We had 170 submissions for our May issue and are happy to present to you 13 stories for our 24th issue. May 2020 feels like yesterday as much as it does ten years ago. Every story submitted is a part of this issue. Every story submitted is a sign of life, and a tribute to making art, somehow turning life to story and in turn making life richer. Thank you for that.

Thank you, Audra Kerr Brown, for the cover photography.

We do a lot of thinking around here of what is Flash Fiction. We’ve asked that in writer interviews in issue #23 and #22. Even when we ask, we know there is no right or wrong answer, but it still feels like moving towards a definition is a worthy step. It should be something. Kathy Fish recently wrote in her The Art of Flash Fiction series that she believes Flash is its own unique literary form, not merely a short story in miniature, and that flash writers should aspire to concission/compression/distillation up front, throughout. She suggests that flash writers have an opportunity to make even more use of white space, nuance, and subtext than present in traditional short stories. Thank you for that.

We hope you enjoy #24.

-Al (May 2021)