In this article, we interview Dean Koorey, renowned Furious Fiction judge, 4th place holder in the January 2024 Not Quite Write Prize, and WINNER of the 2024 NYC Midnight 250 Word Flash Fiction Challenge.
Hi Dean, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your experience with writing?
Originally from NZ, my first writing/publishing job was age 12 as creator of my family’s weekly newspaper! (It was awesome.) Much later, I worked in a creative team in an ad agency, then as a freelance copywriter here in Australia (NSW South Coast) from 2007. Fiction-wise, I love the short format (especially micros up to 500-words) and co-created the Furious Fiction flash comp in 2018. I’ve always dabbled in short stories, but more so in the past five years. And I have no problem starting a sentence with a conjunction.
You’re currently coming down from the high of WINNING the NYC Midnight 250 Word Flash Fiction Challenge! Can you tell us a little more about your win?
OMG, that was surreal. That particular comp had three rounds (you write three different 250-word stories), starting with 4,400 writers from around the world, whittling it down to about 1,000 writers in round 2 and then just 125 in the final. Even though I’d competed in maybe half a dozen NYCM comps till that point, this was the very first time I’d made the finals. I had a story idea that I thought could work well, and spoilers, it did! (You can read it on my website.) Seeing my name in that first paragraph was a true shock, as the global talent is HUGE. Right story, right time – a skill/luck combo for sure!
On the same day you discovered you’d won NYC Midnight, you also discovered you hadn’t made the April Not Quite Write Prize longlist. What has this experience revealed to you about the nature of writing competitions?
That Ed and Amanda KNOW NOTHING ABOUT JUDGING! Bahaha, just kidding. The emails arrived in my inbox literally sixty seconds apart. And let’s just say I’m glad I read about winning NYCM first, before the sucker-punch of missing the longlist. Yeah, it always stings when you miss out, but it was also a timely reminder of the roller-coaster of creativity! Of course, in that scenario, they were two completely different stories so yeah, I know which was my favourite (hint: not the one Amanda and Ed read). After six years of Furious Fiction, I know that while tough, it’s never a referendum on YOU as a writer, just a decision on the day. It’s that skill/luck thing again. You win some, you lose some. (But I WILL be back. Mwah ha haaaaaa.)
While you missed the longlist in April, you did take out 4th place in the January 2024 Not Quite Write Prize for Flash Fiction. Where did you get your inspiration for ‘A Funny Story’?
I got my inspiration from the prompts! I was sitting in my local bookshop café on that Friday afternoon and hooked onto the cliché of a meet-cute and unique ways to use ‘punch’ (the prompt word). As I’m a sucker for anthropomorphising things, I imagined a lonely punchline looking for its soul-mate joke. And THEN just started excitedly listing all the different kinds of LINES that could also be with on a night out. The hardest thing was taking it from simply being a conveyor belt of ‘line gags’ and weaving both a storyline and some heart into it. I think I achieved this and quite frankly, I was robbed. Haha. (I’m kidding, 4th is very nice!)
How would you describe your approach to flash fiction competitions in general?
I approach flash prompts like getting an advertising brief – it’s a ‘puzzle box’ to solve in an original way. For this reason, I prefer prompts that are more restrictive than open, including shorter word-counts like 100 and 250. Oh, and I always seem to submit with about 3 seconds to spare.
You’re the creator and driving force behind the Australian Writers’ Centre’s Furious Fiction competition. Can you tell us a little bit about what you’ve learned from your years judging Furious Fiction, and how this impacts your own writing?
There have been around 70 editions of Furious Fiction to date, so I’d say at this point I’ve read about 40,000 stories! I’ve learnt a LOT in that time, about what to do and what NOT to do. One of the biggest things I’ve learnt is to respect the wordcount. It’s 500 words, not a novel. Sometimes one character, or two, is all you need. I’ve also learnt a lot about POV, tenses, word choice and active vs passive writing. And that a lot of people seem to want to murder their spouses, at least fictionally. (It doesn’t matter WHAT the prompt is, spousal murder finds a way every month, haha.)
Can you share any words of wisdom with our Not Quite Write Prize hopefuls?
There is a HUGE archive of past winning/featured FF stories online (including Amanda’s and Ed’s), and growing list of NQW winners on this site too – all with valuable judges’ comments. Read them – it’s a great way to learn! As for other advice, when you first get the prompts, get all the obvious ideas out of the way, THEN start writing. Finally, try bribes. I hear that Amanda likes Freddos chocolates and Ed is partial to soft-core romantic poetry.
About Dean
You’ll sometimes find Dean on social media here:
https://twitter.com/deankoorey
https://www.instagram.com/deankoorey
https://www.instagram.com/deankoorey/
Visit his website at https://www.deankoorey.com/