Flash Fiction Online Competitors

The Sun is an independent, ad-free magazine that for more than forty years has used words and photographs to evoke the splendor and heartache of being human. Each monthly issue celebrates life, but not in a way that ignores its complexity. The personal essays, short stories, interviews, poetry, and photographs that appear in The Sun’s pages explore the challenges we face and the moments when we rise to meet them. From its idealistic, unlikely inception in 1974 to its current incarnation as a nonprofit magazine with more than 70,000 subscribers, The Sun has attempted to marry the personal and political; to honor the genuine and the spiritual; to see what kind of roommates beauty and truth can be; and to show that powerful teaching can be found in the lives of ordinary people. Each issue includes a section devoted entirely to writing by readers. Writing from The Sun has won the Pushcart Prize and been selected for the Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays anthologies.

Narrative, a San Francisco–based 501(c)3 non-profit, is dedicated to advancing the literary arts in the digital age by supporting the finest writing talent and encouraging readership across generations, in schools, and around the globe. As a leading digital publisher of first-rank fiction, poetry, essays, and art, each year Narrative publishes hundreds of well-known and emerging writers. The Narrative Prize, awarded annually, has helped launch the careers of authors Min Jin Lee, Maud Newton, Natalie Diaz, Ocean Vuong, Anthony Marra, Javier Zamora, and Morgan Talty, among others. The Narrative for Schools programs is used in more than 36 countries and throughout the U.S. and supports teachers and students around the world who are too often hampered by limited resources by providing a curated library of literature, lesson plans, video tutorials; as well as the annual Narrative High School Writing Contest seeks to inspire a new generation of readers and writers. Narrative was founded on the conviction that there should be no socioeconomic barriers to accessing great literature. Our global audience includes teachers, students and readers of all ages, including more than 320,000 dedicated subscribers. Our ever-expanding, modern library of thousands of stories, poems, and essays is always open and always free.

Strange Horizons is a free weekly online magazine devoted to publishing high-quality speculative fiction, poetry, art, and related nonfiction.