NOTE—January-ish pic taken by Ashton Tharp in NYC.

First, here’s the prompts for the January 2026 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, the first one of the New Year of 2026! Then my usual long-winded explanation:

A Fantasy

Involving A Plastic Toy Horse

Set in A Skating Rink

Now, on to the details.

Hi! I’m Mike Mayak, I also write as Jeff Baker and I’m the current moderator for the monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, which was started by ‘Nathan Burgoine a few years ago and carried on by Cait Gordon and Jeffrey Ricker. It’s a monthly writing challenge mainly for stress-free fun that anyone can play.

Here’s how it works: the first Monday of every month I draw three cards; a heart, a diamond and a club. These correspond to a list naming a genre, a setting and an object that must appear in the story. Participants write up a flash fiction story, 1,000 words or less, post it to their website and link it here in the comments. I’ll post the results (including, hopefully, one of my own!)

As I’m no good making videos I did the drawing offstage. So, the results were the Five of Hearts (a Fantasy), the Eight of Diamonds (A Skating Rink) and the Nine of Clubs (A Plastic Toy Horse.)

So we will write a Fantasy, set in a Skating Rink involving a Plastic Toy Horse.

We’ll have the results here in this same space around Monday January 12th, 2026.

So, get to writing and I’ll post the results next week! And I’m putting the 2026 Flash Draw sheet at the end of this message, again! (* indicates those have been used.)

Thanks for playing, and I’ll see you in about week!

And have fun!

——mike

Here’s the list:

CLUBS

Clubs

1 A Cat

2 A Crown From a Theater Prop Room

3 Contact Lenses

4 A Vintage Comic Book

5 A Bunch of Bananas

6 A Manhole Cover

7. A Bag of Ping-Pong Balls

8 A Suitcase Full Of Money

*9 A Plastic Toy Horse

10 A Book Of Stamps

J A Football

Q A Jack-O-Lantern

K Modeling Clay

HEARTS

A Science Fiction

2 A Sword-And-Sorcery Story

3 A Thriller

4 A Romance

*5 A Fantasy

6 A Mystery

7. A Comedy

8 An Ancient History Story

9 A Horror Story

10 A Fairy Tale

J A Story Involving a Chase

Q A Whodunnit

K A War Story

DIAMONDS

A. A Boat in Hudson Bay

2 An Abandoned Prison

3 A Mexican Restaurant

4 The Golden Gate Bridge

5 An Egyptian Pyramid

6 A Roller Coaster

7 A Chapel

*8 A Skating Rink

9 An Abandoned Highway

10 A Stable

J. A Church Steeple

Q. A Walk-In Freezer

K. The Bottom Of the Ocean