FlashFlood Journal National Flash Fiction Day (Gold Star Program) Gold Star

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 that's the only rule. (Shorter pieces are very welcome.) Any subject, any genre, any style, any perspective, anything as long as it's flash.
The stories will be posted regularly throughout the day on National Flash Fiction Day, Saturday 15 June 2024, providing you with a constant diet of brand new flash fictions to fill your day.

2024 SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Note: if you are an unpublished writer, you can find our call for unpublished writers here: https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/flashflood-journal-lej4G

The Basics

• By submitting, you give us the right to publish your flash during the 2024 Flood. (You may withdraw your piece any time before a decision is made.) We reply to all submissions. If you don't hear from us within a couple days, please check your spam folder.
  
• 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 2024 FlashFlood.
  
• You may send up to THREE flashes per submission, or send your flashes as 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. You can include all your flash in one document, or upload up to three separate documents. (Editors will not see whether or not you have donated.)
  
• 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!)
• The maximum word count is 300 words, excluding the title. Shorter is fine; microfictions and other super short forms are very welcome.
• Please note that we do not accept AI generated work. 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 have written yourself.
  
• We accept work that has been previously published if it fulfills the criteria below. For previously published work, we require full publication details in the cover letter so that we can give credit to the first publisher.
  
  • 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.
  • Flash published in 2022 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 author and would like to be considered for one of our reserved 'debut fiction' slots, please submit to our Debut Fiction call instead. You can find this call at https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/flashflood-journal-lej4G (you may have to scroll down the page to find it).
  
• Other than information about previous publication, we don’t require any further information in your cover letter, though we'd love to hear where you're from. 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 this year as most of our editors are dealing with extra logistical challenges in this strange time. 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.

• Each year, we reserve multiple slots for unpublished authors. If you haven't had fiction published online or in print, feel free to submit via our Debut Fiction call, and we will consider you for one of these slots. (It's fine if you've published poetry, non-fiction or reviews, within reason.)
• Please find our call for unpublished writers here:https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/flashflood-journal-lej4G (you may have to scroll down the page to find the debut fiction 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 [email protected]

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.
• All stories will be published on National Flash Fiction Day, 15 June 4202, 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 [email protected] with your request. For pieces published before 2022, should you wish us to remove your piece for any reason, please contact us at [email protected].
• 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.FlashFlood makes a loss as we are committed to free submissions but have to pay per 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.

This call is for unpublished fiction writers.

More details on what constitutes 'unpublished' below. If you have published fiction before, please submit to our general call here:

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

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 that's the only rule. (Shorter pieces are very welcome.) Any subject, any genre, any style, any perspective, anything as long as it's flash.
The stories will be posted regularly throughout the day on National Flash Fiction Day, Saturday 15 June 2024, providing you with a constant diet of brand new flash fictions to fill your day.

Submissions for the 2024 FlashFlood will be open from
00:01 BST on 21 April to 23:59 on 27 April 2024.

2024 SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

The Basics

• 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 flashes per submission. We would prefer that you send all three flashes in the same submission, if possible. You can include all your flash in one document, or upload up to three separate documents.
  
• 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!)
• You may send up to three pieces in total for the 2024 FlashFlood.
• The maximum word count is 300 words, excluding the title. Shorter is fine; microfictions and other super short forms are very welcome.
• Please note that we do not accept AI generated work. 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 have written yourself.
  
• This call is only for unpublished work from writers who have not been published before.
• Work published online counts as previously published, unless it was published in a password-protected environment such as a private writers' forum.
• We consider all previously unpublished work for award nominations such as Best Small Fictions, Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize and others. If you would not like us to consider you for these awards, please let us know in your cover letter.
  
• If you have had fiction published before, please submit to our general call instead (https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/flashflood-journal-lej4G).
• We don’t require any information in your cover letter, though we'd love to hear where you're from. 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 this year as most of our editors are dealing with extra logistical challenges in this strange time. 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.
  
• Please note: 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.

• Each year, we reserve multiple slots for unpublished authors. If you haven't had fiction published online or in print, feel free to submit via our Debut Fiction call, and we will consider you for one of these slots. (It's fine if you've published non-fiction or reviews.)
• 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 [email protected]

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.
• All stories will be published on National Flash Fiction Day, 15 June 2024, 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 [email protected] with your request.
  
• For pieces published before 2021, should you wish us to remove your piece for any reason, please contact us at [email protected].
• 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, and optional nationality) 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.
• FlashFlood is committed to free submissions, but we 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. Please note that in the interest of fairness, editors do not see donation status when reviewing your work, and authors that donate do not receive special consideration.