We received a whopping helping of thirty-eight submissions to the contest, each judged anonymously, and the range was banquetorial. And yet, somehow, every single one of these wildly different Waffle Houses was shot with the same cinematic filter. You could almost believe thirty-eight writers had met up under the same 3am fluorescents.
There were crime-riddled Waffle Houses, Waffle Houses mid-apocalypse, broken plates, forced registers, poisonings, drugging, zombies, government takeovers, hurricanes, haunted jukeboxes, a rotating shift of waitresses, and coffee being refilled across the board. And almost universally: nostalgia. There were even glimpses of perfect golden peace.
The stories that rose to the top were the ones where the writer was fully committed to their corner of the universe, where the prose matched the narrative. Where the waffles wrote the stories. The Five winners will be published as Volume 7 of SumFlux, but only one will get the cash.
We gorged hundreds of thousands of calories’ worth of waffles in their honor.
Through an elaborate system of flipping, tossing, deep-frying and tasting, we chose:
Stephen Prime with his tubular feast: The Last Place Open as our Grand Prize Winner.
This is what our branch managers had to say:
“When I first read The Last Place Open, it felt like I’d respawned in the center of a thunderstorm, and this pure electric thing was hugging me. The pacing, dialogue, and prose in this story are wonderful and do not let up.
-Will Boucher
“I love stories that are off center like this one. Under center, side center, it wriggles out of the way when you try and pin it down. I felt like one of those dome cameras up in the corner documenting the scene as it unravelled. I could feel the film grain spackle behind the cinematic sensibility of this tale. It is true crime and pure Wafflecore.”
-Jon T
“There is a sureness stamped into high quality fiction, a confidence in simplicity and irregularity that always seems to stand out. The Last Place Open is a story that makes both those choices in just the right way, consistently. The whole thing feels tangible. “
-Keith Long
“Stephen Prime wrote us the ontology of the Waffle House. Every character is stripped down to their plumbing, reduced to “traffic between openings,” intake and output, a mask worn only to hide the simplicity of consuming and excreting. In this Waffle House we are all homogenized into the same senseless, common flow — a community built on the primordial need to be fed, every one of us processed the same way in the end.”
-Sandolore Sykes
With Stephen Prime’s cash prize of $115 he can afford 19 pecan waffles at his local Waffle House.
Main Course Winners to be published in Volume 7 (in addition to our grand prize winner):
Garen Glazier : No Quick Death
Ian Patterson : Shear Thinning
On Garen Glazier’s No Quick Death
“Of all the submitted stories, this one scored the highest for me on its fit to the open call. If you tried to remove waffle house from this story, you would have nothing left. It feels like a sticky dream where you sink into disinfected cushions to find a cavern below, oozing black batter. It’s unusual, and delicious.”
-Keith Long
On Trevor Cohen’s House of Gofry
“What got me was the commitment—the mimetic quality of every single image, nothing broke the fine and total weave. Waffles weren’t props, they were the gooey center of this weird coming-of-age story, where you have to strip down the girlie pictures, stuff mom in her room, and make your own damn waffles—only way to become a real man.”
-Sandolore Sykes
On Lancelot Schaubert’s Viaticum
"I got caught under the wheels of this story in the first sentence. So I clunked around the undercarriage until it spit me out through the mudflaps somewhere in British Columbia, I think. A wild ride, this roadtrip made all the right stops for me. And it rang with the realism and specificity of a Hunter Thompson fever dream. I want all these words in my mouth even more than the waffles."
-Jon T
On Ian Patterson’s Shear Thinning
“Shear Thinning was my highest rated story of the waffle crop because it was the stickiest (and not just because it’s about a sentient Ketchup.) The language was simultaneously evolved and friendly; it succeeded in imbuing a ketchup bottle with a life force, so much so that every time I’ve used ketchup since reading, I feel the need to apologize to Mr. Heinz for my sweaty palms. Additionally, the ending juxtaposition brings the whole thing together in a delicious, gory way that captures the chaos of Waffle House.”
-Will Boucher
Huge thanks to the staff, our infamous judges Will Boucher, Keith Long, Jon T and Sandolore Sykes. Massive appreciation to Wendy Russell, who took orders and saved us from the avalanches of crystallized maple syrup. We couldn’t have done it without her. She is the butter in our dough.
The extra special, two-for-one Wendy Award goes to Ian Patterson’s Shear Thinning. Hope he enjoys the extra helping.
For Dessert how about 33 Creamy Contestants?
Brent Robbins: Drowning at Waffle House #793
Snaps: Turmoil
Didrik: ROPPA ROPPA ROPPA TARANTELLA!
Eric W. Cowperthwaite: Third Shift
Evan Miller: The Devil Eats Waffles
Mercy-Luxed: Syrup Before Syrup
Haly, the Moonlight Bard ✒️: Waffle House: Une Vignette Américaine
James Lessing: So, You've Gone Down the Incel to Trans Pipeline
Jamie Dibs: The Daybreak Double
Jay Oatway: Time Out
Jeannine Lawall: Buddy Bitters
Jessica Maison: Did He Take You to Waffle House, First?
Lizzy Co (she/they): BENNY AND LOLO
M.A. Knight: Silverware Spirits
Stephen: House of Waffle - Homage
Nick Buchheit: All-Star Breakfast
Patrick L. Parker:Waffle House Census
Paul R. Pace: Anchor House
Richard Loader: Wallys Waffle House
Richard S. Pinner: Stuck
Slater Henatay: Pitstop
Stephanie Sweeney: Hungry Hearts Club
Tianle Robert Zhang: Waffle House 2031
Late night diners: (didn’t make the deadline, but wrote the waffles nonetheless):
Martin Maenza Waffle House, No Wassail
Dev Henry Grand Slam Apotheosis
Rich Volo I Fell in Love at Waffle House
R. Gratz W-A-F-F-L-E-H-O-U-S-E.
Thank you deeply (from the pit of my left intestine) for each person that rang the bell on the door. It means the world to us that you wrote in our Waffle Extravaganza.
Now get to reading, take an antacid and prepare to get sticky.
All artwork in the volume is by Jon T
You guys, thank you! I really appreciate the contest, the community, and glad my sexy ketchup story landed well with you all. It tickled me too ♥️. Now to get to some more waffle reading
Congratulations to the winners! So many cool texts to read so little time 😭😭😭