Sunday, August 16, 2009

Attack of the REAL blob flash fiction contest winner

Wow! This was hard. Good thing I don't do this for a living. I so enjoyed all the wonderful stories people sent in. And my apologies for being a day late with the announcement.

We need a drum roll here...

Oh, first a refresher for those who don't know what the heck I'm talking about. On July 17th I ran a little flash (under 1K words) fiction contest in answer to the news item in the Anchorage Daily News concerning an actual blob off the shore of Alaska. Scientists have since discovered it's algae after all, but we had fun speculating - spec-fic style.

The news story had the following information on the blob:

1) It's not an oil slick
2) It's organic
3) It's gunky
3) It has hair-like strands
4) It's 12-15 miles long
5) No one has ever seen anything like it

The decision was tough. But, as in The Highlander, there can be only one...

Congratulations to Nicole Krueger for her story, "Absorbed."

The story will appear right here on Tuesday and she'll be receiving a signed copy of Awesome Lavratt by yours truly. Great job, Nicole! Excellent character development in so short a piece.

Because this was such a tough call, I want to name two honorable mentions:
Emily Bush for "Excuse Me, Waiter, There's a Space Elevator in my Primordial Soup" and Bob Myers for his untitled entry.

You can still read Bob's if you're a member of the Science Fiction Readers, Writers, and Collectors group on LinkedIn. He posted it there. I do also appreciate the sense of humor in these two stories that came close to taking the prize. Join the LI group and read Bob's. I'm sure Emilie's will still find a home somewhere where you can read it, too.




vote it up!

2 comments:

Nicole said...

Thanks so much Ann! It was such a fun contest, and I look forward to reading your book. :)

Sharon E. Dreyer said...

Congrats to Nicole! A 1k short story is often a tough write.