Cicada Magazine

CICADA YA/teen lit magazine seeks fiction, poetry, comics, and essays on the theme of Family. We want to see honest works exploring all aspects of family life, whether it be family by relation or a family of choice. What connects a family? What might break it apart? How do we define family? In what ways do our familial connections heal or harm us? We are especially interested in works depicting found families and other nontraditional/nonnuclear families—show us how the family you build can be just as strong as (or stronger than!) the one you are born with.

During the 8th century, the Greek poet Homer composed the epic poem the Odyssey, which featured the powerful cyclops Polyphemus. Roughly 1,000 years later in 1818, the world first met Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Now, in 2018, we’re excited to celebrate a fresh crop of monsters! Last month we partnered with Cicada Magazine to bring you our first ever Monster Flash Fiction Competition. Today, the judges over at Cicada are excited to share their favorite pieces. Read on to find out who took home the prizes for Best Entry, Runner Up, and Best Peer Review.

From @cicadamagazine:

BEST ENTRY

“re: Ode to Broken Things” by gripsyched

We’re fascinated by this piece. It’s a mysterious and otherworldly portrait of mundane urban spaces. What a unique way to build a monster in the mind of the reader—through its invisible and undetectable yet undeniable influence. It’s recognizably the same presence that haunts the Neruda poem referenced in the title. This piece reads like a prose poem, with wonderfully rhythmic language that begs to be read aloud.

RUNNER UP

“Deviled Eggs” by lemonwren

It’s tough to craft an effective piece in second person, but this piece uses that point of view to create a hilariously paranoid slice-of-life gone wrong. The small descriptions of everyday things are so concise and fantastic—“squeaky pink Styrofoam container” was one of our favorites. Great twist at the end, too. We enjoyed how this piece subscribes to a somewhat Lovecraftian method of not really describing horrifying things; the thing you don’t see clearly is much scarier than the thing you do.

BEST PEER REVIEW

Marie’s Review of “Before the Meeting” by KidThrills953