'An Introduction to Some Common Lichens' by Sarah Royston

Lepraria incana
Dust lichen, you say. Powder stains my glove-tips, grey as trees, as fields, as sky. Your glass finds fragile empires in broken bark and stone.

Graphis scripta
Writing lichen. Your hands run gentle over birches, reading secret runes. The words mean nothing to me. Take off those gloves, you say.

Cladonia pyxidata
Chalice lichen. I spot it first. You smile and pass the lens, warm from your grasp. Fairy-cups rise from moss, inviting me to drink.

Rhizocarpon geographicum
Map lichen. We navigate terrains of ochre, mustard, gold. When your fingers brush mine, I know I am not lost.

'A Place' by Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar

we fell in love with and made our home, a place where crabs crawled up to the porch as we sat in bamboo chairs, sipping our morning chai, inhaling the fragrance of frangipani, listening to the bulbul song we had come to expect, the first rays shining into our eyes, the clouds swarming in unannounced, the rush to draw plastic covers around the verandah where yesterday’s laundry was still drying, the palm fronds whispering some secrets long after the rain, the gray-green mold that covered our leather shoes and anything else left unattended for a while, the centipedes nesting by the sink in the kitchen, the geckos peeking in from net-lined windows, the sweetest bananas with a rare orange pulp hanging in bunches on the tree in the back, the creamiest coconuts we gathered and ground into chutneys, the sprigs of aromatic curry leaves from the neighbor’s tree that replaced cilantro in our soups, a place we thought knew everything about, the reef fragments we observed on our evening walks, the white sands, the crystal clear water, the sound of waves that lulled us to sleep, the hooting of an owl that sometimes woke us up, and yet we could not see the angst buried under the surface, the roar that emerged from the bosom of Earth early that morning, the tremors and gasps, the cracks and crevices, the screams and howls, the panic and prayer, then a wave rising taller than the palm trees, washing, erasing all we knew.

 

...And the 2022 FlashFlood Begins!

Welcome to FlashFlood 2022!

Welcome to this year's FlashFlood, National Flash Fiction Day's curated online journal!  In just a minute, our first story will post, and we'll continue posting pieces every five to ten minutes for the next 24 hours.  Then, on Sunday, we'll treat you to another Community Flash series with another selection of stories from the Wandsworth Carers Writing Group.

Although it's too late to submit work to this year's FlashFlood, we warmly welcome you to have a go at our prompts over at The Write-In.  Prompts are released every hour, on the hour, from 00:00 to 24:00 today, 18 June 2022 (BST).  You have until midnight on Sunday to send in your responses for a chance of publication over at The Write-In.

But now, without further ado, LET THE FLOOD BEGIN!

The 2022 Submission Window is Now Closed

Thank you to everyone who sent in work for consideration in this year's FlashFlood.  For those of you still waiting for a reply, we're down to our last 400-some decisions to make and we'll be with you as soon as we can.  The range, quality and volume of submissions has been incredible this year and we can't wait to share our final selection with you on the 18th of June.

Open for submissions: one week only!

 FlashFlood is open for submissions until 7 May 2022!

National Flash Fiction Day's 2022 Flood is open for submissions for one week only!  

You can read about our editors here, find our submission guidelines here, or head straight to our submission manager, Duosuma.

We're looking for flash of up to 300 words, and we have spaces reserved for unpublished writers.  We look forward to reading your work!

Looks like thunderstorms on the horizon...

 FlashFlood is open for submissions from 1 – 7 May 2022

It's that time of year again!  Submissions for FlashFlood, NFFD's online journal, will open for one week only, starting this Sunday.  The submission window is from 00:01 BST on 1 May to 23:59 BST on 7 May 2022. We're looking for pieces of up to 300 words on any topic, in any style.

Full submissions guidelines are available on the FlashFlood website and you can submit via our free-to-use submission manager, Duosuma. (You will need to register for a free account, but no subscription or fees are required.)

Please note that we have two separate submission calls, one for general submissions and one for our series of special slots reserved for new writers.

All accepted pieces will be published during the 2022 Flood on 18 June 2022, starting at 00:01 and lasting until 23:59 BST.  During the Flood, we'll publish a new flash at every five to ten minutes for 24 hours straight.

Our team is looking forward to reading your work....

Congratulations to our 2021 award nominees!

Before we launch into a new year at FlashFlood, we'd like to take a moment to celebrate all our 2021 award nominees. Congratulations to the following writers who have been nominated for the following awards this past year:

Best Microfictions

• 'How to Change the Oil on the Car' by Kim Steutermann Rogers
• 'Weathering' by Sam Payne
• 'Drawing Dead on the Road to Athlone' by Fiona McKay
• 'No traffic noise, only silence' by Jennifer Hurley 
• 'The Shape of a Merman’s Shadow' by Melissa Saggerer
• 'Whiskers' by Timothy Boudreau
  

Best of the Net

• 'Full Body Eraser' by Kristen Loesch
• 'I Find The Bee Skin Hanging Behind The Bathroom Door' by Ali McGrane
• 'No Birds’ Nests in the Tree Next Door' by Rosaleen Lynch
• 'The Egg Cycle' by Michelle Christophorou
• 'They swarm at 46 degrees' by Nicola Godlieb
• 'You're Lookin' at Country' by April Bradley 
• 'Suspended Animation' by Rachel Swabey
• 'Transfiguration' by Chris Drew

Best Small Fictions

• 'Cow' by Natalie Warther
• 'Weathering' by Sam Payne 
• 'The Egg Cycle' by Michelle Christophorou
• 'I Find The Bee Skin Hanging Behind The Bathroom Door' by Ali McGrane 
• 'Full Body Eraser' by Kristen Loesch

Pushcart Prize

• 'A Pondering of Velocity When you’re too Scared to Move' by Tommy Dean
• 'Because the World Always Turns and People Always Forget' by Catherine Ogston 
• 'Cow' by Natalie Warther 
• 'Derek’s New Head' by S A Green 
• 'My Perfect Daughter' by Mileva Anastasiadou
• 'Our Lady of Perpetual Help' by Jan Elman Stout