Submission Guidelines

SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW CLOSED.
 
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Submissions for the 2025 Flash Flood will open at 00:01 BST on Sunday, 20 April and closed at 23:59 BST on Saturday, 26 April 2025.

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Submission details for the 2025 FlashFlood

Welcome to FlashFlood an international flash-fiction journal created by you and edited by a team of volunteer editors on behalf of National Flash Fiction Day.

The aim is simple: wherever you are in the world, we want your best flash fictions. The word limit is 300 words maximum, but shorter pieces are very welcome.  There is no minimum length requirement.  We welcome any subject, any genre, any style, any perspective, anything as long as it's flash (or prose poetry or hybrid work that is close enough to flash to convince the day's editor).

The stories will be posted regularly throughout the day on National Flash Fiction Day in June 2025, providing you with a constant diet of brand new flash fictions to fill your day. 

We have reserved spots for unpublished writers.  

Please note that we do not accept AI generated work at this time.  Whilst we appreciate that AI can generate 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. 

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Submissions for the 2025 FlashFlood are open from
01:00 a.m. BST on 20 April to 23:59 on 26 April 2025.

 

Please submit via Duosuma.  Please note that there are two calls: a general call, and one specifically for unpublished writers.  You can find both here:

https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/flashflood-journal-lej4G



2025 SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Note: if you are an unpublished writer, you can find our call for unpublished writers here:

The Basics

  • By submitting work to us, you give us permission to publish it in the 2025 FlashFlood if it is accepted for publication. You may withdraw your piece via Duosuma at any point before a decision has been made. We respond to all submission, but sometimes acceptance letters go astray. Keep an eye on your spam folder and, if you have not heard from us by 15 May 2025, feel free to query.
  • Please send up to three pieces via Duosuma, our submission manager. (Duosuma is free to use; you do not need to purchase an account.)
  • Please send your piece as an attachment in any standard document format (.doc, .docx, .pdf, .odt, .rtf, etc.)
  • You may send up to three pieces in total for the 2025 FlashFlood.
  • You may send up to three flashes per submission, either in one document or in three separate documents.  Or you can submit up to three stories as three separate submissions.  If you would like to make more than one submission, we kindly request that you consider making a donation as we are charged per submission (not per story) and we are committed to keeping submissions free.
  • Please DO NOT include your name or any identifying information in the file name or within the file itself. (Please DO include your name or pen name in your cover letter so that we know how to credit you if we publish your flash!)
  • We cannot accept work with song lyrics unless they are out of copyright in the UK or you have individually secured rights to use them (and have demonstrated this to us). Please contact us in this instance.
  • We do not accept AI generated work.  Whilst we appreciate that AI can generate 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. 
  • The maximum word count is 300 words, excluding the title. Shorter is fine; microfictions and other super short forms are very welcome.
  • We accept previously published work as long as it fulfils the criteria below.  Please let us know whether or not your work has been previously published in your cover letter. 
  • We consider all previously unpublished work for award nominations such as Best Small Fictions, Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize and others. Work published online counts as previously published where award nominations are concerned, unless it was published in a password-protected environment such as a private writers' forum.
  • Stories published in 2023 or earlier may be submitted as long as you retain copyright and any period of exclusivity with the original publisher has lapsed. (Please ensure that this is the case before submitting.) If submitting previously published work, please include full details of the original publisher (including publication date, issue numbers, etc.) in your email so that we can properly credit the original publisher if we accept your piece. (Please do not include this information in the document with your piece.) Please note that we do not to republish work that we've printed on FlashFlood, past NFFD UK anthologies, or other NFFD sources.
  • If you are an unpublished fiction author and would like to be considered for one of our reserved 'debut fiction' slots, please submit to our Debut Flash call instead. You can find this call at https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/flashflood-journal-lej4G  (You may need to scroll down the page to find the Debut flash call.)  Please scroll down for more information on this call.
  • Other than information about previous publications, we don’t require any further information in your cover letter. Editors will not see your name or cover letter when reading your work. Please help us by keeping your name and personal details off your submission and file name.)
  • Pieces will be read anonymously, then authors contacted. We aim to reply as quickly as we can. In past years, many authors were contacted within the day, and often within the hour. Do not be surprised if this happens, but equally, we may well be slower. Please bear with us and do not panic if you don't hear from us within the day. Feel free to query if you haven’t heard from us by 15 May.
  • Also note: this is a fast and furious project; in past years, we've processed hundreds of submissions a day. Depending on our queue when you submit and when our editors take their shifts, we may turn around with a response -- positive or negative -- in a very short time. Please be aware of this if you decide to submit, and don't take a quick rejection personally or as a sign that we haven't read your piece. We read each story completely and value each submission, whether or not we are able to publish it.
  • Because of the flood of entries we receive, the editors will be unable to provide feedback on stories or give reasons for rejections, but each piece will be read with respect and care. There are many reasons why we may pass on a piece besides than the quality of a story, so please don't be disheartened if your piece doesn't make it this time around.

Reserved Slots for New Authors
  • Each year, we reserve multiple slots for largely unpublished authors. If you haven't had flash fiction published online or in print, feel free to submit via our New Authors call, and we will consider you for one of these slots. (It's fine if you've published some non-fiction, poetry, reviews, etc. but please give us the details in your bio.) 
  • Please find our call for unpublished writers here:https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/flashflood-journal-lej4G (You may need to scroll down the page to find the debut flash call.)
  • We will get back to all unpublished authors shortly after our submission window closes.
  • If the only place your work has been published is on your own blog, website or social media, we are still happy to consider you for one of our unpublished author slots.
  • If you have any doubts about your situation, feel free to email us at flashfloodjournal@gmail.com

Different editors will be reading submissions on each of the seven days of our submission window, but we're not publicising who is reading when. You can read more about the 2024 editors here.

Thank you for sending us your words. We can't wait to read your work!


The Small Print
Copyright remains with you, the author, at all times, as does responsibility for your story’s contents. If accepted, you are free to republish any story anywhere else in any form at any time. All we would ask is that you credit FlashFlood as the first publisher if your work subsequently finds a home elsewhere and we were the story's first publisher.


All stories will be published on National Flash Fiction Day 2025, but FlashFlood will remain live thereafter. By submitting work, you agree to let us publish it at FlashFlood / National Flash Fiction Day as long as the FlashFlood and/or National Flash Fiction Day project exists.

Should you wish anything to be changed after the day of publication, please email nationalflashfictionday@gmail.com with your request. For pieces published before 2021, should you wish us to remove your piece for any reason, please contact us at nationalflashfictionday@gmail.com.


We reserve the right to correct very obvious typos (misspelled words, missed apostrophes, etc.). We will not make any changes that would affect content, meaning or interpretation.


The personal information we collect (name, email address, publication status) will only be used for the purpose of contacting authors about the status of their publications, publishing the stories selected for FlashFlood, and making award nominations. If we nominate your story for an award, we may need to pass your email address on to award bodies. If you would prefer we not do this, please let us know in your cover letter.

We are unable to pay for stories. This is a purely volunteer-run celebration of flash fiction, and we make no money from this journal.

We are committed to free submissions but have to pay our submission manager for each submission. Donations to help cover our expenses are very gratefully received. We are grateful for any tips left via Duosuma. Information on other ways to support us is available here.

2024 Wigleaf Longlisting

Huge congratulations to Lisa Alletson whose 2024 FlashFlood piece, ' Translucent ' made the Wigleaf Top 50 longlist! You can read th...