“Reading these tiny, bright micro-fictions, I can’t help thinking of the scattered, chaotic molecules of coal, buried deep in black earth, compressed into diamonds, an effortless-seeming mine craft, like there’s nothing to it at all. Impossible not to marvel at these micro-fictions, such tiny bright suns as these.”
Lex Williford, author of Superman on the Roof
The following stories have been chosen by final judge Amber Sparks to appear in Best Microfiction 2021. Congratulations!
- Cezarija Abartis, “Sisters” (Matchbook Literary Magazine)
- Sudha Balagopal, “P h i l t r u m” (The Dribble Drabble Review)
- Tyler Barton, “Eternal Night at the Nature Museum, a Half-hour Downriver from Three Mile Island” (Passages North)
- Sarah Bates, “The Dinosaurs that Didn't Die” (Pidgeonholes)
- Roberta Beary, “Shut Your Mouth and Listen” (The Phare)
- Garrett Biggs, “Parade” (Threadcount)
- Despy Boutris, “Burials” (The Roadrunner Review)
- Despy Boutris, “Forest Elegy” (Craft)
- Faye Brinsmead, “Rapunzel, let down your” (perhappened mag)
- Lori Sambol Brody, “I’ve Seen Bigger” (New Flash Fiction Review)
- Exodus Oktavia Brownlow, “It’s 5am-ish and my father tells me a story from his time in Singapore” (No Contact)
- Taylor Byas, “On Hesitation” (perhappened mag)
- Jonathan Cardew, “A World Beyond Cardboard” (Atticus Review)
- K Ming Chang, “Asymmetry” (Jellyfish Review)
- K Ming Chang, “Half Moon Bay” (The Offing)
- Ranjabali Chaudhuri, “Windows” (FlashBack Fiction)
- Anne Cooperstone, “Floaters” (Variety Pack)
- Noa Covo, “Ghoul” (Fractured Lit)
- Moisés R. Delgado, “There are Frijoles Pintos Lost Inside the Sofa” (Puerto Del Sol)
- Leonora Desar, “Some Meaning-” (Cincinnati Review)
- Leonora Desar, “Matt's Basement” (No Contact)
- Emily Devane, “Something Like Happy” (Lost Balloon)
- Christopher M. Drew, “When We Were Young” (Trampset)
- Epiphany Ferrell, “Places I Have Peed” (Miracle Monocle)
- Pat Foran, “What The Dreaming Town Says To You” (Tiny Molecules)
- Sarah Freligh, “Instructions for Cleaning A Mirror” (100 Word Story)
- Lauren Friedlander, “Alice in Voreland” (Okay Donkey)
- Jeff Friedman, “Lost Memory” (New World Writing)
- Jeff Friedman, “Not Everything Was in My Father's Will” (New World Writing)
- Frances Gapper, “She's Gone” (Wigleaf)
- Rosie Garland, “The Correct Hanging of Game Birds” (X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine)
- Scott Garson, “Junk” (Bluestem magazine)
- Marie Gethins, “Beating the Herring” (FlashBack Fiction)
- Christopher Gonzalez, “In the Aftermath of Hurricane Maria” (HAD)
- Charlotte Hughes, “Fairy Tale in Which You Date the Morally Ambiguous Boy in Math” (Monkeybicycle)
- Jason Jackson, “Of Photography and Truth” (Fractured Lit)
- Di Jayawickrema, “Cactus” (Matchbook Literary Magazine)
- Ruth Joffre, “A Girl Opens a Museum” (Pidgeonholes)
- Ruth Joffre, “What I'm Made Of” (Fiction Southeast)
- Jad Josey, “It Finally Happened” (Atlas and Alice Literary Magazine)
- Matt Kendrick, “a list of things that are white” (Fictive Dream)
- Tarah Knaresboro, “lilac bed” (Electric Literature)
- Kathryn Kulpa, “Roadrunners” (Milk Candy Review)
- Kat L’Esperance-Stokes, “A Short List Explaining Why I’m An Okay Person” (Newfound)
- Minyoung Lee, “A Desert Graveyard” (Trampset)
- Tara Lindis, “The Glowing” (Kenyon Review Online)
- Christopher Linforth, “Finale” (Whale Road Review)
- Cyndi MacMillan, “When Alice Became the Rabbit” (The Ekphrastic Review)
- Erinrose Mager, “Neighbors” (Wigleaf)
- Avra Margariti, “A Dog Like a Ghost” (The Baltimore Review)
- Avra Margariti, “The Clown King” (Milk Candy Review)
- Carson Markland, “Armadillo Jesus” (Smokelong Quarterly)
- Kathleen McGookey, “Three Postcards” (Ilanot Review)
- Frankie McMillan, “The Ringmaster's Boys” (Atticus Review)
- Sarah McPherson, “Ornithologia Corvidae” (Splonk)
- Rebecca Meacham, “Good Stretch” (Wigleaf)
- Bill Merklee, “Magic Bullet” (FlashFlood)
- Shareen K. Murayama, “Arrhythmia” (MORIA Literary Magazine)
- Hema Nataraju, “Tonight” (Atlas and Alice Literary Magazine)
- Elsa Nekola, “Hemiboreal” (Cincinnati Review)
- Darren Nuzzo, “Stranger Disconnected” (Okay Donkey)
- Nuala O'Connor, “Rehearsal” (Lost Balloon)
- Melissa Ostrom, “Red” (Matchbook Literary Magazine)
- Abigail Oswald, “Autopsy Report” (takahē magazine)
- Lee Patterson, “an essay about ghosts” (Milk Candy Review)
- Meghan Phillips, “There's a Trick With a Knife” (Okay Donkey)
- Patrick Pink, “The Book of What If” (Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction)
- Claire Polders, “Stella Is” (The Mambo Academy of Kitty Wang)
- Regan Puckett, “Moon Watching” (FlashFlood)
- Xoşman Qado, “Streets” (Epiphany)
- Dawn Raffel, “City of Serena” (Big Other)
- Angela Readman, “Some Roses Only Need Pepsi” (The Phare)
- Noʻu Revilla, “Myth Bitch” (Anomaly)
- Matthew Richardson, “Foundering” (FlashBack Fiction)
- Sonia Alejandra Rodriguez, “Velcro Shoes” (Lost Balloon)
- Michelle Ross, “Mirrors” (New World Writing)
- C.C. Russell, “med(I)a” (takahē magazine)
- Sarah Salway, “Lilly” (Matchbook Literary Magazine)
- Pete Segall, “Fleas, Markets” (The Adroit Journal)
- Hibah Shabkhez, “Zastrugi” (Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction)
- Shoshauna Shy, “The Anorexic's Mother” (Blink Ink)
- Rachael Smart, “Steep It the Colour of Hedgerows and Two Sugars” (Lunate)
- Grace Q. Song, “The Eternity Berry” (CHEAP POP)
- Andrew Stancek, “Just a Few Facts” (Boston Literary Magazine)
- Samantha Steiner, “My Closet” (Citron Review)
- Chelsea Stickle, “Postcard Town” (Cease, Cows)
- Hannah Storm, “Drosophila Melanogaster” (X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine)
- Jennifer Todhunter, “The Car Tag Kids” (Hobart Pulp)
- Cathy Ulrich, “And I Still Remember How Your Hands Were So Much Larger Than Mine” (Whale Road Review)
- Kara Vernor, “B is for Balls” (Okay Donkey)
- Elisabeth Ingram Wallace, “The Chorus in My Walls” (Okay Donkey)
- Najah Webb, “Ne Plus Ultra” (805 Lit + Art)
- Joyce Ann Wheatley, “When Mother Roasts a Chicken, She Shines” (A3 Review)
- Charmaine Wilkerson, “Far From this Howling” (100 Word Story)
- Evan Williams, “Ted” (HAD)
- Sophia Wilson, “Safe House” (Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction)
- Francine Witte, “A Fingernail is Nothing” (Atticus Review)
- Francine Witte, “It's Ghost Time Again” (Cleaver Magazine)
- RP Wood, “Rejected Endings for Titanic” (Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction)
- Benjamin Woodard, “Other People” (HAD)
- Jennifer Wortman, “Moon Pillow” (Fractured Lit)
- Lucy Zhang, “Code Baby” (Third Point Press)
