Announcing the NINTH Annual Weird Christmas Flash Fiction ConThology!

I like… weird… STUFF! and I cannot lie…

Sorry, I’m a little punchdrunk from, ya know, life and such. You ever go through so many changes in a year or so that you forget who you used to be and where your life’s motivations used to come from? Yeah, me, too.

Life, man. It’ll be the end of us all.

Anyway, I’m already posting Halloween cards for this season, it’s more than halfway through September, and I’m just now posting the story contest for this year (which, yes, it should be apparent, is happening). I’m late, but let’s move forward! Time to rearrange and mess up your associations of the greatest holiday of them all…

(Also, I promised the story announcement this year wouldn’t be as bitter as last year’s. I apologize. It was a rough time. Now my life is all sunshine and dandelions and hot dogs and endless reruns of Teletubbies.)

If this all seems disjointed and unprofessional, you’re right! That’s because it’s time to announce the NINTH ANNUAL Weird Christmas Flash Fiction ConThology! (Last year’s stories/show is here.) It used to be a contest, now it’s an anthology, and I like the word “conthology,” so that’s what it is! Questions are for the confused who lack confidence.

This is a contest for flash fiction of no more than 350 words that’s both about Christmas (or any other winter holiday) and simultaneously weird. Exactly what that means is up to you because you’re the one with literary pretentions and a damaged psyche. All you have to do is make something about the Christmas season seem new and unsettling with a bit of that grinning like you’re not sure if it’s funny or creepy, and you make your fellow co-conspirators in this hell of existence a bit more bearable.

Just like last year, I’m giving up on the contest format because I don’t like pitting people against each other and saying that someone’s imagination is worth more than someone else’s. And I want to pay everyone a full professional rate as if I was a regular old legitimate publishing venue. [As defined by the Science Fiction Writers of America, or at least $.08/word.]

That also means no “official” categories like I’ve done in the past. Instead, here are some I used before and a few others that people suggested to spark some imagination:

1. Weird Cards – Head to Bluesky or Twitter or Tumblr or Facebook or Instagram and find an old card I’ve posted. Write a story inspired by it. Be sure to link the card when you submit your story.
2. Weird Unreal Cultural Celebration – Create a new holiday. But it also has to be from a new culture. Maybe even a new species on a new planet in period of history that doesn’t exist. I’m not talking “Merry Spaghetti Day!” I mean something like how the astral beings of the Fourth Allegorical Realm of Post-Unitarian Saturn celebrate alternate birthdays. Something truly weird.
3. Alternative Dystopian Christmas. We already live in a dystopia, so imagine a different better/worse one. At Christmas.
4. The Angry-yet-not-Cliche Protest Christmas Story. Or, you know what, how about a break from our political dystopia. Unless you can make it weird in a good way.
5. Christmas Cryptids. Self-explanatory.
6. Christmas ‘shipping. IYKYK. (Personally, I think this is a horrible, horrible idea, but then I’m not an emotionally stunted fanfic reader who spends way too much time on Tumblr. …or am I?)
7. Yet Another Dark Rudolph Redo. Yeah, no one’s ever taken a beloved Christmas character and written them in a smutty or gritty or anti-hero way before. Ever.
8. Christmas-themed “ecofiction”. Are you sad about the world dying a climate-crisis death? Why not mix that sadness with the holiday spirit? That’ll make it all better.

I’ll publish at least a dozen or so stories, and each one will be paid (at least) $35.

Otherwise, the rules are pretty much the same as previous years:

• Deadline November 29, 2026. (That’s the Sunday after Thanksgiving.) Winners will be announced on the podcast/site as soon as I can get it out, hopefully before Christmas.
• 350 word max limit (title not included). No exceptions.
• $35 for every story included. [I use Paypal but can make exceptions.]
• Winners will be read on my podcast (preferably by you, but I can find others) and published on my site.
• Submissions must be EMAILED to weirdxmascontest@gmail.com. Either paste it into the body or attach a file. Please include your name, but writer bios are unnecessary (until we get to the winners).
• You can submit multiple stories. I will accept poetry, but it must be narrative. (Do NOT assume that sending me 20 or 30 stories will “increase your chances.” If you’re throwing shit against the wall hoping something sticks, I can guarantee you it will all stink.
• Please include only one story per email.
• If you send me a Google Doc link, please make sure the access is set so I can read it. Otherwise, it’s just a link you sent to a guy who can never open it. Congratulations! (And, not to sound crude, but I get too many of those to keep track of which I’ve gotten permission for or not at any given time. If I can’t read it when I open your email the first time, I can’t promise to circle back around to it.)
• Best practice: just copy/paste the text into the email. Easier than a link or file, anyway.
• Do I even have to mention anything about AI? If you do use AI and I end up loving the story, we’re all screwed, and the end has come. So just don’t. Besides, if you’re too lazy to write a story that no one is forcing you to write, why are you even bothering? At the very least, retain some shred of dignity and maybe try a Burroughs-esque “cut up.”
• One point because someone’s gonna ask: what happens if I end up unknowingly publishing a story written by (or heavily influenced by) AI? Then I guess you win. Congratulations. Look, there’s no way to know with certainty. The AI detectors are crap and can be easily fooled with minimal “humanization” [gawd, what a term] (except, it seems, for Pangram, although I’m not sure how it fares with fiction). And the truth is these things are all based on patterns in actual human writing (and language itself is a structure of learned, repeated linguistic behaviors/patterns), so they’re bound to spit out some winners now and then. But, still, you’re using something that stole from creatives, learned from them, gives them no credit, and now you’re passing it off as your own. Just don’t be an asshole. (Or just keep it to yourself and let it slowly eat at your conscience until any dreams of an artistic life you once had become as compromised as everything else you’ve only ever half done.) Just don’t.

And then I’ve got some general guidelines to answer the perennially asked questions:

First, What should the story be about? Make it weird, strange or odd. It can be “Haha!” weird or “Oh, Jesus, no!” weird. It can be genre (sf, fantasy, horror/weird, bizarro, etc.) or it can just be off-kilter. Sentimental is fine, but it better be sentimental in a way that leaves me feeling…uncomfortable. As long as it’s something about the holidays we aren’t expecting, it fits.

Second, Does it have to be specifically about Christmas? It must be related to any winter holiday (Christmas, Hannukha, Kwanza, solstice celebrations, “Yule,” etc.). You can include other holidays like Halloween or Easter, but it still needs a strong connection to the winter season’s celebrations.

Third, How do I know what you like? A few people asked which well known authors I like for comparison. I don’t advise trying to copy their styles, but a few names that you can check out anyway: Michael Cisco, Steve Aylett, Leonora Carrington, Gene Wolfe, and Shirley Jackson just to name a few who sort of circle around what seems right for this. The best thing to do is to see what I picked from the previous contests here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Fourth, A tease: I’d love to collect and publish all of these after another round or two [the 10^th anniversary is next year… hint hint], and I started looking into it. So keep in mind that it might be more than just a random online contest somewhere down the line…And that leads me to…

Fifth, Do you keep the rights to the story? I’m asking for first rights to publish your story here and on the podcast. Beyond that, feel free to submit it somewhere else simultaneously, as long as the other venue doesn’t ask for exclusivity while the contest is ongoing. Note that if I publish it, and you do want to take it somewhere else after the contest, it will technically count as a reprint. Keep that in mind if you’re hoping to get this published somewhere that pays more than I can, and, truth is, reprints won’t be as attractive to most markets. Hopefully paying a bit more this year won’t make that an issue too often, but I like to be clear.

Finally, What if I’m trying to make a career as a writer? Is this thing legit? Like I said, this year I’m paying at least $.08/word which counts for most associations as “professional” market sale. Thank you to those who just randomly send me PayPal donations. (And thank you previous Patreon supporters! And thank you to Ko-Fi.com supporters!)

If you have any other questions, please contact me at weirdxmas@gmail.com or weirdxmascontest@gmail.com.

NOW GO BE MISALIGNED AND MERRY IN (brief) NARRATIVE FORM!!!!!