Flash! Two Altadenans up for flash fiction award

Paula Johnson, the editor of the Rose City Sisters, has announced nine finalists in their 2009 flash fiction competition.

The Rose City Sisters blog is an online anthology of  women writers from the Pasadena area, writing "flash fiction," stories of 1,000 words or less.

Among the finalists are two from Altadena:

• Janet Aird  for "Downsized": Aird writes for several trade magazines, but enjoys writing about relationships between people.
• Désireé Zamorano for "Quicky": Zamorano is the director of the Community Literacy Center at Occidental College. Her short fiction has appeared in the L.A. Times and literary journals.

Also notable are for us are

• Margaret Finnegan (South Pasadena) for "Sweet Revenge": An award-winning writer, historian and instructor, Finnegan is the author of "Selling Suffrage: Consumer Culture and Votes for Women." Her essays have appeared in the L.A. Times and on Salon.com.
• Petrea Burchard (Pasadena) for "Belinda's Birthday" .  Petrea is an actor, writer, and photographer who  maintains the Pasadena Daily Photo blog and is one of Altadenablog's favorite people in the entire universe.

All of the Rose City Sisters 2009 contributors will be eligible to vote for the "story of the year." The winner will be announced February 5, 2010. Visit www.rosecitysisters.com to read the stories or for guidelines on submitting a story.