Sunday, 30 April 2023

FlashFlood 2023 is OPEN for submissions for one week only!

We are delighted to announce that we are open for submissions for FlashFlood 2023 from 12:01 a.m. BST on Sunday, 30 April to 23:59 BST on Saturday, 6 May.

You can read our submission guidelines here, and read about this year's editors here.  

We're looking for submissions of up to 300 words on any theme.  (Shorter pieces are very welcome; there is no minimum word count.)  We are happy to read up to three pieces per author per year. 

Work previously published in 2021 or before is fine as long as you give us full publication details.  (We prefer you don't send us anything published too recently as we don't want to steal any thunder from your original publisher.)  We consider all previously unpublished pieces for award nominations; we nominate for Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction and Best of the Net.

Please note that we do not accept AI generated work at this time.  Whilst we appreciate that AI can come up with some very interesting things, we have a very human team of editors volunteering their precious and limited time.  We simply don't have the resources to deal with a deluge of AI generated work.  Please be kind to our editors by only submitting work that you yourself have written**.  

 

** (We're assuming that you're a human reading this, but if you are indeed an AI capable of independently reading this, writing flash, and navigating our submission engine without the aid of a human, then we might be able to make an exception!)

 

Monday, 5 December 2022

FlashFloods 2022 Best Small Fictions Nominations

 We are thrilled to announce our 2022 Best Small Fictions nominations:

 


Best of luck to all our nominees!

FlashFlood's 2022 Best Microfictions Nominations

We are pleased to announce FlashFlood's 2022 Best Microfictions Nominations.  

Best of luck to our 2022 nominees!

FlashFlood's 2022 Pushcart Prize Nominations

We are delighted to announce FlashFlood's 2022 Pushcart Prize Nominations:

 

 

Congratulations to our 2022 nominees!

Friday, 7 October 2022

FlashFlood's 2022 Best of the Net Nominations

We love every piece that we publish, but sadly can only nominate eight for the Best of the Net Awards -- two in the prose category and six that can be read as prose poems in the poetry category.  We wish all our nominees the best of luck in the next round of Best of the Net.

Without further ado, congratulations to our 2022 nominations for the Best of the Net awards: 

Sunday, 19 June 2022

Wandsworth Carers Series 2022: 'Flip flops' by Anita

This piece is part of our 2022 Community Flash Series showcasing new writing by the Wandsworth Carers Centre Writers Group. You can read more about the background to this project in our introduction to this series, find out more about Wandsworth Carers Centre on their website, and find them on Twitter @CarerWandeworth.

 

Flip flops

by Anita


So this story isn’t about me.

It’s a normal March day, not really sunny and with those grey rain clouds. I’m bundled up against potential weather: black jeans, black puffa jacket, the blue scarf my mum knitted.

It’s the first day I’d felt like walking after the lumbar puncture. I don’t usually start with that, I mention the giant Co-op cake I’m carrying.

I’m walking home through the park, my legs are just starting to get tired, but I keep going. A man brushes past me, almost sends the cake flying. He’s wearing black-framed glasses, a faded blue tracksuit with the bottoms cut off, and dirty black plastic flip-flops. He’s just had his dark-brown hair cut, cos he had those red bumps you get if they razor.

Next thing, this other man’s yelling something, and he’s running. He’s blonde, wearing Saturday afternoon clothes. You know, jeans and a crumpled Homer Simpson t-shirt.

The conversation goes like this:

“Stop him!”

“Whaaat?” I clutch the cake tighter.

“That guy, stop him. He tried to break into my car!”

Running-man looks me over, and I know what he sees. A tall, Asian bloke, muscly enough to be handy. What I used to be. He doesn’t see I can’t help him, but enough strangers know my business. Those muscles don’t always work now. Luckily, my mouth does.

“Mate, I’ve got cake.” Gesture with my chin, in case he’s missed it. “But he’s just there, by the swings. You’ll catch him, no problem.”

And he is still there, you know, shuffling, not even half-way through the park. Not much faster than me now. The worst getaway in the history of crime. He edges down the slope to the sand-pit, and running-man is off. I never see either of them again.

It’s a good story, isn’t it? It’s got everything: action, suspense, cake. I tell it a lot. It helps pass the time with blood tests, in waiting-rooms, bored or nervous, listening for “Hello Iqbal, we’ve got your results.”

I don’t usually explain the cake, because if you’re ever going to buy a carrot cake bigger than your head, it’ll be after you’ve seen a neurologist. It’s a normal reaction, whatever that means.

Everyone sides with the running man, his actions don’t need explaining. But I can’t remember his face.

Sometimes I need an ending, and running-man catches up. Traps him between two parked cars and calls the police. Or punches him, right in the gut. Flip-flop man never gets away.

I could draw you a picture of flip-flop man, down to those bumps on his neck. With his ragged unravelling tracksuit and doomed way of responding to a crisis. Would I have chased him, before?

I see him now, slowly, slowly, shuffling away from his fate. Did he have a plan?

Does he think he’s going to win?

I hope the ending wasn't too painful.

 

 

Wandsworth Carers Series 2022: 'Loneliness' by Jaycee

This piece is part of our 2022 Community Flash Series showcasing new writing by the Wandsworth Carers Centre Writers Group. You can read more about the background to this project in our introduction to this series, find out more about Wandsworth Carers Centre on their website, and find them on Twitter @CarerWandeworth.

 

Loneliness

by Jaycee

 

They say “no man is an island”, maybe it’s more of a truth to say everyman is his own island. How often it is in the depths of loneliness, that we reach a deeper understanding of what is truly needed in order to nurture ourselves fully? There can be no clearer truth than to look in the mirror and see the reflection standing in front of us. How often are we looking on the outside for our needs to be fulfilled? when the things we seek the most can so easily be sourced from within. Often it is the things we seek most from others that holds a clue to the things we deny most for ourselves.

It’s a sour pill to swallow, feeling on the outskirts, invisible and alone even if surrounded by physically people or in a group. To hear the Soul, scream out to be seen and heard and to belong has been a common thread throughout my life. Yet where I have felt it the most has been in my role as an unpaid carer where I’ve struggled most with the empty void of loneliness. Somehow, it felt easier to cocoon myself in a bubble of self-protection, rather than face the risk of not fitting, being seen and not heard, judged or misunderstood. So, I kept myself to myself and purposely cut myself off.  It was only when I enquired within?  I realised that it was “I” who was casting the finger of judgement towards myself. “Could it be that the situation I was in, was mirroring my internal environment?”

I wanted to be included, yet how much of myself was I including in the world around me? How present, curious, proactive was “I” being? How often I was I picking up the phone and reaching out? Was it that I felt so disconnected to myself that I lacked confidence and felt resistance connecting with others?  If this was so then surely it was “I” who held the key to the solution.  

I wanted to be acknowledged. Yet how much was “I” acknowledging my strengths, qualities, successes? I wanted to be heard? Yet was “I” really listening to myself? my needs, my desires, my boundaries. I wanted to be seen, yet what was the self-image “I” was creating? I want to be loved? Yet in what ways was “I” creating a loving relationship with myself?

The formula was simple - change the way I think, change the way I feel. And do it with a full heart. When the heart is full it gives and receives unconditionally, without expectations or the need for validation from external sources. And so, the answer came “think love, give love, be love” Love is nourishing, kind and forgiving, where love exists there can be no fear. The homework now, was to put it in practice. 

FlashFlood 2023 is OPEN for submissions for one week only!

We are delighted to announce that we are open for submissions for FlashFlood 2023 from 12:01 a.m. BST on Sunday, 30 April to 23:59 BST on Sa...