The fractured lit anthology volume 5
December 01 to February 02, 2025
Time to send us your freshest, most exciting flash fiction! We’re excited to host our fifth anthology contest. Every year, writers send us their best flash fiction, and they never disappoint! This year, we want your most arresting stories, those that shine the light on the dark parts of our worlds and your character’s psyches. Give us the flash that only you could write with characters only you could create, who fill the page with resonating actions and good trouble, the characters who find themselves through bad choices and resolute actions. Fill our queue with sparkling language, original metaphors, and sparkling sentences that transport us into the narratives we’ve always wished to read but haven’t found yet!
Our fifth anthology will showcase today’s best flash fiction writers. $5,000 will be awarded between 20 winners. Submissions are open for the Fractured Lit Anthology Volume 5 from December 01 to February 02, 2025.
This year, stories will be selected by Guest Judge Tara Isabel Zambrano, who will choose 20 winners from a shortlist of 40 stories.
Tara Isabel Zambrano is an award-winning writer of South Asian descent. Her multigenre writing has appeared in Tin House Online, Electric Literature, Southeast Review, Post Road, and other notable venues. She is also the author of a short story collection, Ruined a Little When We Are Born (Dzanc Books, 2024) and Death, Desire, and Other Destinations (Okay Donkey Books, 2020). Find out more at https://taraisabelzambrano.com/ and @tizambrano on Instagram.
Here’s what Tara looks for in a flash fiction story:
Whether your title is several lines long or a word, it should be representative of the story. Get me hooked from the first line. Build a world inside your thousand words. Use precise, sensory details, unreliable characters, and movement. Use fresh insights into relationships and original metaphors. What’s at risk? Is it enough to make someone care? Go weird, weirder, but don't let the story be all about shock and surprise and language just for the sake of it. The story should connect at an emotional level. Don't give me easy answers but help me understand the nature of the conflict, the struggle. When it's finished, it should make me want to read it again and discover something new, even if it's a subtle detail.
We're excited to assemble another anthology of fiercely original stories of all flash fiction lengths and topics. Surprise us with your brevity and originality, and we'll make sure your story is read far and wide!
Good luck and happy writing!
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.