Fun and Games

There really should be an idiom about time and flying and having fun that one can use to capture the sentiment of, say, a month passing speedily on account of enjoying oneself so much. Unfortunately, it simply doesn’t exist, so we’ll have to with…. I had such a great time reading all your fun and games this month that the Earth somehow rotated 27 times on the tip of a Godfinger before I even found my seat in the stands—and these were good tickets!

Nevertheless, you have all totally outdone yourselves once again with the level of creativity and writerly talent on show this month. For a theme focused on Fun and Games, the tonal range was probably the widest it’s been so far and made for an incredibly satisfying—albeit challenging—judging experience. So I’m terribly excited to share this month’s incredible selection with you.

Our Selected Stories for Whimsy September include a cosy, quirky yarn about a goat chewing up everything in its path at the village show, an offbeat picture of the post-apocalypse and whether it’s worth the price, a quite incredible bit of historical fiction set it wartime Bosnia, and the strangest but most enchanting tale about raccoons getting “zooted” up on toxic waste and looting the town, and finally—this month’s spotlight story—a brilliant absurdist take on the stresses of womanhood / motherhood / adulthood through the lens of woman with a devilish gym trainer. All five stories are remarkable in their own way, and in how they’ve captured or twisted the Fun and Games theme and their chosen whim to create something truly original and memorable.

A big congrats also to this month’s honourable mentions, who brought us a shaved back for faster swimming, a medieval painting with a life of its own, coming of age at high-altitude, a narcoleptic knight (by a writer on a whimsical hot streak!) and a very orange tale of healing. We’ll be in touch shortly about inclusion in our annual anthology alongside our selected stories.

Once again, we’ve handpicked three additional stories from this month’s contest that just missed out on the list (codenames: hooked-sausage, psychedelic arrow, yours critically) that we’d love to pop in the collection, too. Keep your eyes peeled for an email from us.

And finally, well done to Whimsy Wall of First Lines inductee number three! This month’s line is a whimsical delight.

Thanks so very much for all the Fun and Games this month. We’ve got a spookier shade of whimsy kicking off this Thursday 1st October and would love to see you there!

– Timothy Hayes (aka timmytimtimothy)