Flash fiction submissions wanted

FF>> Press is currently seeking flash fiction submissions for our second volume, due out in the summer of 2009. Our first collection included pieces from Bobbie Louise Hawkins, Lihn Dinh, Barbara Henning, Andrew Wille, and many emerging new voices. We are looking for unpublished flash fiction that runs less than 1,000 words, with a special place in our hearts for the 400-700
word range. Stories should discover something brief and intimate in a very short space. Is it entertaining/thoughtful/edgy/ poignant? Does it deliver in under 1000 words? Then we want it.

Submission Guidelines:
Send up to three of your error-free, previously unpublished flash pieces, under 1000 words, double-spaced in 12-pt Times New Roman or Courier, as a Word or RTF.doc, to
editorff@gmail.com. Please include your name,address, telephone number, email address and word count on the first page of your submission. Submissions will be accepted until December 31, 2008 at midnight. We will contact everyone who has submitted by February 15th, 2009. If we publish your story, you will receive two complimentary copies of the book. Simultaneous submissions are welcome, but please notify us immediately if your piece has been accepted
elsewhere. We usually assume First North American Rights to work published in our annual, after which all rights revert to the author.

Our first volume, *fast forward*,* *can be found at bookstores around the country including Tattered Cover, Powell Books, and City Lights, and is also available for purchase from amazon.com. Learn more at our website www.fastforwardpress.org.

Another fifty-word short-short from Cerianne Teague

There it went again. Would her baby ever stop crying?

After three weeks she admitted her mother was right, she was too young to have this responsibility. She had to stop this crying, now!

With tears in her eyes, she undressed him, turned him over and removed the batteries.

Another fifty-word short-short from Cerianne Teague

This job definitely had its perks! Tonight he'd made love to the most gorgeous woman that he'd ever seen.

He didn't class it as cheating and it seemed such a shame to waste the opportunity.

After a long night, Tony finally wheeled his last trolley down to the hospital morgue.

A fifty-word short-short by Cerianne Teague

He loved animals. This morning Freeman had purchased the softest and fattest kitten he could find from the RSPCA sanctuary. Well, he wanted his money's worth.

As the timer in the kitchen buzzed and steam hissed from the stew pot, he knew that this kitten was going to be purrrfect!


Cerianne Teague recently completed her BA in English and Creative Writing at Bath Spa and will begin the MA in Creative Writing there this autumn. She took Sudden Prose in Spring 2007.

"The Mug" by Leslie Smith

Lovers in older days would take a lock of hair. You, however, seem to have treasured a mug I borrowed one afternoon. I had thought it only laziness that moved the mug to your windowsill, only coincidence that it was next to other precious objects of yours. Why is it still beside that snapshot of your old friends, that ancient dictionary your late father gave you, that empty champagne bottle from your 18th? I doubt the mug is as worthy as those. And yet a week, two weeks later, there it sits.

My mouth left a gossamer-thin ring of claret on the lip of the mug, inside to outside. That's still there. Do you look at it and wonder when I’ll be round next? Do you look at it and wish my lips had met yours instead of the mug, inside to outside?

I’ll tell you a secret: yesterday when you were out of the room, I reapplied my claret lipgloss and kissed the lip of the mug again, refreshing the colour. Why not do it? Why not make your day? Your week? Why not make you smile?

And after that, maybe, just maybe, why not say I love you?


Leslie Smith is an undergraduate at Bath Spa and took Sudden Prose in Spring 2008.

Welcome!

This blog is an outgrowth of a course I designed and teach for Bath Spa University, Sudden Prose. I'd like to encourage discussion on the forms as well as information-sharing about relevant articles, books, magazines, etc.