elsewhere prize
July 17 to September 14, 2025
Ready for the opportunity to turn reality on its head? We're bringing back our Elsewhere Prize! We want those stories that make a mystery out of the ordinary, that make the rational out of the mystical. Play with the edge of genre, but make sure your character is still the star of your story. From July 17 to September 14, 2025, we welcome submissions to the Fractured Lit Elsewhere Prize.
“We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is. We glimpse it sometimes in our dreams, or as we turn a corner, and suddenly there is a strange, sweet familiarity that vanishes almost as soon as it comes.”
For this contest, we want writers to show us the forgotten, the hidden, the otherworldly. We want your stories to take us on journeys and adventures in the worlds only you can create; whether you make the familiar strange or the strange familiar, we know you will take us elsewhere. Be our tour guide through reality and beyond.
For this prize, we are accepting micro and flash fiction, so we’re inviting submissions of stories from 100-1,000 words.
We're thrilled to partner with Guest Judge Jemimah Wei, who will choose three prize winners from a shortlist. We're excited to offer the winner of this prize $3,000 and publication, while the second- and third-place winners will receive publication and $300 and $200, respectively. All entries will be considered for publication.
Good luck and happy writing!
Jemimah Wei was born and raised in Singapore and is now based between Singapore and the United States. She is a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree, a winner of the William Van Dyke Short Story Prize, and a former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and a Felipe P. De Alba Fellow at Columbia University. Her highly anticipated debut novel, THE ORIGINAL DAUGHTER, is a Good Morning America Book Club pick, a New York Times Editors’ Pick, and an IndieNext pick. It debuted at #1 on the Straits Times Bestseller list and has been named a best book of Spring 2025 by Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Vogue, Apple Books, and more. A recipient of awards and fellowships from Singapore’s National Arts Council, Hemingway House, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and Writers in Paradise, Jemimah’s writing has appeared in Joyland, Guernica, and Narrative, amongst others. She is presently a senior prose editor at The Massachusetts Review.
For this contest, Jemimah is looking for:
In flash I seek the crystallized vision of a writer's imagination -- prose that understands intimately the tides of boldness and restraint, that isn't afraid to venture into uncharted realities, emotions, and psychologies, yet never loses the thread of their story's heart. Give me hitherto unmapped routes to familiar emotion, sentences that clarify and surprise, and a sense of the writer's vision within and beyond the story's limits.
GUIDELINES:
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Your $20 reading fee allows up to two stories of 1,000 words or fewer each per entry—if submitting two stories, please put them both in a SINGLE document.
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We allow multiple submissions—each set of two flash/sudden stories should have a separate submission accompanied by a reading fee.
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Writers from historically marginalized groups will be able to submit for free until we reach our cap of 25 free submissions. No additional fee waivers will be granted.
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Please send flash fiction only—1,000 word count maximum per story.
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We only consider unpublished work for contests—we do not review reprints, including self-published work (even on blogs and social media). Reprints will be automatically disqualified.
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Simultaneous submissions are okay—please notify us and withdraw your entry if you find another home for your writing.
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All entries will also be considered for publication in Fractured Lit.
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Double-space your submission and use Times New Roman 12 (or larger if needed).
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Please include a brief cover letter with your publication history (if applicable). In the cover letter, please include content warnings as well, to safeguard our reading staff.
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We only read work in English, though some code-switching/meshing is warmly welcomed.
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We do not read anonymous submissions. However, shortlisted stories are sent anonymously to the judge.
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Unless specifically requested, we do not accept AI-generated work. For this contest, AI-generated work will be automatically disqualified.
The deadline for entry is September 14, 2025. We will announce the shortlist within twelve to fourteen weeks of the contest's close. All writers will be notified when the results are final. -
Some Submittable Hot Tips:
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Please be sure to whitelist/add this email address to your contacts, so notifications do not get filtered as spam/junk: notifications@email.submittable.com.
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If you realize you sent the wrong version of your piece: It happens. Please DO NOT withdraw the piece and resubmit. Submittable collects a nonrefundable fee each time. Please DO message us from within the submission to request that we open the entry for editing, which will allow you to fix everything from typos in your cover letter to uploading a new draft. The only time we will not allow a change is if the piece is already under review by a reader.
OPTIONAL EDITORIAL FEEDBACK:
You may choose to receive editorial feedback on your piece. We will provide a two-page global letter discussing the strengths of the writing and the recommended focus for revision. Our aim is to make our comments actionable and encouraging. These letters are written by editors and staff readers of Fractured Lit. Should your story win, no feedback will be offered, and your fee will be refunded.
flash & micro
always open
Fractured Lit publishes Micro and Flash Fiction from writers of any background or experience. Both Micro and Flash categories are open year round and we do not charge any submission fees. We accept simultaneous submissions but ask that you inform us immediately and withdraw your work if your story is accepted elsewhere.
Editorial Letter – If you’re interested in knowing a little bit more about what we thought of your flash or micro, utilize this option. When we’ve reviewed your piece we will include 1-2 pages of feedback on your story including suggestions for revision, where it might be a good fit for publication, and other comments about ways it can be improved. Our editors are paid a significant portion of the fee, to meet the rates the Editorial Freelance Association recommends for developmental editing.
guidelines
- We pay our authors $50 for original Micro Fiction and $75 for original Flash Fiction.
- Micro Fiction for Fractured Lit is 400 words or less.
- Flash Fiction is 401-1,000 words.
- We will also consider previously published fiction, as long as the writer retains the rights or second-publication rights can be obtained. We do not pay for reprints.
- Writers may submit up to two stories in the same document. You may submit again as soon as you have heard back about your current submission.
- Cover letters are optional, but it's nice to know who is submitting to us. Please refrain from describing your stories. The work needs to speak for itself.
- Including the title and word count of each story is helpful for more efficient consideration of your work. Please include a brief third-person biography statement. An optional content warning in the cover letter will better protect our readers and provide them a safe reading experience of your submission. This will provide us a chance to make sure the right reader receives your submission.
- Please allow us up to three months to inform you if we have accepted your work for publication. You will usually hear from us much sooner.
- We consider submissions sent via Submittable. We are not open to email submissions. For mail submissions, please see our faq.
- Fractured Lit holds first serial publication rights for three months after publication. Authors agree not to publish, nor authorize or permit the publication of, any part of the material for three months following Fractured Lit’s first publication. For reprints, we ask for acknowledgment of its publication in Fractured Lit first.