fiction that lingers long after the flash
Fractured Lit publishes flash fiction with emotional resonance, with characters who come to life through their actions and responses to the world around them. We’re searching for flash that investigates the mysteries of being human; the sorrow and the joy of connecting to the diverse population.
Fractured Lit is open year-round and is available to all writers. We currently publish microfiction (up to 400 words) and flash fiction (401-1,000 words), with new writing featured on Mondays and Thursdays. We also offer contests throughout the year.
By submitting to Fractured Lit, submitters agree to receive correspondence about future stories and submission opportunities from Fractured Lit. You can unsubscribe at any time.
**If you haven't already, please verify your email address with Submittable for more consistent communication.**
Unless specifically requested, we do not accept AI-generated work.
Here at Fractured Lit, some of our favorite books to read are brief but dynamic chapbooks filled to the margins with fantastic flash, microfiction, and the occasional longer story. These short books aren’t just for poets anymore. There’s a particular joy to reading several flash fictions by the same author in a strong, cohesive minicollection. Flash may be short, but it’s so resonant and deep that it often needs to be read in short bursts, and chapbooks are the perfect place to collect these small but mighty stories!
Submissions are open for the Inaugural Fractured Lit Chapbook Prize from February 15 and April 14, 2024.
Because we know writers are inspired by stories of many lengths, entered chapbooks should be around 70% flash and microfiction, but we’d love to allow space for longer stories for the final 30% of each submitted chapbook. Collections should consist of fiction only. No poetry or creative nonfiction at this time, please.
One chapbook will be selected as our winner by our guest judge, W. Todd Kaneko! The winner will receive a $2,000 cash prize, along with manuscript publication and fifty contributor copies. Our chapbooks are distributed internationally via drop-shipping through Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and other outlets, with 50% royalties. A digital version of the chapbook will be made available to our newsletter subscribers six months to a year after the print publication.
Submissions will be accepted between February 15 and April 14, 2024. Fractured Lit staff will select a shortlist of five to ten chapbooks to pass along to Guest Judge W. Todd Kaneko, who will pick the winner and write the introduction for the manuscript. The winning chapbook will be published in 2025.
All submissions must be single-author prose manuscripts of twenty-five to forty-five pages. Again, we are not interested in poetry or nonfiction for this contest. All manuscripts must be finished: no excerpts, no chapters of a novel, no works-in-progress, or any other incomplete work. Individual pieces may be previously published, but submitted manuscripts should contain some unpublished material. If you have questions or concerns about whether your manuscript would qualify, please email us at contact [at] fracturedlit [dot] com.
"I’m honored and excited to be reading for this contest. Some things I value in flash are concision and compression—there is something so cool about a tightly crafted, efficient piece of prose. I love how flash can tell such big stories with so much less real estate than is found in a longer form story. And chapbooks are awesome in the way they don’t sprawl as much as a book-length work, instead creating a sharper, more focused sequence of pieces. But even so, I try not to go into these kinds of things looking for anything in particular. What I hope is to be surprised by the mix of diverse voices and viewpoints among the submissions; that’s what is really exciting to me, regardless of content or technique or any kind of flash wizardry—I love discovering a voice that is singular among all the other beautiful voices on the contemporary scene. So if I’m being asked what I’m looking for in a submission for this contest, my answer is you, fellow writer. I am looking for your voice and I hope I get to encounter it on the page." ~~W. Todd Kaneko
W. Todd Kaneko is the author of This Is How the Bone Sings (Black Lawrence Press 2020) and The Dead Wrestler Elegies, Championship Edition (New Michigan Press 2023). He is coauthor with Amorak Huey of Poetry: A Writers’ Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury Academic 2018), and Slash / Slash, winner of the 2020 Diode Editions Chapbook Contest. His poems, essays, and stories can be seen in Poetry, Alaskan Quarterly Review, Los Angeles Review, The Normal School, Hobart, [PANK], Blackbird, The Rumpus, Song of the Owashtanong: Grand Rapids Poetry in the 21st Century, Bring the Noise: The Best Pop Culture Essays from Barrelhouse Magazine, Best Small Fictions 2017 and 2018, and many other journals and anthologies.
Kaneko holds degrees from Arizona State University (MFA, Creative Writing) and the University of Washington (BA, English). A Kundiman fellow, his work has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Originally from Seattle, he is currently an associate professor in the Writing Department at Grand Valley State University and lives with his family in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Submission Guidelines:
● Manuscripts should include a table of contents (if necessary) and an acknowledgments page listing any previously published material within the manuscript.
● Submitted manuscripts must be between 25-45 double-spaced pages at 12-point font (not including front/back matter, i.e., title page, dedication, table of contents, etc.). For collections, each piece should begin on a new page.
● Manuscripts must contain some unpublished material. Previously published material cannot have been published in any other chapbook or full-length collection. (Work that was included in a multiauthor anthology is permissible.)
● Self-published chapbooks are previously published and are therefore ineligible.
● We are not currently interested in poetry or creative nonfiction chapbooks.
● Only single-author manuscripts will be considered.
● Simultaneous and multiple submissions are allowed, though each submission requires a separate $25 entry fee.
● Writers from historically marginalized groups may submit for a reduced fee of $15 until we reach a cap of 25 submissions in this category.
● The winner receives $2,000, manuscript publication, and 50 contributor copies.
● The second- and third-place finalists will be acknowledged on our website, alongside any honorable mentions.
● The winning chapbook will receive a full editorial review prior to publication.
● If your work is accepted elsewhere, please withdraw your submission on Submittable, or contact us otherwise to let us know the manuscript is no longer available.
● We do not require anonymous submissions for this contest, though the guest judge will read the shortlist anonymized.
● This chapbook contest is open to any writer regardless of past publications.
● International submissions are allowed, provided the work is written primarily in English. Some code-switching/meshing is warmly welcomed.
● Submissions are accepted through Submittable only.
● The contest’s deadline is 11:59 p.m. PST on April 14, 2024.
● Individual stories or essays within the manuscript may be considered for publication.
● Every submission will receive a response by the end of September 2024. The winners will be announced by the end of October 2024.
● Unless specifically requested, we do not accept AI-generated work.
Some Submittable Hot Tips:
● Please be sure to whitelist/add this address to your contacts so notifications do not get filtered as spam/junk: notifications@email.submittable.com.
● If you realize you sent the wrong version of your piece: It happens. Please DO NOT withdraw the piece and resubmit. Submittable collects a nonrefundable fee each time. Please DO message us from within the submission to request that we open the entry for editing, which will allow you to fix everything from typos in your cover letter to uploading a new draft. The only time we will not allow a change is if the piece is already under review by a reader.
OPTIONAL EDITORIAL FEEDBACK:
We know it can be difficult to find engaging and actionable feedback on chapbook-length submissions, so based on our current editorial feedback system, we’ve created a way for you to request comments and inspiration from our seasoned staff readers especially for the chapbook form. Each critique letter will include recommended focus(es) for revision, as well as highlight the overall strengths of the work.
Our levels of feedback for this contest are:
● a two-page letter for up to 3,000 words @ $69, or
● a three-page letter for up to 12,000 words @ $175.
A significant portion of the editorial letter fee is paid directly to your feedback editor. Should your story win, no feedback will be offered, and your fee will be refunded. For questions about the editorial letter fees, please contact us at contact@fracturedlit.com
Here at Fractured Lit, some of our favorite books to read are brief but dynamic chapbooks filled to the margins with fantastic flash, microfiction, and the occasional longer story. These short books aren’t just for poets anymore. There’s a particular joy to reading several flash fictions by the same author in a strong, cohesive minicollection. Flash may be short, but it’s so resonant and deep that it often needs to be read in short bursts, and chapbooks are the perfect place to collect these small but mighty stories!
Submissions are open for the Inaugural Fractured Lit Chapbook Prize from February 15 and April 14, 2024.
Because we know writers are inspired by stories of many lengths, entered chapbooks should be around 70% flash and microfiction, but we’d love to allow space for longer stories for the final 30% of each submitted chapbook. Collections should consist of fiction only. No poetry or creative nonfiction at this time, please.
One chapbook will be selected as our winner by our guest judge, W. Todd Kaneko! The winner will receive a $2,000 cash prize, along with manuscript publication and fifty contributor copies. Our chapbooks are distributed internationally via drop-shipping through Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and other outlets, with 50% royalties. A digital version of the chapbook will be made available to our newsletter subscribers six months to a year after the print publication.
Submissions will be accepted between February 15 and April 14, 2024. Fractured Lit staff will select a shortlist of five to ten chapbooks to pass along to Guest Judge W. Todd Kaneko, who will pick the winner and write the introduction for the manuscript. The winning chapbook will be published in 2025.
All submissions must be single-author prose manuscripts of twenty-five to forty-five pages. Again, we are not interested in poetry or nonfiction for this contest. All manuscripts must be finished: no excerpts, no chapters of a novel, no works-in-progress, or any other incomplete work. Individual pieces may be previously published, but submitted manuscripts should contain some unpublished material. If you have questions or concerns about whether your manuscript would qualify, please email us at contact [at] fracturedlit [dot] com.
W. Todd Kaneko is the author of This Is How the Bone Sings (Black Lawrence Press 2020) and The Dead Wrestler Elegies, Championship Edition (New Michigan Press 2023). He is coauthor with Amorak Huey of Poetry: A Writers’ Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury Academic 2018), and Slash / Slash, winner of the 2020 Diode Editions Chapbook Contest. His poems, essays, and stories can be seen in Poetry, Alaskan Quarterly Review, Los Angeles Review, The Normal School, Hobart, [PANK], Blackbird, The Rumpus, Song of the Owashtanong: Grand Rapids Poetry in the 21st Century, Bring the Noise: The Best Pop Culture Essays from Barrelhouse Magazine, Best Small Fictions 2017 and 2018, and many other journals and anthologies.
Kaneko holds degrees from Arizona State University (MFA, Creative Writing) and the University of Washington (BA, English). A Kundiman fellow, his work has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Originally from Seattle, he is currently an associate professor in the Writing Department at Grand Valley State University and lives with his family in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Submission Guidelines:
● Manuscripts should include a table of contents (if necessary) and an acknowledgments page listing any previously published material within the manuscript.
● Submitted manuscripts must be between 25-45 double-spaced pages at 12-point font (not including front/back matter, i.e., title page, dedication, table of contents, etc.). For collections, each piece should begin on a new page.
● Manuscripts must contain some unpublished material. Previously published material cannot have been published in any other chapbook or full-length collection. (Work that was included in a multiauthor anthology is permissible.)
● Self-published chapbooks are previously published and are therefore ineligible.
● We are not currently interested in poetry or creative nonfiction chapbooks.
● Only single-author manuscripts will be considered.
● Simultaneous and multiple submissions are allowed, though each submission requires a separate $15 entry fee with a cap of 25 submissions for Historically Marginalized Groups.
● The winner receives $2,000, manuscript publication, and 50 contributor copies.
● The second- and third-place finalists will be acknowledged on our website, alongside any honorable mentions.
● The winning chapbook will receive a full editorial review prior to publication.
● If your work is accepted elsewhere, please withdraw your submission on Submittable, or contact us otherwise to let us know the manuscript is no longer available.
● We do not require anonymous submissions for this contest, though the guest judge will read the shortlist anonymized.
● This chapbook contest is open to any writer regardless of past publications.
● International submissions are allowed, provided the work is written primarily in English. Some code-switching/meshing is warmly welcomed.
● Submissions are accepted through Submittable only.
● The contest’s deadline is 11:59 p.m. PST on April 14, 2024.
● Individual stories or essays within the manuscript may be considered for publication.
● Every submission will receive a response by the end of September 2024. The winners will be announced by the end of October 2024.
● Unless specifically requested, we do not accept AI-generated work.
Some Submittable Hot Tips:
● Please be sure to whitelist/add this address to your contacts so notifications do not get filtered as spam/junk: notifications@email.submittable.com.
● If you realize you sent the wrong version of your piece: It happens. Please DO NOT withdraw the piece and resubmit. Submittable collects a nonrefundable fee each time. Please DO message us from within the submission to request that we open the entry for editing, which will allow you to fix everything from typos in your cover letter to uploading a new draft. The only time we will not allow a change is if the piece is already under review by a reader.
OPTIONAL EDITORIAL FEEDBACK:
We know it can be difficult to find engaging and actionable feedback on chapbook-length submissions, so based on our current editorial feedback system, we’ve created a way for you to request comments and inspiration from our seasoned staff readers especially for the chapbook form. Each critique letter will include recommended focus(es) for revision, as well as highlight the overall strengths of the work.
Our levels of feedback for this contest are:
● a two-page letter for up to 3,000 words @ $69, or
● a three-page letter for up to 12,000 words @ $175.
A significant portion of the editorial letter fee is paid directly to your feedback editor. Should your story win, no feedback will be offered, and your fee will be refunded. For questions about the editorial letter fees, please contact us at contact@fracturedlit.com
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. 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. Please wait 1 month after our initial reply before submitting again.
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.
Please allow us up to two 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 and are not open to submissions sent via post.
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.
OPTIONAL EDITORIAL FEEDBACK:
You may choose to receive editorial feedback on your piece. We will provide a global letter discussing the strengths of the writing and the recommended focus for revision. Our aim is to make our comments actionable and encouraging. These letters are written by editors and staff readers of Fractured Lit.
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. 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. Please wait 1 month after our initial reply before submitting again.
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.
Please allow us up to two 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 and are not open to submissions sent via post.
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.
OPTIONAL EDITORIAL FEEDBACK:
You may choose to receive editorial feedback on your piece. We will provide a global letter discussing the strengths of the writing and the recommended focus for revision. Our aim is to make our comments actionable and encouraging. These letters are written by editors and staff readers of Fractured Lit.
Fractured Lit is committed to providing a platform to diverse, emerging voices. We are now offering an expedited reading category explicitly for marginalized or underrepresented writers. Submissions to this category will receive a response in three weeks or fewer.
All submissions are considered for publication at the payment rates below based on the appropriate word counts.
Please see the guidelines below, or contact us at contact [at] fracturedlit.com with any questions. This form is for marginalized or underrepresented writers only.
Black Lives Matter. Black Voices Matter.
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. 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. Please wait 1 month after our initial reply before submitting again.
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.
We consider submissions sent via Submittable. We are not open to email submissions and are not open to submissions sent via post.
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.
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. We pay our $75 for original micro series.
Micro fiction series for Fractured Lit should include at least 3 micros of 400 words or less with a total word count of 1,600 or less words. All of the pieces must be unpublished in order to be considered for payment.
We will also consider previously published micro fiction series, 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 1 micro series in the same document. Please wait 1 month after our initial reply before submitting again.
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.
Please allow us up to two 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 and are not open to submissions sent via post.
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.
OPTIONAL EDITORIAL FEEDBACK:
You may choose to receive editorial feedback on your piece. We will provide a global letter discussing the strengths of the writing and the recommended focus for revision. Our aim is to make our comments actionable and encouraging. These letters are written by editors and staff readers of Fractured Lit.
Fractured Lit would love the chance to help your formerly published stories reach a larger audience! We know how heartbreaking it can be to publish a story and then find out that the journal is no longer in existence. We also know that having a story placed in a print journal is exciting, but these stories often have smaller readerships. We're now accepting formerly published stories that if published online are at least 2 years old or from any time frame from those published in print. While we don't offer payment for reprinted stories, we can promise a larger reading audience and our full promotion of these stories through our website and through our social media channels! Come join the Fractured lit publishing family!
Micro fiction for Fractured Lit is 400 words or less.
Flash fiction is 401-1,000 words.
Writers may submit up to two stories in the same document. Please wait 1 month after our initial reply before submitting again.
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. You must give credit to the journals(s) that previously published these pieces for our consideration.
Please allow us up to two 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 and are not open to submissions sent via post.
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.
OPTIONAL EDITORIAL FEEDBACK:
You may choose to receive editorial feedback on your piece. We will provide a global letter discussing the strengths of the writing and the recommended focus for revision. Our aim is to make our comments actionable and encouraging. These letters are written by editors and staff readers of Fractured Lit.
Fractured Lit is looking for flash fiction submission Readers! If you enjoy literary flash fiction with emotional resonance, characters we care about, that investigate the mysteries of being human, the sorrow, and the joy of connecting to the diverse population around us we encourage you to apply! We encourage readers who can commit to reading three to four hours each week working remotely and at your own pace. We are particularly interested in bringing on readers who are familiar with the flash fiction form and come from diverse backgrounds and experiences!
This position begins on a rolling basis and involves a commitment of six months. PLEASE NOTE: this is an unpaid, volunteer opportunity. If interested, please send a cover letter, resume/CV, and at least one writing sample. This is a rolling call and will be open until we fill the available positions. Fractured Lit is a flash fiction centered place for all writers of any background and experience. Help us find the stories we knew we’ve needed all along. We look forward to hearing from you!