Is Flash Fiction Little Different from Long Fiction?

Read Sam Ruddick's take and post your responses here.

Flash Fiction open reading in Frome, 19 June

On Friday, 19 June at 7:45 p.m. at the Merlin Theatre on Bath Road in Frome, 15 names will be drawn from a hat. Each reader will read a single short-short story up to 400 words in 4 minutes, and the best reading/story, as judged by a novelist, a journalist, and a publisher, will win £40. Tickets are £4. 

Fast Forward Press Wants Your Flash Fiction

Stories of 1,000 words and fewer are wanted for an anthology to be published next year; the deadline for submission is 31 December 2009, and full details are available here. Former SP student Leslie Smith's story 'The Mug' (see below) will appear in this year's anthology--congratulations, Leslie!

New Anthology of Microfiction/Narrative Prose Poetry Seeks Submissions

The anthology is being produced by Cinnamon Press, and details are available on the submissions page of their website. The deadline is 15 August.

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 We are looking for unpublished flash fiction that runs less than 1,000 words, with a special place in our hearts for the 400-700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Send up to three of your error-free, previously unpublished flash pieces, under 1000 words, double-spaced in 12-pt Times New Roman or Courier, as a Word or RTF.doc, to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.