A free gathering of writers of any genre. 

2023 Flash Prose Guidelines

2023 Flash Prose Guidelines Writers’ Morning Out will begin accepting submissions for the thirteenth annual Flash Prose contest on 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? […]

2021 One Syllable Winner: “Fine” by Sandra Fischer

The call she knew would come came. He’s gone, they said. Died in his sleep.   Tears fell, some for joy that he was free. She could let him go at last. In a sense, he’d been gone for six long years since they first heard why his speech was mixed and strange. The words […]

2020 Multi-Syllables Winner: “Empty Rooms” by William Polf

He drove straight through, despite his full bladder and his aching left knee. He wanted to get to the summer house before sunset, and he still had twenty miles to go. He had considered stopping at the general store, but that would mean another round of condolences from whoever happened to be there, and he […]

2020 One Syllable Winner: “Just Once” by Jane Shlensky

Since the stroke, his words won’t come—hide and seek, smudge and slur, thoughts and tongue as thick as mud yet clear to him.   “Speak?” He is urged by his nurse, his wife, his son, as if he will bark and wag for a treat, sit, heel, stay.   “Drink? Eat? Sleep? Pee? Pooh?” they […]

2018 One Syllable Winner: “Don’t” by Pat Shipman

I don’t talk much. They say I should. They say it is rude. They say I am strange, not right like them.   They say they get scared when I don’t speak. I do not say mean things. I do not say at all. But if you talk, they learn who you are. The sounds […]