Flash Fiction Contest

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FFM Contest - Waitinglist

Do you want in-depth feedback on your stories instead of getting a standard rejection?

Here are two examples of the feedback you will get when submitting to our contest:

Prizes and Benefits:

1st Prize = $500, publication on our website and in a future anthology.
2nd Prize = $300, publication on our website, and consideration for our next anthology.
3rd Prize = $200, publication on our website, and consideration for our next anthology.
Every winner gets lifetime access to our Flash Fiction Masters Writing Community.
Winners are featured in our Story Time LIVE event on Zoom.
We add winning stories to our Featured Stories page.
We heavily promote winning stories.

In-Depth Feedback on Every Story

There are a lot of contests out there, but very few provide the level of feedback we do.

We know how valuable feedback is to writers, because writers run our magazine!

When you enter our contest, you’ll get valuable developmental feedback from experienced editors who have read and edited thousands of stories.

Every submission receives feedback that focuses on:

Strengths: The editor will identify where the story is strongest and most effective.
Weaknesses: The editor will address elements of the story that could be stronger.
Revision Suggestions: The editor will provide suggestions for revision and editing.

Here are two examples of the feedback you will get:

Testimonials from Participants

You found the perfect way to run a contest! I got the thrill of entering. (I literally couldn’t sleep the night before because I didn’t want to miss the submission window.) And, of course, I had to deal with the sadness of rejection. BUT, the feedback was so thorough! I never expected line edits and detailed suggestions. I feel like I got as much from this as from taking a semester class.
Kait

You know what? This feedback alone was worth my entry fee. Thanks so much! I’ll be back for the next contest too (whenever that is). Count on it. Thanks so much!
J. David Thayer

I really struggled with the thought of paying for editorial feedback when submitting a piece of flash fiction.

However, I had been struggling for months with a piece that I knew was close, but not quite there. Sophia did an unbelievable job with her feedback, simultaneously telling me what she loved in the story, and most important, what needed work. In the end, my fragile ego remained intact, and after taking her suggestions to heart, the redraft was not only accepted by another literary magazine, but named as a finalist in one of their short fiction contests.

Thank you again; I’ve seen the light.
Dutch

Feedback on my story was fantastic. Helpful for me in knowing where to go with this story and how to write better stories moving forward. You will see more pieces from me.

Thank you for responding to all of my emails. Flash Fiction Magazine has me hooked.
Patti

I wanted to thank you for taking the time and energy to provide your very thorough review of my piece. I found your feedback most helpful, and I’ve already made some revisions based on your suggestions. Your editorial critique is one of the best ones I’ve received, and I’m profoundly grateful for it. Thank you so much!
Victoria

Thanks for your excellent comments on my story. I wasn’t expecting such a thorough—or helpful—review, but I’m delighted to have your suggestions.
Ann Russell

Whilst unsuccessful, the feedback was absolutely FIRST RATE. Her carefully tailored comments and recommendations made me feel as if my piece was the only story in her brief.
Barry

I wanted to personally thank you for your professional and informative review of my recent submission.

Your time, comments, and suggestions are very much appreciated, and will be useful to me in reworking this piece, and in future efforts.
Kent Bush

Wow, what wonderful comments. I’m grateful for your many good suggestions and edits, all of which I agree with. I can see I’ve got some work to do, but now I have a good plan in hand.

I’m very glad entered the contest. Your advice was worth far more than the entrance fee. I’ll look forward to reading the winning stories.
Ann Russell

Your comments were so thoughtful and they actually really resonated with me, and I’m truly grateful. As I’m sure you know, writing is such a solitary endeavor sometimes. So feeling like someone read my story and understood what I’m trying to say, even if I’m not quite there yet, is encouraging.
Alison Sanders

Contest Editors

Timons Esaias – Guest Judge

Timons taught in the MFA program at Seton Hill University for 20 years and has hundreds of publications to his name, in several languages.

With fifty years of storytelling experience, Timons has boiled down the tools and tricks into a digestible, easy-to-follow formula that will help your writing blossom.

Timons Esaias is a satirist, writer, and poet living in Pittsburgh. His works, ranging from literary to genre, have been published in twenty-two languages. He is the 2020 Asimov’s Readers’ Award winner for the Best Short Story and winner of a recent The Winter Anthology Contest. He has also been a finalist for the British Science Fiction Award and was shortlisted for the 2019 Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize. His story Norbert and the System has appeared in a textbook and in college curricula.

His SF short story Sadness was selected for three Year’s Best anthologies in 2015, and The Asimov’s winner, GO. NOW. FIX., has been selected for two. Recent genre appearances include Asimov’s Science Fiction, Analog, and Clarkesworld. Concrete Wolf brought out his full-length Louis-Award-winning collection of poetry titled Why Elephants No Longer Communicate in Greek. His poetry publications include the Atlanta Review, Verse Daily, 5AM, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Willard & Maple, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and Elysian Fields Quarterly: The Literary Journal of Baseball.

Timons was adjunct faculty at Seton Hill University for twenty years, in the Writing Popular Fiction MFA Program. Those who know him are unsurprised to learn that he lived in a museum for eight years.

Shanna Yetman

Shanna Yetman is an environmental writer and Latina living in Chicago. She enjoys character-driven fiction with a social-justice edge. Her writing has centered around motherhood, and now, the climate crisis and how we can reimagine our planet’s future. Shanna has an MFA in Fiction from the University of Maryland and a BA in English Literature from Wellesley College. She’s an alumna of the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference and has taught at UIC’s Summer Institute on Sustainability and Energy (SISE). Her fiction has appeared in Cheap Pop, Sky Island Journal, MoonPark Review, the Daily Drunk, Reflex Fiction, New Millennium Writings, and Jellyfish Review among other publications. When she’s not writing, she’s chasing around her two kids and making sure they see as much of the natural world as they can before they beg her for screen time.

Susan Jessen

Susan Jessen enjoys reading, reviewing, and writing fiction of various genres. In addition to her MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University, where she wrote an urban fantasy novel for her thesis, she’s taken undergraduate writing courses from Northwestern University, Loyola University of Chicago, and the University of Alaska. She worked as a Priority Editor for two years at Flash Fiction Magazine and has four years of experience evaluating unsolicited manuscripts for a boutique publisher. Her flash fiction has been published under a pseudonym in anthologies and magazines such as The Arcanist, Lost Balloon, and Shotgun Honey.

Alexander Pyles

Alexander Pyles is a writer, editor, and reviewer based in the Chicago area. Originally from Virginia Beach, VA, he finds himself stranded in the Midwest among the corn. He holds an MA in Philosophy and an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction. His chapbook MILO was published by Radix Media as part of their Futures series. His other fiction has appeared in Trembling with Fear, Black Hare Press, and other venues around the web. His nonfiction has appeared in the Chicago Review of Books, Three Crows Magazine, Litreactor Magazine, Analog Science Fact & Fiction Magazine, Ancillary Review of Books, Dark Matter Magazine, and others. When not writing or reading, he is attempting to cook, garden, or play video games when his kiddos allow it.

Aishwarya Mishra

Aishwarya is a writer based in Jharkhand, India. They write speculative flash fiction, short fiction, and poetry that pushes the limits of language and identity. Their work has appeared in XRAY, JMWW, and New Millennium Writings, and has been selected for the Best Small Fictions 2021 anthology. Apart from writing, they love dancing and hope that one day their bones would forget the difference between the two forms of movement.

Emma Foster

Emma Foster is a writer and poet based in Florida, as well as a current MSt student at the University of Cambridge, St. Edmund’s. She has read and edited for Farside Review, Sepia Journal, and Abandon Journal, and she is currently writer liaison for Spark Creative Anthology. Her short work has appeared in over twenty literary journals and magazines, including Aurora Journal, Six Sentences, Paragraph Planet, and A Story in 100 Words. Her work has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She has had a chapbook published through Yavanika Press titled Plato Is Better at Metaphor than I Am, as well as a micro-chapbook titled Isosceles Triangles published by Origami Poems. She is currently a writer for Coffee House Writers and runs the blog Foster Your Writing.

Matthew Tett

Matthew is a freelance writer living in Bradford-on-Avon, a small town in Wiltshire, UK. He has been published in Writing in Education, the Cardiff Review, the New Welsh Review, and Ink Sweat and Tears. His short story “Spun Sugar” was published in the inaugural edition of Liberally. In 2021, he won Word After Word‘s mini memoir prize. He is also the producer of StoryTown. Since 2022, Matthew has been a reader/team leader for the Edinburgh Flash Fiction and Short Story competitions. Matthew is currently working on his debut short story collection.

Sophia Huneycutt

Sophia Huneycutt lives in Columbus, Ohio with her partner, two cats, and Crohn’s Disease. She is an alumna of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop summer graduate intensive and an MFA student at The Ohio State University. Her fiction has received the Porch Prize (selected by Kevin Wilson), and has been published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Nashville Review, and Jabberwock Review. She is an associate fiction editor at The Journal.

Contest Guidelines and Entry Fees

Entry fee = $30 per story.
Please do not submit stories over 1000 words.
We will consider all stories for publication in Flash Fiction Magazine unless you indicate otherwise.
You are allowed multiple submissions.
All decisions regarding the winners are final.
Contest entry fees are non-refundable.
By submitting, you agree to all contest rules.

The Stories We Accept

We accept fiction stories between 300 and 1000 words.
We do not accept previously published work. This includes stories published at FFM.
We do not accept poetry.
We do not accept children’s fiction.
We do not accept erotica. Adult themes including sex, violence, and even politics, are fair game.
Simultaneous submissions are allowed. Let our editors know if your story is accepted elsewhere.

Previous Winners

You can read all the previous winning stories on our Featured Stories page