Fractured Lit is dedicated to finding flash fiction that lingers long past the first reading: stories that stay with the reader for days, months, or even years. We want to find flash with emotional resonance, characters we care about, who come to life through their actions and responses to the world around them. We’re searching for Flash that investigates the mysteries of being human, the sorrow and the joy of connecting to the diverse population around us. All stories read horizontally, but we want those that explode vertically, which leaves the conventional and the cliched far behind. Fractured Lit is a flash fiction centered place for all writers of any background and experience. Let us help you tell your stories, the stories we knew we’ve needed all along.
Congratulations to the writers of these 14 speculative stories! We’ll be back shortly with our winners!
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Next to me at the intersection stands a young boy, hands in jacket pockets, hair the brown of thebrittle leaves in the street gutter. Autumn. The anniversary of my younger sister’s accidentaldeath, by drowning—a riptide, no flotation device. I was nearby. The boy at the intersection andI wait for the stoplight, and for a moment…
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Mother Black Bear sits on her haunches under the heavy limbs of the crabapple tree in the backyard. She rubs her eyes, her long snout, and looks up at the stars and sighs as if she, too, has been awakened by the clock tick, tick, ticking. Through an open window we talk woman to woman—where…
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