Marcus Tan is a writer based in Singapore and Hong Kong. His story Emergency Contact was the grand prize winner for the 2022 Smokelong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. All This is Yours to Lose was a finalist for the 2021 Masters Review Short Story Award and was shortlisted for the Exeter Story Prize. His fiction has been anthologized in Best Small Fictions 2021 and published in Prime Number Magazine, No Contact Magazine, and elsewhere. He is a submissions editor for Smokelong Quarterly. Read his latest interview here.
Published Writing
Emergency Contact – Smokelong Quarterly
Grand prize winner for the Smokelong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction
Nominated for the Pushcart Prize
Excerpt: “Time: t-minus fifty-two minutes. An asteroid only needs to be one kilometer in diameter to trigger enough devastation to wipe out all of humanity. That’s a fraction of a fraction of the size of the earth. A drop of rain on the nose. I don’t say any of this to Mr. Chan, of course. What’s the point?”
All This is Yours to Lose – The Masters Review
3rd place finalist for the Masters Review Story Prize 2021, judged by New York Times bestselling author Kristen Arnett
Shortlisted for the 2021 Exeter Story Prize
Kristen Arnett, on the story: “I was deeply impressed by the way this author chose to use time in this story. Generally I would be wary of taking the reader so far out of linear time in a piece of short fiction, but here, it works perfectly. Every moment between the husband and wife sets us up for what’s going to happen at the end of the work. I found myself rolling along with the movement, reading for the moments of intimacy and frustration rather than what would happen at the climax of the work. I very much enjoyed the way this writer was able to make me understand the different threads that connected these characters. By the time I reached the end of this story, I felt as though I had a greater knowledge of the ways that people unconditionally support each other.”
Eight Houses – No Contact Magazine, Issue 6
Anthologized in Best Small Fictions 2021
Excerpt: “In the first house, a bungalow on Victoria Peak, Rosa sleeps on top of two washing machines. When the wash cycles sync on rinse & spin, the laundry room shakes and sends vibrations through her body. She pretends she is back home in Manila, sinking into her mother’s favorite massage chair.”
Harbour – Prime Number Magazine, Issue 181
Selected for publication by Shuly Cawood, author of A Small Thing to Want.
Excerpt: “Homes are not eternal safe harbours to which we are entitled to return. I have been lucky and Mui has not.”
Marcus Tan 