Happy to announce that my story, “Calling on Gabriel”, was selected as the first-place winner of the 2023 Ruth Moose Flash Fiction Contest held by the Charlotte Writers Club.
Flash fiction requires you to tell a story within a certain amount of words, this one being 500.
Me and my wife spent 15 months living in the Mississippi Delta. It’s a warm, wet place where cotton and writers emerge and thrive in the rich, black soil.
The Delta is where I found my voice as a writer and its people and places remain with me.
This is a story of the prodigal son, the one forgotten and the day when death comes for momma. It’s called “Calling on Gabriel.”
Judge Matt Dube said: “An overlooked daughter watches her mother waste away waiting for the return of her prodigal. Too late, the daughter’s patient attention is acknowledged in this spare story that brings together a series of small, isolated worlds from just a few words, a snatch of melody.”
Photo by Caroline Kenna
Michael Banks 360 