso, The Gallway Review and Two Hawks Quarterly.
He contributes a regular column, “Trading Fours,” to the magazine, Jerry Jazz Musician. He also edits the American Writers section of Read Carpet, a journal of international writing produced in Columbia.
In addition to the American Fiction Award, his screenplay of The White Field won Best Unproduced Screenplay award in the Elegant Film Festival. He has been awarded the Leslie Hunt Memorial prize in poetry, the Best of Poetry Award from Clapboard House, First Prize in the “Picture Worth 500 Words” from Tattoo Highway, and the Editors’ Choice Award in fiction by RiverSedge. He has been nominated Seven times for a Pushcart and Nine times for Best of the Net. His website is https://douglastcole.com.
Holly Scott is a young writer from rural Australia. She was shortlisted for a competition held by Calanthe Press and has had several short stories published in speculative fiction literary magazines When she’s not writing, Holly can be found going on walks, enjoying a cup of coffee and wrangling a number of chickens. You can contact her on X, @fanfarress
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