It seems that the popularity of ultra short stories is on the rise. Events with famous writers of short stories, like the brilliant and funny A.L. Kennedy, and — to me — the empress of the short story Lydia Davis prove it. I like that, because I have this thing going for flash fiction. I love reading it and I love writing it. Writing with a constraint on word count forces you to zoom in on the very essence of your story. It pushes you to be terse. It allows you to rip out every empty word.

No more than 220 Words.

That was the prerequisite to enter the contest for the A.L. Snijders Award for Flash Fiction 2012. I had the story in a flash, wrote it down, sat back and let it simmer for a while. And then I got to work. I sharpened my pen and my brain, and started cutting until I had it down to perfection; my story ‘Niet anders’ (‘Unchanged’). I took a deep breath and sent it in. So did over 300 people and a total of 422 stories arrived at the jury’s desk.

Mina Witteman – Niet anders – page 44

‘Niet anders’ didn’t win, but it was chosen by the editors of AFdH Publishers as one of the stories that “made it far”. It was therefore included in the anthology that is now published in honor of the award and aptly titled 220W.
I am honored to have my story published in an anthology with the Dutch grandmaster of the ultra short story A.L. Snijders and famous Dutch writers like Wim Brands, Ewoud Sanders, A.H.J. Dautzenberg and Jan van Mersbergen.

For those who read Dutch: it is for sale at bookstores.

I just realized this post makes an excellent example for the daily prompt Success!