– Ernest Hemingway

News of the Month

Saturday, August 9, 2025 at 1:00pm – Writers Discuss Writing

Please join us to share your accomplishments, questions, anecdotes, and comments as we discuss the craft of writing.

Saturday, August 16, 2025 at 1:00pm – Loglines! Elevator speeches! Queries! Proposals! OH MY! presented by Carol Phillips

Whether you are hoping a journal will publish your story or poem, you are self-publishing, you are submitting your chapbook to a contest, or you are pitching your manuscript to an agent or publisher, you need at least one of these summaries of your work. Carol Phillips will be discussing what the various forms are and how they are used. Come with a project in mind for a chance to practice writing loglines.

Tuesday, August 26, 2025 at 7:00pm – Writers Discuss Craft

Join us for what is always a valuable learning session with literary agent, Tracy Crow.

In other news…

When you are not attending one of our wonderful events, I hope you’ll use the month of August to work on your submission for our Flash Prose Contest!

Our annual three-hundred word Flash Prose Contest was the diabolical brainchild of WMO’s founder, Al Manning.
He wasn’t trying to be difficult. Instead, the exercise is designed to illustrate the importance of word choice and proofreading.

Writers’ Morning Out will accept submissions for the annual Flash Prose contest beginning August 1.

Contest rules encourage writers to read and follow guidelines when submitting. Publishers and agents assume writers who cannot follow guidelines will be hard to work with. Who wants to work with someone who’s difficult?

So, follow the guidelines! While numerous, the following guidelines are commonly used, in whole or part, by agents and publishers. Use the guidelines as a checklist before clicking the submit button.

Submissions to the Flash Prose Contest that do not follow the guidelines below will be rejected.

Submission guidelines:

1. Submission Period: August 1 through August 31, 2025.
2. Genre is any type of fiction or creative non-fiction.
3. Manuscripts must be no longer than 300 words, including the title, as calculated by Microsoft Word.
4. Words can have any number of syllables.
5. Manuscripts must have one-inch margins, be double-spaced, and use 12pt Times New Roman
6. Manuscripts must be emailed to info@writersmorningout.org as .doc, .docx, or .rtf attachments. No PDFs.
7. Manuscripts must not have author’s name or contact information.
8. Author’s name, manuscript title, word count, and email address must be in body of email.
9. Email subject line must be in the format: Flash Prose Submission: [Title of work]

Coming Up

Saturday, September 20, 2025 at 1:00pm  – Annual Flash Prose Contest

Tracy Crow and MaxieJane Frasier will read and discuss the winning submissions.