Flash Friday for April 2024: Selfies & Self-Portrait Prompts

This quarter’s prompts are going to be a bit different—inspired by a Facebook post from Cynthia Bertelsen, our most excellent former blog editor. Cynthia posted this tribute to acclaimed photographer Vivian Maier:

Now, we’ve long admired the work of Diane Arbus. But we’re going to have to admit that we’d never heard of Vivian Maier. So we started looking up her work, and…wow. Just wow.

This led us down the rabbit hole of searching out other photographers known for their self-portraiture work. And no rabbit hole would be complete without a search on Reddit for the cousin of self-portraits: selfies. Where we found some real gems, such as these*:

So while we’re not asking for anything as fancy or fantastic as these, the visual prompts for this quarter are:

YOU.

Send us a selfie with a story or a poem, 500-words or less, inspired by it.

A flash memoir.

“Listen here,” you may say. “I’ve never taken a selfie in my life, and I’m not about to start now.”

To which we say: “Heard.” You can choose, for this prompt, any photograph or portrait of yourself, from any age (even that 6^th grade yearbook pic with the mullet and the braces, if you dare), and give us a story or poem to fit it.

“Well, if those are going to be the loosey-goosey rules,” you may ask, “how about I submit a painting or drawing of myself to write a flash piece?”

To which we answer, “That sounds cool, too! Climb on board with a submission.”

The deadline for submissions is 14 June, and the top 5 entries will be posted on 21 June. Author bios and links to your websites/social media will be included. One randomly selected author will receive a $50 Visa gift card.

And to sweeten things up a bit this quarter, we are offering the following: Non-WAG members who submit and have their stories published will receive a free one-year membership to WAG. Read all about the benefits of a WAG membership here.

(No WAG funds will be harmed in the making of the post. Thank you again, Anonymous!)

How to submit: You can put both your selfie/portrait/artwork and your story/poem directly in the body of an email to BlogEditor@writersalliance.org, or you can send them as attachments (jpeg or PNG for the image, Word doc for the story/poem). Double-spaced, Times New Roman 12-point is preferred for the Word doc, but the formatting and font aren’t dealbreakers. (Unless you submit using Blackadder ITC. Or Broadway. Then we’ll know you’re just messing with us.)

We’re looking forward to reading your work!

Have fun and happy writing!

*Credits are as follows:

1.”The only acceptable reason to own and use a selfie stick” by u/S-Wordofthemorning

2. “Selfie photo bomb…Nailed it” by u/JoanArellano96

3. “The two standing gorillas posing for a selfie with another anti-poaching ranger” by u/nooyork

4. “Wartime selfie, 1940s” by u/DolbyVision