Stories of the Nature of Cities Prize 2020

The 2020 edition of the Stories of the Nature of Cities Prize for Flash Fiction is now accepting submissions.

The theme of this year’s stories is City in a Wild Garden.

We aspire to green cities around the globe—cities that are resilient, sustainable, livable, and just. What does this mean? The partners and sponsors of the Nature of Cities Prize for Urban Flash Fiction created the prize to imagine and explore visions of how people, nature, and cities might join.

The contest is open for submissions until 1 January 2020.

Rules for the 2020 Contest: City in a wild garden

Write a short story (“flash fiction”, up to 750 words), set in the present or future (near or far) and inspired by the phrase “City in a wild garden”. You do not have to literally use this phrase in your story. You may interpret liberally any of the words in the phrase: city, wild, and garden. Plot elements must include cities, nature, and people. It has to be fiction (that is, a story, not an essay)—any genre, from science fiction to magical realism—and can be about anything: climate change; food security; utopias; wild nature; a love story; … anything. At TNOC, we are very interested in imagining cities in which nature and people co-exist, cities in which the relationships between the human-made and the natural are imagined differently.

There will be, at the Judging Committee’s discretion, up to 6 money-winning stories: One 1st place story receives $2,000; two 2nd place stories receive $1,000 each; three third prize stories receive $500 each. A larger number of stories will be included in a book to be published (in late 2020 or early 2021) by Publication Studios.