The July 2025 Not Quite Write Prize for Flash Fiction challenged writers to create an original piece of fiction of no more than 500 words, which:
- included the word CRANE.
- included the action of ‘burning something’.
- broke the writing rule ‘use active voice’.
The competition drew 340 entries from authors in 16 countries around the world looking for a slice of the AU$4,000 prize money. That’s 163,821 words for our judges, Ed and Amanda, to read. For reference, that’s about the same number of words as ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley.
For more fascinating statistics about the competition, and to get behind-the-scenes details of the judging process, check out the Longlist Announcement – July 2025 Not Quite Write Prize episode of the podcast at the link below.
To hear the winning and shortlisted entries read aloud by Ed and Amanda, check out the Winner and Shortlist Announcement – July 2025 Not Quite Write Prize episode of the podcast at the link below.
WINNER
FOLD. BURN. INHALE. by Elda Orozco
The paper crane had been folded on the night of her funeral. His hands, rigid with grief, had pressed each crease hard and fast, as if he could force life into it. When he set it on the windowsill, the moonlight caught its frame, and its wings fluttered as if alive, releasing a hint of ink and her perfume.
“Richard, you shouldn’t have done that,” her voice whispered from the paper. He laughed through tears, pressing the crane to his lips like a sacrament.
“If I fold a thousand birds, will you stay with me?”
“Maybe.”
For weeks, Nina stayed with him. A ghost in origami, perched on his pillow. At night, she nestled against his neck, her sharp beak pricking his pulse point like a reminder of life. The voice was hers, but her body was wrong. Where her pink softness had once contoured against him, now she was no more than grey geometry.
“You could unfold me,” she teased as she traced his collarbone with the razor-edge of one wing.
He tried, once. His quivering fingers pried at her seams, but she spread into sharp, parched planes. She wasn’t flesh, but a delicate thing, a prison of lines where curves should be.
“I want more,” he muttered, though the way she tilted her head, exactly like her, made his chest ache. “I want to feel you.” He sobbed as he refolded her.
But grief didn’t take away the hunger.
At dawn, he slid the crane between his lips, letting her voice vibrate against his. He wanted to soften her. To make her moan like she had under his hands. To feel her skin, but his lips came away damp. Not with glue, but with salt, as if she’d been crying.
Time passed, but he couldn’t move on. Nina had grown weak in his palms, like a love letter left in the rain.
He tried everything—kisses, blood, breath—but paper couldn’t love him back. Not yet.
One night, delirious and desperate, Richard held her over a candle.
“Yes,” she hissed as the flickering flame licked her.
The sheet curled like a living soul, her edges blackened, as if the heat had loosened her. And for a fractured second, she was pliant in his hands, until the fire swallowed her whole. Ash curled upward, not in smoke, but in sinuous shapes spiraling around him. Without hesitation, he inhaled, and his lungs were filled with her. Her laughter tickled within, and a smile appeared on his lips as she kissed his bloodstream.
He stood before the mirror, watching Nina’s silhouette move beneath his skin like a second shadow.
“Nina, I can feel you. Can you feel me?”
Her answer was the press of phantom lips to his pulse, the glide of her hands (his hands?) down his stomach.
Outside, snow fell. Inside, they burned.
And for once, the hunger was satisfied.
SECOND PLACE
CHECKING YOU OUT: ROMANCE AT REGISTER 3 by Ella Micallef
Packet of gum, Caesar salad mix, a single banana.
Each is placed with precision, tanned fingers drumming on the conveyor.
“MJ,” he reads, squinting at my name badge. “Cool name, what’s it short for? Mary Jane?”
“Um, no,” I clear my throat. I scan the gum. Beep.“My parents just… liked the letters? Together?” He flicks auburn hair from his eyes, and it falls back to where it was.
Beep – one banana. Does this mean he’s single?
“At least it’s a good conversation starter – mine’s Adam.”
“Oh… what’s that short for?” He cocks his head and his smile tilts sideways and I wish the building would collapse.
“Nothing, my parents just liked the letters together.” Adam’s grin does nothing to douse the embarrassment burning my cheeks.
*****
Packet of flower seeds, chicken and lettuce sandwich, one banana.
I scan the seeds, mind scrambling for something clever to say. “Cool, seeds! They for planting?”
Adam fights a smile.
“How do you always guess these things? I’m hoping to attract the birds.”
“And the banana? You planting that too?” The beepof the banana being scanned is excruciatingly loud. His nose screws up as he emits a perfect snort.
“Nope, just a snack.”
“Oh, right. Because it’s food. For eating. Do you want a bag?”
“Nah, I’m alright, thanks.” He turns, and I crane my neck to watch him go.
I wish I could grab his face and kiss his gorgeous flower-planting – “See you tomorrow, MJ.”
*****
Spiral pasta, fresh basil, one banana.
Of all the registers, his food appears at mine. “Hi! Adam! How are you?” My voice cracks like a teenage boy’s. Real smooth.
He smiles distractedly, pulling out his leather wallet.
“What’s the basil for? Is it—do you eat it… raw? Or are you making a… basil thing?”
He half-grins, eyes shifting to check his phone. “Pesto. I’m making pesto pasta.”
Images flash before me; this perfect man cooking me pesto pasta, eyes locking over glasses of chardonnay…
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“Fancy.” I pass his banana.
“What, the banana?”
“No, the pasta,” I wring my hands beneath the counter. “Banana’s cool though – loads of potassium…” Adam’s lips twitch, eyes averted. My heart plummets.
“Too true, MJ, gotta keep the potassium levels up.”
*****
Eye fillet steaks, potato salad, two bananas.
Two bananas.
Beep. Beep.Silence.
My chest is full of stones and my mouth betrays me. “Who’s the lucky girl?” I blurt. “Or guy, or… monkey…?”
He snorts, grabbing his groceries. “You know me too well, MJ!” he calls over his shoulder.
On the bench – one banana, neglected in his thoughts of someone else.
“Wait, Adam! You forgot your-” He swivels, eyes locked in the fluorescent glow of the sliding doors.
I raise the fruit, and that’s when I catch sight of them: ten digits etched upon the skin.
Adam fumbles with his banana, holds it to his ear and mouths two words into the curve.
Call me?
THIRD PLACE
BIN BOY by Sam James
In moments of low self-esteem, I tell myself to get in the bin.
It’s all I deserve, really. I’m a dirty little bin boy, incapable of doing anything right. I’m selfish and lazy, and succumb too easily to the instinctive inaction brought on by anxiety.
Yesterday we argued; apparently I never offer to make her breakfast.
“You never offer to make me breakfast,” she said.
I took the accusation dumbly. It’s true. My morning coffee is a pseudo-sacred ritual, a personal communion. I cannot bear interruptions when measuring and grinding the beans, pouring a spiral from my special gooseneck kettle. It’s a daily moment of solemn reflection. Now it seems just another way I let her down.
Bin boy.
Even in this framing, it’s about me. The cruel irony of low self-esteem is the amount of time spent thinking about oneself. ‘I never make her breakfast’. Perhaps rather: ‘she never has breakfast made for her’. Less something to blame myself for, more a manageable problem to tackle.
Today, I burnt the toast. Reframe: the toast was burnt. By me.
Such a romantic wake-up call, a smoke alarm. She emerges to quite a sight: me, dishevelled and shamefaced, knife in hand and a blanket of blackened scrapings covering a surprisingly large area of the counter.
Without missing a beat, she climbs a chair, deactivates the alarm, and opens a window. Why didn’t I think to do that?
“Thanks for breakfast,” she says, kissing my cheek. “Salvage what you can, I’ll get ready.”
I clean up, and notice the bin is overfull. There’s a small win—I can solve that, if nothing else. I tie the bag and take it out to the driveway, mulling on my shortcomings as I go.
The rubbish goes in the bin.
I go in the bin.
I’m not really cognisant of it as it’s happening, only snapping into awareness as the lid closes above me. I don’t know why, but the reek of old coffee grounds, rotting veg and miscellaneous refuse is somehow comforting, like I’m meant to be here. The rank condensation on the walls of the bin seeps through my clothes.
I hear the lorry further up the street; collection day. Wheelie bins are being craned, hoisted, swallowed whole. If I stay quiet, maybe they’ll swallow me.
As I contemplate what it would like to be compacted, the lid creaks open.
“There you are,” she says. “It’s bin day.”
“Yep.”
She considers me, huddled and soaked in self-pity, and shuts the lid. The world tilts, and I am wheeled to the street, bumped down a kerb.
A hysterical laugh, raw and unexpected, tears through me—a sudden realisation of the utter absurdity of hiding in a wheelie bin.
Halfway up the road, a bin man pauses. “What was that?”
She gives the lid a firm, possessive thump. “It’s my bin boy!” I can hear her smiling.
She’s right, I’m a dirty little bin boy—selfish, lazy. Covered in bin juice. But that doesn’t matter.
I’m hers.
FOURTH PLACE
A MEASURED DISTANCE by Alisa Coddington
No one had told them to look, but they all craned anyway.
Not all at once. A glance, then again. Soon the neighborhood developed a subtle lean. Not physical—just something about how people paused before entering their cars. Before unlocking the front door. The way conversations left space for interruption.
Whatever it was, it had already ended. Probably.
And yet, something above the rooflines refused to clear. Not a figure. Not movement. Just a texture in the air. A slight wrongness. Like a breath taken at the wrong time.
Ash showed up in odd places. On windshields. Inside closed drawers. A fine grit on the inside rim of drinking glasses. No one saw flames, but the smell was consistent. Sharp, synthetic—like the inside of a burned wire.
A note appeared on a lamppost. Weathered, folded. Typewritten.
If you looked, you’ve been seen.
If you looked away, it knows the shape of your refusal.
Nothing above forgets.
They looked because it was there. Or it was there because they looked.
People read it. No one removed it. After a few days, it blurred—still legible, but somehow altered. Some said the text moved slightly when you weren’t looking.
A girl stood still in her yard one morning, arms raised—not waving. Not reaching. Just raised.
Her mother called her name twice. Then she just asked, “Why?”
The girl said, “It’s measuring the distance.”
Her mother didn’t ask again. That night she couldn’t sleep—kept checking the curtains, fingers tight on the fabric as if pulling harder would hold the house together.
One man climbed up to clean his gutters and came down pale. Said there were pine needles where there shouldn’t be pines. That the sky felt “more personal up there.”
He left the next day. Didn’t pack. Just kept driving, like if he stopped, it might notice.
The Jensen house gained a shadow with inconsistent edges. It stretched toward windows that had long since been covered.
The bulletin board at the post office began curling at the edges. Flyers faded faster than normal. Thumbtacks rusted overnight. Someone suggested humidity. No one confirmed.
An instinct. Like crossing a room with the lights off and not wanting to confirm what’s in the corner.
And yet, sometimes, a person still forgets. Pauses mid-step. Head tilts. Just for a second. A flicker of curiosity. Of recognition.
They still check the curtains, fingers tight on the fabric. But by now, everyone understands—it isn’t what’s outside that waits.
It’s the distance itself that’s being measured.
And the distance always moves closer.
FIFTH PLACE
THE ONE by Holly Brandon
You arrive at the party twenty minutes late in a seen-better-decades minivan. With chipped-polish nails, you scrape a price sticker from the box of Legos you purchased on the way here, and shove it into a ripped bag that was gifted to your son last month.
You find a hairbrush on the floor mat that hasn’t seen a vacuum in weeks, and rake it through your son’s tangles, his protesting screams mingling with your own forced-calm retort— “Well if you’d brushed your hair at home like you were told, I wouldn’t have to do it for you.”
You rub lotion on razor burnt legs that were shaved in the sink this morning, dab drugstore concealer under eyes that are never closed for more than five hours at a time. You brush cracker crumbs from your son’s shirt, kiss his sticky cheek, taking his little hand in yours as you lead him to the bounce house in the backyard.
And as I sit in a folding chair, silent next to chattering moms who all somehow know each other (how do they always already know each other?), I watch you and I think— are you the one?
The one whose interests surpass potty training and sight words— the one who will help me strip the burnt edges and charred layers baked on by parenthood. Another alien in this strange world that didn’t wait for us to catch up, who understands that while we’ll always be mothers, we’ve been people even longer.
Your son bumps into a table, knocking several cupcakes to the ground, and as you crane your neck to see if anyone noticed, you step on a cupcake and whisper, “Shit.”
I grab a stack of napkins and think— please be the one.
SIXTH PLACE
ANOTHER CHILD HAS BEEN KILLED IN PALESTINE by Justin Creps
Why the fuck am I still awake?
I work in five hours. My wife is sleeping peacefully beside me, and our son, Simon, is tucked in his crib, breathing barely audible breaths that crackle through the monitor’s static. Our house is quiet, the room dark, except for my face, which glows white. I tap my phone’s screen.
The following post contains graphic imagery that may be upsetting to some users.
I already know what it is. Amir, my friend from college, only posts about one thing.
Another child has been killed in Palestine.
I have a few friends who post about it regularly. One horrendous tragedy after another, innocent lives destroyed. They’re always at the top of my feed, waiting for me when I open the app. My phone’s facial recognition must notice my eyes lingering; the algorithm always knows.
Amir is braver than me, as I hide in the shadows of my bedroom, heart aching, voice silent, fingers still. Sentiment is worth nothing when you’re too scared to speak. Too passive to act.
What am I afraid of?
Could I lose my job? A friendship? My reputation? Could I end up blacklisted by our increasingly fascist government? Is someone monitoring my online activity? Has an AI program analyzed every word I’ve ever posted?
Probably not. I’m just a fucking coward.
The girl’s pink Velcro shoes hang limp from her father’s arms as he runs through a city street, screaming guttural screams. She was Simon’s age. Her brown eyes stare lifeless; black hair, matted with blood, clings to her face. The man is hysterical, pleading in a language I can’t comprehend, yet as a father, I somehow understand. He’s living my worst nightmare. An image of Simon, body torn to pieces, forms in my mind. I look away.
Then, I tap the screen.
Next post: before-and-after satellite images of Gaza. Pristine beaches, schools, and parks reduced to rubble, debris, and ash—burning in real-time. I look out my window at unending suburban sprawl. They’re building another apartment complex—crane at the ready. Always expanding—always growing—more and more and more. One part of the world prospers while another is erased. I taste vomit.
I want to look away; ignore it; give into the excuses; stay silent. What could I possibly do anyway? Call a representative who doesn’t care? Vote in a gerrymandered election? March in another pointless protest? None of it would matter. That’s the awful truth. We can’t do anything… and I can keep hiding behind that.
But there’s no denying another truth I know without seeing. While I’ve been laying here, staring at my screen…
Another child has been fucking killed in Palestine.
I want to think tomorrow will be different. Maybe I’ll find the courage to speak, like Amir, sharing uncomfortable truths.
But probably not.
This isn’t a fairy tale. There’s no redemption arc for me. This is real life, and I’m just a coward, scrolling on my phone.
At least now I know why the fuck I am awake.
LONGLISTED
- THE POTENTIAL METAPHORICAL AND PHYSICAL CONSEQUENCES OF A SLEEP-DEPRIVED WRITER by Trevor Flanagan *DISHONOURABLE MENTION*
- THE OVERSEERS by Kennedy Williams
- IT WAS IMPLIED by Corrie Haldane
- THIS CITADEL HAS BEEN BURNED TO THE GROUND by Linda Atkins
- CHANGING FREQUENCIES by Anne Wilkins
- ONE, NOTHING GOES IN THE HOLE, AND TWO, NO ONE GOES IN THE HOLE by Emily Rinkema
- ROTTEN ONES by Maddie Logemann
- BREEDING GROUNDS by Sarah Story
- IN THE AIR TONIGHT by Holly Sadowski
- LIFT TO THE PUB by L. Cook
- MANGO BUCKETS by Holly Havers
- SOMETIMES A NEST IS JUST FOR A SEASON by Chris Doty-Dunn
- AN OPEN PALM AS A CLENCHED FIST by WM Peregrine
- DAY by Laura Fulton
- THE DEAD BIRD by Dinuki Jayawardena *WILDCARD WINNER*
- I STILL DON’T LIKE SWIMMING by Kathy Prokhovnik
- A PICTURE THAT WOULD BE PAINTED BY YOU by Michael Stone
- THE MOLTEN DETRITUS OF A GRIFTER’S PAST by Lincoln Hayes
- HAVE YOU TRIED MANIFESTING SELF-WORTH? by Jack Lewis-Edney
- WHAT CAN BE SAID ABOUT A TRAGEDY? by Madeline Dawn
- SACRAMENT by Zachary Arama
- BUT I DON’T SAY IT by Sarah Kennedy
- WHY DON’T YOU DIE? by Fiona Stoffer *WILDCARD WINNER*
- TINY HOUSES by Christina Wilson
- REMEMBER SO WE DON’T FORGET by John Scholz
- KNEADED TO DEATH: EPIPHANY IN THE FACE HOLE by Louise Walton
- MY BREASTS by Manu St. Thomas
- TO HIROSHIMA, WITH LOVE by Sally Reiser Simon
- HAPPY CAMPERS by Sophie Thompson
- YOU AND ME VERSUS THE WORLD by Claire Sandys
- MIDNIGHT AT THE OASIS by Athena Law
- EVERYWHERE AROUND HERE IS ICE AND COLD by Jornadan Marc
- BELTANE by Arabella Peterson
- A LIFE OF ITS OWN by Freya King
The following story did not make the longlist but won a wildcard prize:
- GYM SESH by Kerry Goldsworthy *WILDCARD WINNER*
Congratulations to our longlisted and prize-winning authors, and many thanks to ALL entrants for sharing your creative talents with us.
We hope you stay tuned to the podcast and write on!