National Flash Fiction Day 2026

Deadline extended! This comp is open through Tuesday, 05 May, midnight!

Prizes:

First: $1000
Second: $400
Third: $200

Submissions guidelines and entry rules are below.

2026 Competition Judges

The 2026 NFFD judges are Ingrid Horrocks and Louise Wallace.

The 2026 NFFD youth judge is Josiah Morgan.

A good flash piece is a tickle, a pinch or a slap, and leaves the mind tingling. Poetry can do that too, but more through surprising use of words, than through plot or an unseen ending.

P S Cottier

The best stories are those where the reader is made immediately but implicitly aware that something else is going on here. These stories are artful, but so well crafted, so cleverly understated, that the reader becomes irresistibly engaged with the story.

Graeme Lay

There’s hardly any form that offers so much fun among so many challenges and at the same time teaches you so much about life.

Elizabeth Smither

Short on words but long on depth, flash fiction stings like good poetry. Punchy, succinct and surprising, the best flash stories shift the reader’s heart but they also keep it beating hard.

Nuala Ni Chonchuir

Flash fiction – a rooster running this way and that, his red comb lighting small fires in the woods.

Frankie McMillan

Writing flash fiction is like riding a wobbly unicycle between suggestion and explanation, between innuendo and a slap in the face, between compression and deflation, between rabbit and hat, between poetry and prose. Writing it successfully, is negotiating a tiny circuit without falling off.

James Norcliffe

Ingrid Horrocks

Ingrid Horrocks’s books include the short story collection All Her Lives (2025), recently placed on the short list for the 2026 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, the memoir Where We Swim (2021), a literary history, Women Wanderers and the Writing of Mobility (2017), and two collections of poetry. Her writing has appeared in Lithub, The Ninth Letter, The Sydney Review of Books, The Spinoff, Landfall and the Guardian. In 2024 she was the Kaituhi Tarāwhare CNZ Writer in Residence at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington and in 2025 she was awarded the Michael King Writers Centre Australian Residency at Varuna. Ingrid lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington, with her partner and twin daughters.

Louise Wallace

Louise Wallace is the author of the novel Ash (longlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction in the Ockham Book Awards 2024), published in New Zealand by Te Herenga Waka University Press, in Australia by Allen & Unwin and forthcoming this year with Mariner Books in the US and Hutchinson Heinemann in the UK. She has also published four previous collections of poems, including This Is a Story About Your Mother. She is a founding editor of Starling, an online journal showcasing the work of young writers from Aotearoa | New Zealand, and was the editor of Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems 2022. Louise holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Otago and is a former Robert Burns fellow.

Josiah Morgan

Josiah Morgan (Kāi Tahu, Ngāti Maniapoto) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Ōtautahi. His latest book, i'm still growing, was released in 2024 by Dead Bird Books. In 2026, his chapbook Black Window is the featured chapbook in Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook. His earlier books were all released in the United States, including a mad-cap novella called Road and his bizarre hybrix text The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was performed as a six-hour-long performance artwork in Auckland Pride 2024. In 2025, his first play Faust On Trial premiered to sellout crowds. He believes in the power and the magic of words to transform.

YOUTH COMPETITION: How to enter

An international competition for youth to age 18. Free entry. Please see below for details for youth submissions.

How to enter

To enter the 2026 National Flash Fiction Day competition, please follow these easy steps:

Payment:

Make your online payment here:

ANZ / National Flash Fiction Competition/ Acct No. 06-0350-0849733-00
include ‘Surname, First initial’ as a reference

Once you’ve transferred your entry fee, send proof of payment (a phone capture or screen shot will do – see the link provided) along with your NFFD story/ stories to info@nationalflash.org.
You will receive confirmation of your entry within 72 hours. If you do not hear from NFFD, please email again.
All entries must be received electronically. If you are not online and wish to submit, please have a friend submit via email.

2026 fees: $10.00 per story or $24.00 for 3 stories (3 stories max per entrant)

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

(See General Rules for further details)

Submissions open through 30 April 2026 - Deadline extended! This comp is open through Tuesday, 05 May, midnight!
Competition open to all NZ citizens and residents
Open competition; no theme or prompt
Only previously unpublished work will be considered (see General Rules)
Absolutely no AI-generated work. We want your ideas, and your sentences. We stand for human creativity, not that of a machine. Submit work written by you and only you.
Deadline for submissions: 30 April 2026 (midnight)
Word limit for all submissions (all categories): 300 excluding title
1.5 or double spaced, and all of your submissions in one document but no pdfs
Times New Roman, Calibri or another plain font, 12pt – no fancy fonts!
Maximum 3 stories per entrant; please include your submissions in one document
Please do not send three separate files – you will be asked to resubmit if you do
Electronic submissions only, emailed to info@nationalflash.org
Submissions must be sent as attachments (not in the body of the email)
Send one of the following formats: .doc, .docx, .rtf; please, no pdfs
No pdfs!
Submissions must be received no later than midnight, 30 April 2026 - Deadline extended! This comp is open through Tuesday, 05 May, midnight!
Your name may be in the email and any enquiries made to NFFD in the Gmail account, but do not include your name or contact info on the attachments. Any submissions with author name on the attachment with the story text will be disqualified.
Judges’ decisions are final. No feedback will be offered on an individual basis.
Long lists will be announced mid-May and shortlists in early June.
Winners will be announced on National Flash Fiction Day, June 22.
Winners and short-listed work will be published in a special winter edition of Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction.

GENERAL RULES

NFFD reserves the right at its total discretion to reject any entry in the Competition and to verify the validity of any entry or vote. All decisions of the NFFD shall be final and no correspondence will be entered into.
Entries must be original, previously unpublished pieces of work written by the person who submits the piece of work. Published means anything that has already appeared anywhere in print or online, including personal websites or blogs.
Entries cannot be altered or changed after they have been submitted.
NFFD accepts no responsibility for late, lost or misdirected entries.
NFFD is unable to return submitted entries. Entrants are advised to keep a copy of their entry for their records.
The judges’ decisions are final and no correspondence will be entered into.
The judges reserve the right to not award prizes, based on their judgment of the quality of submissions.
Partners, parents and children of the NFFD Central Committee and current judges are not eligible to enter the competition
Winners will be announced June 22 at the NFFD award ceremonies and all winners are invited to attend and share their stories in their local celebrations.
A selection of entries will be published in a special winter edition of Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction. Writers retain the copyright to their submitted short story regardless of whether or not it is chosen for publication. NFFD retains unlimited use of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place Short Story (all categories) for an unlimited period of time for any promotion or publication.
The winners’ names, entry details, biographical information and photographs may be required by NFFD and will be used for publicity/promotional purposes without compensation. Entrants consent to this use of their details by entering the competition.
The NFFD association, its committee members and its related agencies shall not be liable for any loss, damage or injury suffered or sustained (including but not limited to direct or consequential loss or loss arising from negligence) arising directly out of or in connection with the competition or any prize.

Entry constitutes acceptance of all National Flash Fiction Day Competition Rules and Guidelines.

YOUTH COMPETITION: SUBMISSION details & Guidelines

An international competition for youth to age 18. Free entry.
Submission guidelines (see General Rules for further details):

Submissions open through 30 April 2026 - Deadline extended! This comp is open through Tuesday, 05 May, midnight!
Competition open to all NZ citizens and residents
Open competition; no theme or prompt
Only previously unpublished work will be considered (see General Rules)
Absolutely no AI-generated work. We want your ideas, and your sentences. We stand for human creativity, not that of a machine. Submit work written by you and only you.
Word limit for all submissions (all categories): 300 excluding title
Single or 1.5 or spaced, and all of your submissions in one document
Times New Roman, Calibri or another plain font, 12pt – no fancy fonts!
Maximum 3 stories per entrant; please include your submissions in one document
Please do not send three separate files – you will be asked to resubmit if you do
Electronic submissions only, emailed to info@nationalflash.org
Submissions must be sent as attachments (not in the body of the email)
Send one of the following formats: .doc, .docx, .rtf; please, no pdfs
No pdfs!
Name your attachment the title of the story, or title of the first story if sending more than one
Your name may be in the email and any enquiries made to NFFD in email correspondence, but do not include your name or contact info on the attachments. Submissions with author name on the file with the story text will be disqualified.
Submissions must be received no later than midnight, 30 April 2026 - Deadline extended! This comp is open through Tuesday, 05 May, midnight!
Judges’ decisions are final. No feedback will be offered on an individual basis.
Long lists will be announced mid-May and shortlists in early June.
Winners will be announced on National Flash Fiction Day, June 22.
Winners and short-listed work will be published in a special winter edition of Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction.

GENERAL RULES

NFFD reserves the right at its total discretion to reject any entry in the Competition and to verify the validity of any entry or vote. All decisions of the NFFD shall be final and no correspondence will be entered into.
Entries must be original, previously unpublished pieces of work written by the person who submits the piece of work. Published means anything that has already appeared anywhere in print or online, including personal websites or blogs.
Entries cannot be altered or changed after they have been submitted.
NFFD accepts no responsibility for late, lost or misdirected entries.
NFFD is unable to return submitted entries. Entrants are advised to keep a copy of their entry for their records.
The judges’ decisions are final and no correspondence will be entered into.
The judges reserve the right to not award prizes, based on their judgment of the quality of submissions.
Partners, parents and children of the NFFD Central Committee and current judges are not eligible to enter the competition
Winners will be announced June 22 at the NFFD award ceremonies and all winners are invited to attend and share their stories in their local celebrations.
A selection of entries will be published in a special winter edition of Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction. Writers retain the copyright to their submitted short story regardless of whether or not it is chosen for publication. NFFD retains unlimited use of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place Short Story (all categories) for an unlimited period of time for any promotion or publication.
The winners’ names, entry details, biographical information and photographs may be required by NFFD and will be used for publicity/promotional purposes without compensation. Entrants consent to this use of their details by entering the competition.
The NFFD association, its committee members and its related agencies shall not be liable for any loss, damage or injury suffered or sustained (including but not limited to direct or consequential loss or loss arising from negligence) arising directly out of or in connection with the competition or any prize.

Entry constitutes acceptance of all National Flash Fiction Day Competition Rules and Guidelines.

Previous Judges

2012 Graeme Lay, Tina Shaw, Stephen Stratford
2013 David Lyndon Brown, Vivienne Plumb
2014 Mary McCallum, Frankie McMillan
2015 Fiona Kidman, Owen Marshall
2016 James Norcliffe, Elizabeth Smither
2017 Michael Harlow, Emma Neale
2018 Tracey Slaughter, Sue Wootton
2019 Siobhan Harvey, Lloyd Jones
2020 Sandra Arnold, Helen Heath
2021 Diane Brown, Paula Morris
2022 Anne Kennedy, Kiri Piahana-Wong
2023 Airini Beautrais, David Eggleton
2024 Lynn Jenner, Rachel O'Neill
2025 Brannavan Gnanalingam, Vana Manasiadis