5 great places to submit if you hate to wait

Part of the pain of submitting is waiting and waiting and waiting to hear if your piece is accepted. Response times of six months to a year are common. So for all you impatient flash fiction writers out there, we’ve homed in on journals with stellar track records for getting back quickly.

Poets and more verbose writers, we’ll get to you in the coming months and in the meantime, there are some jewels for you on this list too. Note: these journals use the standard definition of flash fiction which is stories of up to 1000 words (around four pages double-spaced).

1. Jellyfish Review is looking for insightful flash fiction. Fun, sad, ugly, beautiful—they’re open to it all. They aim to let you know yea or nay within 7 days.

2. (b)OINK accepts flash fiction and poetry and is looking for work that’s ‘in-your-face, experimental, gut-wrenching, terrifying, stultifying, breakneck speed, sex-driven, whooshing out, and secretive’ (presumably not all at once). They generally respond within two weeks.

3. Ghost Parachute embraces flash fiction that’s bold, unexpected, unapologetic. They generally respond within two weeks.

4. Literally Stories publishes stories of between 500 and 3000 words. They pride themselves on their international scope and their fast response time—they aim to reply within 21 days and it’s generally fewer.

5. Five on the Fifth publishes five short stories on the fifth of each month. They accept flash fiction and stories of up to 5000 words, including genre fiction. They aim to respond within one month.