Emily Rinkema

writer of short things

Works

Publications

Bare Hands

New Flash Fiction Review: December 2025

Anthologies

Screen Shot 2023-12-11 at 9.55.32 AM.png

Includes "Child A," a Short Story originally published in Sixfold Journal.

Screen Shot 2023-12-11 at 9.59.34 AM.png

Includes "My Father, Retired Physics Professor, Explains it All"

Screen Shot 2024-07-07 at 7.56.32 AM.png

Includes "probability", longlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Competition.

Screen Shot 2024-10-23 at 6.16.18 AM.png

Includes "Grace," a Highly Commended Short Story

Includes "The Worst-Case Scenario."

Screenshot 2025-03-02 at 12.35.45 PM.png

Includes "Nine Times Seven is Sixty-Three."

Includes "Driving My Seven-Year Old Nephew..." from Bath Flash Fiction Award.

Includes "As if We're Worth It," a Highly Commended Flash.

Contests

Second place in Bath Flash Fiction Winter 2025 for "Vagina First"
First place in Women on Writing Flash comp summer 2025 for "Huff and Puff"
Highly Commended, Bridport Prize for Flash Fiction 2025 for "As If We're Worth It"
Winner of the Lascaux Prize for Flash Fiction 2024 for "Five Things," originally published in SmokeLong Quarterly.
Second place in Not Quite Write December 2024: Nine Times Seven is Sixty-Three
Second place in Oxford Flash Fiction Contest 2024: "The Worst-Case Scenario."
First place in Cambridge Prize (TSS Publishing), September 2024: "Next Exit"
Second place in Bath Flash Fiction Contest June 2024: "Driving My Seven Year Old Nephew to Visit His Mother in Rehab"
Second place in SmokeLong Grand Micro Competition 2023: "The Great Butter Baby Championship"

Nominations & Selections

2025

Pushcart Nom: "Grace" in Trash Cat
Pushcart Nom: "Lou" in Temple in a City
Pushcart Nom: "The Interview" in Lascaux Review
Pushcart Nom: "The Night the Walrus Came to Take My Baby" in Vestal Review
Pushcart Nom: "The Story Where the Mother Dies in Childbirth" in Milk Candy Review
Best Small Fictions Nom: "The Beautiful Thing" in Pithead Chapel
Best Small Fictions Nom: "Vagina First" in Bath Flash Fiction
Best of the Net Nom: "The Interview" in Variant Lit
Best of the Net Nom: "Unloading" in Flash Fiction Magazine
Wigleaf Top 50: "Breaking" in X-R-A-Y Lit

2024

Pushcart Nom: "Driving My..." in Bath Flash
Pushcart Nom: "Other People's Dreams" in Flash Frog
Pushcart Nom: "Nine Times Seven..." in Not Quite Write
Best Small Fictions: "Driving My..." in Bath Flash
Best Small Fictions Nom: "Breaking" in XRAY Lit
Best Small Fictions Nom: "Five Things" in Lascaux Review
Best American Short Stories Nom: "Other People's Dreams" in Flash Frog

I'm Emily Rinkema, a writer from a small town in northern Vermont, USA.

I have been writing stories since I was eleven (I just found my first ever short story--ambitious and full of spelling errors, it told the epic tale of a colony of alien rabbits), and now, in my early 50s, I am finally getting the hang of it...and making fewer spelling errors.

I have recently fallen madly in love with flash fiction, so I imagine that from this moment on, the additions to this page will likely be really short. Feel free to reach out to me at emilyrinkema@gmail.com or follow me on BS or IG @emilyrinkema

And buy copies of literary journals whenever you can so that readers and writers like me can keep doing what we love.

Bio

In The Press