The Masters Review has long been a home for excellence in flash prose, and we’re especially proud to have published many Best Small Fictions selections over the past few years. In 2024, we want to continue to feature your remarkable flash in our magazine!
The Featured Flash Contest will honor two grand-prize winners chosen by our editorial staff—one in Flash and one in Sudden—by awarding $1,500 and online publication. Two runners-up will also be honored with a $300 prize and online publication. All longlisted authors will receive an archived copy of The Masters Review anthology, as will twenty randomly selected entrants not included on the longlist.
Additionally, we are excited to share that all submitters will receive a digital copy of a recorded Flash webinar, featuring literary professionals who will discuss writing and reading flash in all its forms, moderated by Editor-in-Chief Cole Meyer. We want to support and encourage all flash prose writers as they continue to produce work in this unique and exciting genre.
For this contest, we will accept Flash up to 1,000 words and Sudden between 1,001 and 1,500 words. We welcome up to two pieces per submission, in any combination. Please include both pieces in one document. All prose submissions under 1,500 words are eligible for this contest. As always, we’re interested in character- and voice-driven submissions that surprise us, particularly those that experiment with style and form. Dazzle us—take chances, and be bold.
If you’re interested in getting feedback on your writing, utilize our editorial letter add-on option. Our response to your submission will be accompanied by a one- to two-page letter from an experienced guest editor, who will offer observations on the strengths of the piece as well as opportunities for revision, where a revised version of your story might be a good fit, reading suggestions, and other comments on craft. Though there is a reading fee for this option, a significant portion of the fee goes to your feedback editor. See a sample editorial letter.
Kathy Fish’s stories have been widely published in journals, anthologies, and textbooks. Her work has been published in Ploughshares, Guernica, swamp pink, Electric Literature, Denver Quarterly, Best American Nonrequired Reading, the Norton Reader, and Norton’s Flash Fiction America (2023). Honors include the Copper Nickel Editor’s Prize, six appearances in the Best Small Fictions series, and a Ragdale Foundation Fellowship. The author of five short fiction collections, Fish teaches a variety of writing workshops online. She also publishes a popular monthly craft newsletter, The Art of Flash Fiction, which was recently named as one of the 20 Best Creative Writing Substacks by Writers at Work.
Tommy Dean is the author of two flash fiction chapbooks—Special Like the People on TV (Redbird Chapbooks, 2014) and Covenants (ELJ Editions, 2021), and a full flash collection, Hollows (Alternating Current Press, 2022). He lives in Indiana, where he is the Editor of Fractured Lit and Uncharted Magazine. A recipient of the 2019 Lascaux Prize in Short Fiction, his writing can be found in Best Microfiction 2019 and 2020, 2023, Best Small Fictions 2019 and 2022, Monkeybicycle, and numerous litmags. Find him at tommydeanwriter.com and on Twitter @TommyDeanWriter.
Avitus B. Carle (she/her) lives and writes outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Formerly known as K.B. Carle, her flash has been published in a variety of places including the Lumiere Review, -ette review, Surely Mag, Milk Candy Review, and elsewhere. Avitus’s flash, “Black Bottom Swamp Bottle Woman,” was recently selected as one of Wigleaf’s 2023 Top 50 and nominated for the O. Henry Prize. Her story, “A Lethal Woman,” is included in the 2022 Best Small Fictions anthology. She can be found online at avitusbcarle.com or online everywhere @avitusbcarle.
Exodus Oktavia Brownlow is a writer, budding beekeeper and rising seamstress currently residing in the enchanting pine tree forest of Blackhawk, Ms. You can find her, and more of her work, at exodusoktaviabrownlow.com.
Our New Voices category is open year round to any new or emerging author who has not published a novel-length work of fiction or narrative nonfiction with a major press. Authors with published short story collections are free to submit. We accept simultaneous and multiple submissions but ask that you inform us immediately if your story is accepted elsewhere.
The Masters Review pays a flat rate of $100 for flash-length stories (1,000 words or fewer) and $200 for longer stories (up to 7,000 words).
We don’t have any preferences topically or in terms of style. We’re simply looking for the best. We don’t define, nor are we interested in, stories identified by their genre. We do, however, consider ourselves a publication that focuses on literary fiction. Dazzle us, take chances, and be bold. Thanks for supporting our publication, and thank you for your work.
New Voices submissions can be uploaded to Submittable by clicking the button below:
For questions about submissions or to query an existing submission please use the following email: contact (at) mastersreview (dot) com.
The Masters Review is now accepting submissions of completed book reviews, interviews and craft essays for publication on our blog. Please do not send pitches or queries to this category. Submissions must be previously unpublished. We do not consider reprints. At the moment, we are unable to pay for book reviews or interviews, but we can pay $50 for craft essays. If you have a pitch or query, please contact us at contact [at] mastersreview2.wpengine.com.
Genre Guidelines
Book Reviews
Interviews
Craft Essays
Submission questions, concerns, and inquiries can be sent to a staff member at: contact [at] mastersreview [dot] com
Author’s Rights
The Masters Review holds first publication rights for three months after publication. Authors agree not to publish, nor authorize or permit the publication of, any part of the material for three months following The Masters Review’s first publication. For reprints we ask for acknowledgement of its publication in The Masters Review first.