News
Best Microfiction 2020 open for Submissions from Magazines

The 2nd anthology Best Microfiction 2020 will be published by Pelekinesis in the spring of 2020. The Best Microfiction anthology series considers stories of only 400 words or fewer. Co-edited by New Flash Fiction Review's Founding Editor Meg Pokrass, and Flannery...

read more
Anton Chekhov Prize for Very Short Fiction

Anton Chekhov Prize for Very Short Fiction   New Flash Fiction Review continues to honor master storyteller Anton Chekhov through holding an annual award for excellence in flash fiction— or as they might have said, back in Chekhov’s time, “very short fiction”. Anton...

read more
3 NFFR Stories Selected for Best Small Fictions 2019

We are thrilled to announce that THREE stories from New Flash Fiction Review were selected for inclusion in Best Small Fiction 2019! Stories are "Shopgirl" by Dionne Irving Bremyer, "How Not to Become an Expat" by Kara Vernor, and "Insurance"by Elaine Chiew!...

read more
Anton Chekhov Prize for Very Short Fiction

2020 Anton Chekhov Prize for Very Short Fiction New Flash Fiction Review continues to honor master storyteller Anton Chekhov through holding an annual award for excellence in flash fiction. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian playwright and short-story writer, who...

read more
2018 Pushcart Prize Nominations

Congratulations to our 2018 Pushcart Prize nominees! You can read the nominated stories below: Raki Kopernik, Homely Jaqueline Doyle, Pretty Girl AE Weisgerber, Sweet Violets Salvatore Difalco, Three Days Paul Crenshaw, “Fuck Zeus,” Ms. Lynne Said in Fourth Period...

read more
Anton Chekhov Prize 2018 Longlist is in!

Congratulations to all the authors who made the long list, and huge thanks to all who entered our first contest! Anastasia, My Broken Bird Auf Liebe Eingestellt Beneath the Pond Charred Cistern Hunger I Am Fluent In Spine Joe D. Takes Measure Kessler keeps his clothes...

read more
MicroWriMo Prompts by Meg Pokrass

PROMPTS ARE HERE! November 1st November 2nd November 3rd NFFR's Founding Editor/Managing Editor, Meg Pokrass, will be offering flash fiction prompts everyday in November. The prompts will be based on her stories from ALLIGATORS AT NIGHT, her new collection, available...

read more
Best Small Fictions, 2019 – Our Nominations

BEST SMALL FICTIONS 2019 NOMINATIONS: Everything, then Silence by Justin Hermann How Not to Become an Expat by Kara Vernor The Difference between Alligators and Crocodiles by Cathy Ulrich Two Girls Contemplate What Gorillas Do at Night by Angela Readman Anatomy of a...

read more
Anton Chekhov Prize 2018

Winners, Finalists, and Honourable Mentions Judge Nuala O’Connor’s results for the Anton Chekhov Prize for Very Short Fiction 2018 have come in. The stories were read blind, so it is very exciting to unveil the names of the winners, finalists, and honourable mentions!...

read more
Instruction Manuals for Writing Flash by Georgia Bellas

In the garden of flash: Three mini faux instruction manuals Pay attention to the weeds What’s growing inside you? What will you cultivate? Weeds push through cracks and take over. Look at them. Study them. Why uproot something that is flourishing? A weed by definition...

read more
Notes from the Slush Pile by Al Kratz

Beginnings   I’d like to share some ideas on beginnings that occurred to me after a recent run through the slush pile. REM wrote a great song called Begin the Begin on their album, Life’s Rich Pageant. It started: Birdie in the hand for life’s rich demand. A...

read more
3 NFFR stories in new Norton Anthology

— From Meg Pokrass, NFFR Founding Editor — I'm thrilled to be holding an advanced reading copy of W.W. Norton's anthology New Micro: Exceptionally Short fiction edited by Norton Anthology's editor James Thomas and microfiction author Robert Scotellaro! I was delighted...

read more
The Creative Process

—The Creative Process (Paris) in Collaboration with NFFR— We’re very excited here at New Flash Fiction Review! A handful of excerpts from New Flash Fiction Review‘s last 5 years have been selected by The Creative Process for an upcoming exhibition as part of the...

read more

After by Claudia Monpere

and after and after and nothing changes, just the names of the children. This one drew birds wearing hats. That one had an orange juice popsicle for an imaginary friend.

Husband by Sara Cappell Thomason

I want a house, a wife, a steak dinner and all my bills paid on time. I want to settle down in a house and get paid. Dinner from my wife served on time

Ernst Is Coming Home by Jack Morris

The rumours arrive on the dawn wind and by mid-afternoon the village ladies have landed in Leonora’s kitchen to disembowel the news.

Rosetta Post-its by Guy Biederman

Los Gatos Tienen Hambre, says the post-it on the fridge. Since when did the cats learn Spanish, since when did they learn to write? The same could be asked of you, says another post-it.

The Truths Behind a Pumpjack Dare, Northern Alberta, 3rd July, 1991 by Kate Axeford

I’d hauled myself skywards on steep metal rungs. You were safe below, hurling taunts like stones. We’re two brothers, poles apart, but I’d climbed the ladder. I’d had to. You’d dared me to rodeo the Donkey.