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Thrilled to win this competition. Blown away by the stunning performance of Danielle Farrow in reading my story at @cymerafestival.co.uk Huge thanks to Noel and Pippa and of course the judges.

'real boys are rough and tumble, they thump and dump, you want her, you take her,' Do go read this wonderfully inventive flash by Cole.

Vibrant lyrical flash by @rosaleenlynch.bsky.social

It really is a privilege to log in each morning and see the submissions that have been sent in overnight. I'm constantly amazed by the quality and creativity of every single one. As always, whittling these down to longlists is going to be HARD!

"We’ve heard that some people go baby picking every year—tradition—but neither Meredith nor I can imagine that." Love this strange micro by Jessica.

Thank you Claudia! Everyone, Claudia Monpere's debut collection 'The Periodic Family' is due out in October. She's one of the best flash writers I know. #FlashFiction

I love Ian's quietly beautiful poem 'Lastly.'

Jaime Gill's 'Obedience' is emotionally precise, and quietly explosive. Do read it.

What a beautiful, quietly powerful flash!

Thanks to the @natflashfictionday.bsky.social team for including 'The Five Stages of Ecological Grief' 🙏 Loving reading all the brilliant flashes from so many writers I admire! 🥰

Read this if you remember travelling pre internet, when the world was your oyster, there was no social media and your folks had no clue about your antics. Actually, just read it.

I may have jumped the gun a little bit, but what are guns for if not for jumping... Anyway, entries are now OPEN for the Welkin Genre Prize 2026!!! Micros up to 100 words Free to enter Send UP TO TWO micros across FIVE categories Deadline 30th June www.mattkendrick.co.uk/welkin-press...

Here are the winning writers and the longlist for the Cymera Festival/ Shoreline of Infinity Scottish SFF&H short story competition. www.shorelineofinfinity.com/cymera-festi...

Happy National Flash Fiction Day!! Here's my piece in the FlashFlood!! @natflashfictionday.bsky.social flashfloodjournal.blogspot.com/2026/06/just...

Really honoured to feature in Moonflake Press' treasured anthology with a wee poem I'm quite chuffed with. Lots of heartfelt, sparkly stuff within. moonflakepress.com/treasured

"Under stones, sunk in silt, the locket she lost after she lost him." Stunning , heartbreaking haibun by @quickasaflash.bsky.social trashcatlit.com/naming-game/

What happens when Pinoccio meets toxic masculinity? New flash out with WestWord - great to be in this issue with Stephanie Percival, Richard Garcka & Bonnie Meekums. Special thanks to Amanda Saint for believing in this story @retreatwest.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/westword...

When baby-picking season comes around, Meredith says we should go, says it’ll be fun to pick newborns off trees, fill buckets with them. We ...

flashfloodjournal.blogspot.com

Gill O’Halloran Listen to Gill read her story After lessons, they play leapfrog on the lawn. On the lawn, at the far end, the river where he paddled, where frogs gaze frozen under stones. Und…

A Micro by Cole Beauchamp

Thanks @wilsonkoewing.bsky.social for publishing this one. www.bottlerocketlitmag.com/the-work/fla...

Shoreline of Infinity

www.bottlerocketlitmag.com

Strasbourg 5 am. A heron’s heavy row across a blue July sky, over green gravel lakes beside the motorway. We’re sixteen. Hungover French drizzles from our English tongues as we waste away with the was...

FlashFlood: 'The Five Stages of Ecological Grief' by Rosaleen Lynch #nffd2026

Cole Beauchamp 🏳️‍🌈 📖

Denial: Oil Slick Spillage, Family Grade We’ve never seen the sea so flat and black. The tanker, like you, is long gone, too damaged to return. You leave our ecosystem petrified, from the drill-bits you bored us with and the crude oil fires you lit. We don’t realise, that to recover, we must decontaminate ourselves of you. Anger: Dali Bends Time For Me In the photo, I’ve no idea I’m lounging on Mae West’s lips, leather-cracked and red, eyes framed photos of Dali’s soul, Paris and Perpignon. I hold the undeveloped Polaroid, wanting to let go of reality, swearing on those lips that I’ll destroy it all, the golden-eggs, melting time, and Marilyn Monroe, until a tour-guide corrects me, a case of mistaken identity, he says. I discard the pills. There’s time to be reborn. Bargaining: Primordial Soup ‘How many times has life begun on earth?’ I ask. You answer, ‘About 117 billion times.’ I say, ‘Not human life, not homosapiens, not Adam, Eve, the snake, apple or tree, but the soup to create civilisations, that dying out imagine such myths?’ You answer, ‘So many it’s happening now.’ Depression: I Rain I rain days, flood waters carry me to land, where I lay in camouflage, run off, slip into darkness, watch sea levels rise, to take me on a wave, make me buoyant, uplifted in evaporation, to peak in condensation, head in the clouds, until once again, I rain. Acceptance: Neptune Grass My family tree is underwater, a single ancient organism, roots anchoring shoots, spreading over hectares and years, growing into seagrass meadows, floating fields of flowers, and fruit, olives of the sea, Neptune grass rising like rainforest reefs, protecting our ecosystem, birthing a future, a new reality, pollution free, for our land-bound progeny and our tiny seeds of hope. --- Rosaleen Lynch is an Irish community worker, teacher and writer in London with work selected for the Wigleaf Top 50, Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net and is currently exploring the power of stories to promote social change.

National Flash Fiction Day

Thanks @natflashfictionday.bsky.social for posting my story yesterday. It’s such an honour to be in the Flood!

My historical story Obedience is out in Masters Review, my attempt to capture the climate of fear, oppression & brutality in New York’s gay bars before the Stonewall uprising. I love Jack, my MC, I’m proud of the story and very grateful to MR for giving it a home mastersreview.com/new-voices-o...

FlashFlood: 'Nothing to speak of' by Jude Higgins #nffd2026

National Flash Fiction Day

On her way back from the shops, she tripped over nothing, and fell flat on the pavement. A young man wearing shorts, despite the autumn chill, stopped to help. He squatted down and asked if she was okay. ’Think so,’ she said, attempting to get up. He hoisted her to her feet. ‘My gran used to have lots of falls,’ he said, kindly.” Still went out though.’ ‘I didn’t “have a fall’, I fell,' she said . He looked baffled. ‘I was an English teacher,’ she explained. ‘Cool,’ he said. He collected up the vegetables that had spilled on to the pavement and put them in her bag. She leaned against a garden wall to catch her breath. His arm was tattooed with the message ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.’ He saw her looking. She used to know the rest of that prayer once. Something to do with courage and wisdom. ‘Life’s hard isn’t it?’ she said. He nodded. ’Any damage done?’ She patted her knee where a dark stain had spread though the denim. ‘Just a graze,’ she said, although her hand smarted and her legs felt wobbly. ‘Nothing to speak of.’ ‘You take care, lady.’ He strode off, texting, not looking where he was going. He’s not afraid of “having a fall”’, she thought. A glossy heritage tomato she’d bought as a treat still lay in the gutter.. She couldn’t risk bending down to pick it up. But the sight of it lying there, next to an empty crisp packet, made her want to cry. --- Jude Higgins' is a widely published flash fiction writer, whose collection Clearly Defined Clouds was published in 2024. She founded Bath Flash Fiction Award and is Director of Flash Fiction Festivals UK and the short short fiction press, Ad Hoc Fiction. judehiggins.com