Flash Fiction in Our Issues
Flash fiction magazines are publications that collect and publish very short stories, and River & Sound Review is an independent literary journal that has run 34 flash pieces across its 12 published issues, from a 190-word opening piece in the 2023 debut issue to a 700-word cap in the 2025 short-fiction issues. The form it prints is flash fiction: a complete narrative told in under 1,500 words, with most of the 34 stories landing between 100 and 600 words. Writers looking for flash fiction magazines in the UK, in the US or online, and editors looking for submissions, all circulate the same short list, and this page sets that list out and then turns to the pieces the Review itself has published.
What counts as flash fiction
Flash fiction is a short short story, and the working limit most literary magazines accept is 1,500 words or fewer. The form has named sub-categories, and a magazine's call for submissions will usually say which one it wants:
- Drabble: exactly 100 words, the most constrained unit in the form
- Slice of life: a single moment, usually under 300 words
- Flash: the standard unit, 100 to 1,000 words
- Micro: anything under 100 words
The Review sets its own line at 750 words for flash and 1,500 words for short fiction. A 300-word story can hold a setup, a turn and an ending, which is why the form rewards a single strong image over a plot with many moving parts. Writers who cannot finish a 2,000-word story often finish a 500-word one, and that is a real reason the form fills the pages of small presses and online magazines that a full-length short story cannot.
Flash fiction magazines in the UK
Flash fiction magazines in the UK cluster into print, hybrid and online titles, and a few accept flash year-round rather than on an open-call schedule. The ones most UK writers send to are the following:
| Magazine | Base | Format | Flash word limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flash Fiction Online | UK | Online | under 1,000 words |
| Uncover | UK | Online | under 1,500 words |
| SmokeLong | UK | Print and online | under 750 words |
| Childe Sans Peer | UK | Online | under 1,000 words |
| Fugue Press | UK | Online | under 1,500 words |
UK writers often ask for crime fiction magazines in the UK as well, and the short answer is that most UK crime titles do not take flash: a crime story needs room for its evidence, and a 500-word piece rarely gets that space. Crime writers who want flash should send to the weird and horror end of the list instead, where a single strange moment carries the piece on its own.
Literary magazines accepting flash fiction
The literary magazines accepting flash fiction fall into 3 tiers, and the difference between the tiers is not quality but how each one handles submissions. The top tier takes open submissions most of the year. The middle tier runs periodic open calls, usually 2 or 3 a year, and closes between them. The bottom tier works by editor invitation only and will not read a cold submission at all. A writer's best move is to find 10 magazines in the first two tiers, check each masthead for its current word limit, and send the same 500-word story to all 10, because a flash story that fits one limit often fits them all.
What a submissions note actually tells you
A submissions note tells a writer 4 things: the word limit, the payment, the review window and the rights the magazine asks for. The word limit sets the story's shape before the first word is written. The payment line says whether the magazine pays a flat rate, a per-word rate or nothing at all. The review window, typically 6 to 12 weeks, is when the editor makes the decision. The rights line says whether the magazine wants first publication rights only or a share of the copyright. A writer who reads all 4 lines before sending avoids most of the friction that comes after an acceptance.
Fiction magazines that pay for flash
Fiction magazines that pay for flash fiction do pay, but the rates vary widely, and a writer should check the rate card before sending rather than after accepting. Duotrope, the US site that tracks literary magazines and their payment records, has logged flash fiction payments that run from 0 dollars per piece for non-paying slush reads to 500 dollars for a single short story in a well-funded print journal. A useful rule of thumb from the Duotrope data is that a paying magazine's flash rate sits around 10 to 30 dollars per 100 words, with the higher end reserved for print issues and the lower end for online-only titles.
- Flash Fiction Online: pays a flat rate on acceptance
- Fugue Press: pays per accepted piece
- Childe Sans Peer: pays on print and online acceptance
- River & Sound Review: pays a flat rate on acceptance of any published piece
The flash fiction magazine editor on the paying end is usually a small team of 1 or 2 people, and the payment line exists because that editor has a budget, which is the clearest signal that the title reads submissions properly. A magazine that does not pay still reads submissions; the difference is that its editor is working without a line in the budget for the writer.
Flash fiction horror magazines
Flash fiction horror magazines are the natural home for a flash story that wants a scare, because a 300-word horror piece works better than a 300-word romance: the genre lives on the single strong image that the flash form is built for. Titles that take short horror include Black Static, which runs work under 1,000 words, and a growing set of online horror magazines that take micro pieces under 500 words. A writer with a horror flash draft should send it there first and to a literary magazine second, because the horror editor is looking for exactly the shape the story has.
Where the weird end sits
Weird fiction magazines take the strange and the surreal, and their flash calls usually allow up to 2,000 words, which is wider than the literary limit and gives a weird story room to breathe. The weird end and the horror end share readers, and a story that crosses the line between the two will often find a home in either list. The Review's own issues have run work from both edges, and the pieces below sit on the literary side of the line rather than the horror side.
The flash pieces River & Sound Review has published
The flash pieces River & Sound Review has published run from issue 1 to issue 12, and the 34 of them break down as 12 drabbles at 100 words, 14 flash pieces between 100 and 750 words, and 8 short fiction pieces between 750 and 1,500 words. The Review takes flash fiction alongside Poetry in Literary Magazines, Pulp Fiction in Our Issues, Science Fiction in Our Issues and the rest of the Literary review magazines it has printed since 2023, and the flash slot has never been an empty one. The table below lists the 5 flash pieces that the Review has reprinted in its 2026 best-of selection, each with its word count and its issue of first publication.
| Title | Author | Word count | Issue | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Last Ferry Across the Sound | M. Okafor | 480 words | Issue 3 | 2023 |
| Tide Tables | R. Hale | 100 words | Issue 5 | 2024 |
| The Cartographer's Daughter | J. Voss | 620 words | Issue 7 | 2024 |
| What the River Knew | A. Lindqvist | 350 words | Issue 9 | 2025 |
| Low Water Mark | T. Barrett | 710 words | Issue 11 | 2025 |
The Review's editor reads every flash submission against the same 3 questions: does the story turn on a single image, does the ending earn its last line, and does the piece work at the word count it claims? A story that answers yes to all 3 goes into the next issue's flash slot, and the 34 published pieces are the 34 that did.