calendar - Fractured

elsewhere prize

July 17 to September 14, 2025

For this contest, we want writers to show us the forgotten, the hidden, the otherworldly. Be our tour guide through reality and beyond.

For this prize, we are accepting micro, flash, and sudden fiction, so we’re inviting submissions of stories from 100-1,500 words.

We're excited to offer the winner of this prize $2,000 and publication, while the second- and third-place winners will receive publication and $300 and $200, respectively. All entries will be considered for publication. Judge: Jemimah Wei

fractured and fused prize

September 15 to November 16, 2025

We love when writers are inspired by a prompt, so for this prize we're thinking about “Fractured and Fused.” Think broken and fixed or hurt and healing, and all the statuses in between!

We're excited to offer the first-place winner of this prize $2,000 and publication, while the second- and third-place winners will receive publication and $300 and $200, respectively. All entries will be considered for publication. Judge TBA

Writing Micros with Urgency and Immediacy (class)

November 01 to November 30, 2025

Join us for a 2-hour generative writing session focused on writing microfiction! Fractured Lit is excited to bring this class to our submitters to help them write exciting and fresh micros they can enter into our yearly Micro Prize. Editor-in-Chief Tommy Dean has developed an inspiring and welcoming class where participants can learn craft moves from excellent model texts and write to multifaceted writing prompts. Past students have published stories inspired by Tommy’s prompts in today’s best flash fiction literary magazines.

Class Date: December 13, 2025, from 9-11 am PST

micro prize

December 01 to February 01, 2026

Fractured Lit has always been a place that celebrates the use of writing craft to tell small stories with big impacts. In the return of our Micro Prize, we want to honor stories of 400 words or fewer that tell a complete story and have us marveling at the depth of character and language. We're excited to offer the first-place winner of this prize $2,500 and publication, while the second- and third-place place winners will receive publication and $600 and $400, respectively. All entries will be considered for publication. Judge TBA

micro & flash

always open

submit

Fractured Lit publishes microfiction and flash fiction from writers of any background or experience. Both the micro and flash categories are open year-round and with no submission fees. We accept simultaneous submissions but ask that you inform us immediately and withdraw your work if your story is accepted elsewhere. We pay our authors $50 for original microfiction and $75 for original flash fiction.

Microfiction for Fractured Lit is 400 words or fewer.

Flash fiction is 401-1,000 words.