Flash Beast

I

Cocoon

by Julia Pike

II

Riding Deep Night

by Alpheus Williams

III

Gutted

by Barlow Adams

IV

Bear Necessity

by Aeryn Rudel

V

Hunger

by Elinam Agbo

VI

The Lions

by Alexandra O’Neil

VII 

They Who Keep the Sky

by Travis Chambray

VIII 

Fish Brain Therapy

by Neil Clark

IX

The Boy with Birds in His Heart

by Quentin Norris

X

The Spoils

by John Skewes

Flash Beast submissions
are now closed.

Check back on August 21st at 12pm PST for results!

Good news, slowpokes.

Procrastinator’s Special keeps late entries open until August 14th
for a couple bucks extra. 

“An animal’s eyes have the power
to speak a great language.”

– Martin Buber

Submit to Flash Beast

For our latest quarterly flash fiction contest, we’re asking you to draw inspiration from the animal kingdom. Flash Beast challenges writers to come up with dark and offbeat stories that involve non-human creatures. We want strange and surreal entries rife with primal impulses or majestic dignity, tales that range from domesticated to feral.

Now this doesn’t mean we want to see dozens of anthropomorphic critters dancing around the page. There’s certainly no expectation that you tell a story from an animal’s perspective—if you can do so, great, but it’s difficult to pull off. And the animals don’t even need to serve as the central focus of the story, they just need to factor into the narrative in a meaningful way.

We also want to caution against taking too sentimental a route; stories akin to putting down Old Yeller or killing Bambi’s mom will probably end up too maudlin, so use a deft hand if you’re trying to tug at heartstrings. And while you’re certainly free (and encouraged) to indulge in sci-fi or horror angles, we aren’t looking for outright monsters or fantastical beasts here. Entries should incorporate an animal that has at some point actually existed in the natural world.

The top three entries will win cold, hard cash.

$200 for Flash Beast winner

$100 for 2nd place

$50 for 3rd place

We also give mad props to 4th-10th place,
publishing them in our Flash Beast mega-issue
and in a future print anthology, with contributor copy included.

Submit to Flash Beast

Follow these guidelines, and you could have some extra coin in your pocket, and some bragging rights as the Flash Beast winner.

– All submissions must absolutely be under 1,000 words, and we tend to look more kindly on 750 or fewer because…SQUIRREL!

– All contest submissions will be read blind, so we won’t be playing favorites. Sorry, Mom.

– Please paste your submission into the corresponding field. Do not list your name anywhere in your submission or we’ll assume that you don’t know how to read.

– Costs $7 $9 to enter during the Procrastinator’s Special. (Sorry, no refunds.)

– We reserve the right to extend deadlines if necessary (and you can expect our usual week-ish Procrastinator’s Special—with corresponding increase in submission fee for you slackers).

– Submissions must be previously unpublished work, and you will retain copyright (duh). By entering this contest you give us permission to publish your work, if selected for our Top 10, both online and in our future print anthology.

– No limit on how many entries you can submit, but you must submit them one at a time. Don’t just mash them all in there.

– Final deadline is 11:59PM PST  on August 1st, 2018 August 8th, 2018 August 14th, 2018.  Winners announced by August 14th, 2018 August 21st, 2018, and we’ll release the Flash Beast mega-issue shortly thereafter. (Note: original deadline and results pushed back one week due to scheduling conflict)

– And, most importantly, this is a FLASH BEAST contest, so you must include at least one non-human animal in a meaningful way. But again, this can be in any form imaginable.

So that means you can go all…

or all…

or all…

or all…

or even all…

Go wild!

Submit to Flash Beast