Drum Roll ... It's National Flash Fiction Month

Why you should write a story every day in June

May 31, 2026

If you know me, you know about my love of little stories. Or should I say little, little, little stories. Little, little, little, little, little stories.

I discovered the flash-fiction form during year ten of writing a big hulking, bulking doomed novel (did I say “hulking” … and “doomed”). I took a break to write 100-word stories—but the break ended up taking me (as I wrote about in this piece).

I became addicted to the short form. I co-founded 100 Word Story. I wrote Fissures, a collection of 100-word stories, then a craft book, The Art of Brevity, and then ended up co-founding the Flash Fiction Institute, an educational hub for flash.

And now … we at the Flash Fiction Institute decided to make writing flash fiction a month-long revelrous celebration of writing tiny stories and claim June as National Flash Fiction Month!

Here’s what we’re doing at the Flash Fiction Institute:

Thirty days of prompts on our Facebook, Instagram, and Substack Notes
You write a story each day—any length, any style, any genre, as long as it’s flash.
Share it with the hashtag #NationalFlashFictionMonth and we’ll repost our favorites.
Writing sessions on Substack Live every Wednesday at 12 Pacific.
A free flash-fiction Zoom class with Grant Faulkner and Kim Culbertson on Tuesday, June 16, from 2-3 p.m. Pacific Time.
A culminating flash “Open Mic”—and celebratory happy hour!—on June 26 from 4 - 5:30 Pacific.

But first: What is flash fiction, exactly?

Good question. Flash fiction is generally defined as a complete story told in under 1,000 words.

I’ve also defined it as an afternoon nap, the moment you hit the brakes, and the tip of a needle in a Lit Hub essay, 13 Ways of Looking at Flash Fiction.

The whole is a part and the part is a whole. The short format forces the writer to question each word, to reckon with Flaubert’s mot juste. At the same time the brevity of the form allows the writer “to keep a story free from explanation,” as Walter Benjamin wrote.

So why write one every day?

Because you form a daily practice—of finding the first line, of committing to a direction, of following a story somewhere even when you’re not sure where it’s going. Writing is a muscle, and muscles need to be used.

Because flash fiction teaches you to trust the reader through the “art of omission.” One of the interesting things about the form is what you leave out. You don’t have to explain everything. You don’t have to resolve everything. You can end on an image, a gesture, a single line of dialogue, and trust that the reader will fill the silence with something true.

Because finishing things feels good. Writers spend so much of their lives in the middle of things—the middle of a draft, the middle of a revision, the middle of a long silence between submission and response. Flash fiction gives you the rare and underrated pleasure of being done.

Because constraints enhance creativity. A daily prompt gives you a door to walk through even on the days when you’d otherwise sit at your desk staring at the wall and eventually go make yourself a third cup of coffee instead.

Will every story be good? No. Will some of them surprise you? Absolutely. Will you be a better, looser, braver writer on July 1st than you were on June 1st?

We’re betting yes.

Now go write something small. Small things, as any flash fiction writer will tell you, can hold the whole world.