Update 4/10/2025: We are OPEN for submissions to our Wilderness Horror call!

We are OPEN to:

  • April 1-30th - special call for "Wilderness Horror" for Oct 2025 issue, guest edited by C.R. Langille

April's General Submission portal CLOSED! As of April 10th, we reached our submission cap of 400 stories.

Next submission calls:

  • May 1st - special call for "Spec Fic with focus on family" for Nov 2025 issue guest edited by Emma Burnett (see below for details)
  • Also May 1st - open for Reprints

These sub calls are free to submit. 

For any questions or concerns, please email editor[at]flashfictiononline[dot]com. We do not read submissions sent by email.

Coming Soon MAY 1st: Special Call for "FamPunk" (Family-Centered Speculative Fiction)

Flash Fiction Online will be seeking submissions for an issue of family-centered speculative fiction, scheduled for November 2025. The guest editor for this issue is author and FFO assistant editor, Emma Burnett.

What We're Looking For

Speculative fiction is so often outward looking—the big narrative, saving the world/galaxy/universe, the however-many-rings and so much power. For this special call, we are asking you to break from big-picture thinking, to casually incorporate the science and technology, to embrace the day-to-day life of else-when. Tell us about the families who live in those alternative spaces.

How do you make sure kids eat their greens when it’s all just buttons on a replicator? How does education work for faeries who can just fly off in a grump? How do you sew patches onto your friends’ clothes after the techbros stole all the metal off the planet? How do you keep your partner powered after the apocalypse?

What is family? It’s whatever you want it to be. Nuclear, poly, assembled, blended, reconstituted, child-free, feline, robo-archal. However your people inhabit your sci-fi or fantasy world, tell us about them.

What is punk? It’s generally associated with anti-establishment views. In this case, anti-big picture thinking. Go small and stay home. 

While we are interpreting speculative fiction broadly, we’d recommend steering clear of horror unless you can keep it soft. There’s a lot of parenting horror out there, and while we know it’s important to scream into the void, it’s not really what we’re looking for this time. We want to create a space for hope, sympathy, joy, and gentle humor. Make us love the family in your mind. Show us the families we would want to be part of in these other worlds.

Stories that we feel are close to what we're looking for include:

There are some things we’re just not interested for this issue:

  • Grief stories—as in, recovering from grief is not driving the plot / conflict
  • Vignettes (it has to be a complete story)
  • Callous "-cides"
  • Cannibalism, gore, splatter-anything
  • Abuse or violence, because you can’t think of another way to create family drama

All stories submitted through this page must fit the theme! If you have a story that doesn’t fit this theme, please submit during one of our regular submission calls.

WORD COUNT: 500-1,000 words. Because we are focused on flash fiction, this word count is firm.

SCHEDULE: 

This call will be open from May 1-31, 2025.

FFO reviews stories in two stages – a slush stage and a winnowing stage. In the slush round, first readers vote on stories to be passed forward. These top-tier stories are reviewed once a month in our Winnowing round. Final decisions on these second-round stories are generally made within 12 weeks from the date of submission.

Ebook release date: November 1, 2025

Each story then has its own release day on our website within the month of November.

ANONYMOUS SUBMISSIONS: Do not include your name, address, email, or other identifying information on your manuscript (header, byline, file name, etc). This allows our First Readers to evaluate your story based on the work alone.

SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS – YES

MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS – NO, one story per author for this call

REPRINTS – NO, we have a separate call for that

PAYMENT & RIGHTS FOR ORIGINAL FICTION: For original (previously unpublished) fiction, Flash Fiction Online pays $100 per story for first electronic rights, with six months exclusivity, as well as a non-exclusive one-time right to publish the stories in an anthology. The author retains all other rights. Original stories must not have been previously published anywhere, including a blog or on Patreon. Payment is made via PayPal (preferred) or mailed as a check.

SPECIAL CALL -- Wilderness Horror
Ends on This opportunity will close after 1,000 submissions have been received.
Submit to SPECIAL CALL -- Wilderness Horror

Flash Fiction Online is currently seeking submissions for an issue of wilderness horror, scheduled for October 2025. The guest editor for this issue is C.R. Langille, owner of Timber Ghost Press and the League of Utah Writers 2024 Editor of the Year. 

What We're Looking For:

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep…”  -- Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

The forest can be a magical place. Full of beauty, wonder, fresh air, and escape from the daily grind. However, when the sun sets, the woods take on a different demeanor. That same beautiful wonder from before transforms into a place of uncertainty. A place where one might find themselves lost. A place where you might be alone… or perhaps you’re not.

Stories of the wilderness have intrigued us for thousands of years. Early humans would tell stories of danger and monsters to warn children to stay out of the woods or they’d get snatched up by a witch or some other monster. Even today, tales of things that move through the trees at night fill us with delight. From Aokigahara (a.k.a. Suicide Forest) on Mt. Fuji to the Black Forest of Germany which gave the Brothers Grimm so much inspiration, the wilderness has planted its roots in horror.

Wilderness horror tickles that primal part of our brain. Beckoning us to a time without luxuries or modern amenities. Often playing with the theme of isolation, wilderness horror claws through our hubris, showing us in savage fashion just how powerful Mother Nature can be. It can awaken the darkness inside our souls and whisper horrible things as the wind makes the trees creak and groan with the sounds of cracking branches and bones. We don’t truly know what’s in the deep timber. But one thing is for sure, if we make it back out, we’ll never be the same again.

Stories that have the feel of what we're looking for include:

All stories submitted through this page must fit the theme! If you have a story that doesn’t fit this theme, please submit to our regular submission calls.

TO REITERATE: This is a call for horror! Any dark fantasy or fairy tale stories will be a hard sell.

WORD COUNT: 500-1,000 words. Because we are focused on flash fiction, this word count is firm.

SCHEDULE: 

This call will be open from April 1-30, 2025.

FFO reviews stories in two stages – a slush stage and a winnowing stage. In the slush round, first readers vote on stories to be passed forward. These top-tier stories are reviewed once a month in our Winnowing round. Final decisions on these second-round stories are generally made within 12 weeks from the date of submission.

Ebook release date: October 1, 2025

Each story then has its own release day on our website within the month of October.

ANONYMOUS SUBMISSIONS: YES. Do not include your name, address, email, or other identifying information on your manuscript (header, byline, file name, etc). This allows our First Readers to evaluate your story based on the work alone.

SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS – YES

MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS – NO, one story per author for this call

REPRINTS – NO, we have an open call for reprints beginning May 1st

RE-SUBMISSIONS — YES, if you have made revisions! And you were declined prior to 2023 (i.e., before the tenure of the current EIC). When in doubt, query editor@flashfictiononline.com.

PAYMENT & RIGHTS FOR ORIGINAL FICTION: For original (previously unpublished) fiction, Flash Fiction Online pays $100 per story for first electronic rights, with six months exclusivity, as well as a non-exclusive one-time right to publish the stories in an anthology. The author retains all other rights. Original stories must not have been previously published anywhere, including a blog or on Patreon. Payment is made via PayPal (preferred) or mailed as a check.

Flash Fiction Online