Flash Prose Contest 2026

Magazine1 is proud to host its first ever flash prose contest. This contest hopes to find the prose (both fiction and non) that brings the reader directly into the chair they're sitting in. The kind of writing that makes you feel like you're seeing the world in 3D for the first time. Check out our submission page. Submissions will be open from 3/18/2026 - 7/1/2026.

For our first theme we wanted to do something all Floridians are familiar with. Heat. The kind of heat that encircles your head, cutting your body off from your thoughts. The kind of heat that rises with the bile in your throat. The heat that burns from inside of you, fighting at your edges to escape, even if it has to blow you apart to do so.

When submitting, please take the theme into consideration. The heat of your piece doesn't have to by physical. It doesn't have to be emotion. Hell, it doesn't have to be anything I've thought of before. It just has to be hot. In one way or another.

When submitting, please consider the following:

  • Submission fee is $5.

  • The piece can either be fiction or non-fiction.

  • Submit only one flash piece per submission.

  • Submissions cannot be more than 500 words.

  • You can submit more than once, you just have to pay for each submission.

  • You do not need to live in Sarasota to submit, this contest is for everyone!

  • Other than that, there are no strict structures for the piece you submit, so long as it's something you're proud of, we want to read it.

The final judge of the contest will be Aimee Nezukumatathil. She is the New York Times best-selling author of the poetry book, NIGHT OWL (Mar. 2026), and two illustrated collections of essays, BITE BY BITE and WORLD OF WONDERS: IN PRAISE OF FIREFLIES, WHALE SHARKS, & OTHER ASTONISHMENTS, which was chosen as Barnes and Noble's Book of the Year and named a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. She also wrote four previous award-winning poetry collections: OCEANIC, LUCKY FISH, AT THE DRIVE-IN VOLCANO, and MIRACLE FRUIT. With the poet Ross Gay, she co-authored the chapbook LACE & PYRITE, a collaboration on epistolary garden poems. Her writing appears twice in the Best American Poetry Series, The New York Times Magazine, ESPN, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, and The Paris Review.

First prize for the contest will be a $150 dollar gift card to Bookstore1. The poem will also be published in the upcoming issue of Magazine1.

Runners up will receive a $50 gift card to Bookstore1 and will be published in the upcoming issue of Magazine1.

These gift cards are usable either in person at our store in Sarasota, or in our online store.