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FlashBack Fiction is an online journal that publishes historical flash fiction, prose poetry, and hybrid work, with a special interest in stories that help fill in some of the gaps in our history books and/or challenge assumptions about the past. We are particularly interested in celebrating the untold and lesser known stories from the past, and actively encourage submissions from under-represented voices. We publish one piece of historical flash, prose poetry, or hybrid a week. We are committed to creating an inclusive, supportive community for writers of this genre.

We believe that publishing diverse voices is important in a project like ours, since we are representing history. We would like the histories we present to be as inclusive as possible, which means we especially encourage submissions from diverse voices including (but not limited to) writers of colour, LGBTQIA+ writers, writers from working-class backgrounds, and writers with disabilities.

We are purposefully leaving the boundaries of what we deem ‘historical’ quite vague; we recognise that one person’s history is another person’s childhood. However, we look for a piece to suggest a specific time and place, and for that time and place to be vital to the story in some way. But we are open to exploring many different interpretations of what this means; we want to be part of the dialogue about what historical fiction — and historical flash fiction in particular — can be.

We aim to present our readers with a wide and varied range of rich, nuanced histories. We are interested in both traditional and experimental story-telling, as long as the work engages with the historical in some way. Although we tend towards literary fiction, we are happy to consider genre work, unusual perspectives, alternate histories, untold stories and diverse voices — anything as long as it is not offensive, abusive or discriminatory. We are looking for work written to a high standard, and are willing to work with writers to achieve that standard in some cases.

We’ve only been around for a year, but are already well-known and punching above our weight. We nominate for prizes such as Pushcart, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfiction. Three of the stories we nominated in 2018 will be published in the Best Microfiction anthology and we are hopeful for more good news in other prizes.

We encourage our authors to record an audio version of their story to accompany the print. Our followers enjoy hearing authors read and it helps us be more inclusive. We also encourage authors to participate in BackStory, our author interview, which appears later in the publication week. However, both features are optional.

We publish in English, but welcome stories from around the world. We would love to see more submissions about Asian, African, Oceanic, and Central and South American histories and/or by authors from these places.

Why not take a look at our timeline of published stories. Could you write a story that fills one of the gaps?

Please read our submission guidelines.

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