“When you read a piece under 400 words that stops you in your tracks, it only makes you want to read another with such power. Fortunately, thankfully, we have Best Microfiction, which gives us a book of the best. They may be short, but the pieces will last you a year, making their way into your heart and mind—just in time for next year’s edition.”
Brian Mihok, matchbook
The following stories have been chosen by final judge Grant Faulkner to appear in Best Microfiction 2024. Congratulations!
- Laila Amado, “Banana” (FlashFrog)
- Mileva Anastasiadou, “A Bird Has Grown Inside My Throat,” (Atlas and Alice)
- Mikki Aronoff, “Kin” (Atlas and Alice)
- Abbie Barker, “Dog People” (Flash Frog)
- Alan Beard, “Snow 1979” (trampset)
- Brett Biebel, “Danger Proximal” (Pithead Chapel)
- Guy Biederman, “Coyotes, Pelicans, & Prisoners” (Six Sentences)
- Lindy Biller, “Paper Doll” (Gone Lawn)
- Nicole Brogdon, “Pastels” (Vestal Review)
- Melissa Llanes Brownlee, “Sacrament” (CRAFT)
- Kati Bumbera, “Lesson One: Simona” (The Disappointed Housewife)
- Myna Chang, “Blackberry Nights” (Cease, Cows)
- Myna Chang, “Hometown Johnnies” (Fractured Lit)
- Christine H. Chen, “Make Me Yours” (Ghost Parachute)
- Christine H. Chen, “Maxillectomy” (Pithead Chapel)
- Zoa Coudret, “A little martyrdom” (Moon City Review)
- Jon Doughboy, “Its Meanness to the World” (The Disappointed Housewife)
- Jon Doughboy, “Mulberries” (Your Impossible Voice)
- Alyson Mosquera Dutemple, “After Steady Work Dries Up, the Aging B-Movie Queen Reconsiders Fright Night” (Salamander)
- Allison Field Bell, “Tangerine” (Ghost Parachute)
- Alexandra Fössinger, “Father” (Full House Literary)
- Gapper Frances, “Bones, Only Bones” (trampset)
- Jeff Friedman, “Chopsticks” (Switch)
- Frances Gapper, “Bones, Only Bones” (trampset)
- Jo Gatford, “Lovesong for the 0% Finance King Size Mattress” (Stanchion)
- Kate Gehan, “Lucky” (Moon City Review)
- Lydia Gwyn, “Lace in Your Hands” (Centaur Lit)
- L Mari Harris, “Our Mothers” (Exposition Review)
- L Mari Harris, “Something Inside Us Rises Up” (Peatsmoke Journal)
- Sara Henry Paolozzi, “Exorcism” (Wigleaf)
- Yedidyah Herrero, “The morendo” (Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction)
- Suzanne Hicks, “What You Keep” (MicroLit Almanac)
- Suzanne Hicks, “Reservoir” (The Disappointed Housewife)
- Jude Higgins, “Spinning” (FlashFlood)
- Keith Hood, “One Fell Off” (Vestal Review)
- Tiffany Hsieh, “The Punch” (Cease, Cows)
- Matthew Jakubowski, “Ghost Story” (Milk Candy Review)
- Pooja Joshi, “A Wednesday in Dhaka” (Ilanot Review)
- Audra Kerr Brown, “When the Cowbirds Come to Carry Your Sister Away” (The Disappointed Housewife)
- Frances Klein, “The Angel Gabriel Says It's Not a Booty Call If He Doesn't Have Genitals” (Peatsmoke Journal)
- Kip Knott, “Genie” (Wrong Turn Lit)
- Shih-Li Kow, “Sibling Parenting” (CRAFT)
- Louella Lester, “Past, Imperfect” (Cult. Magazine)
- Kik Lodge, “Mother Tongue” (The Citron Review)
- Andrea Marcusa, “U.S. Threat Forecast” (Milk Candy Review)
- Frankie McMillan, “Past Jack Koo's Shop” (Centaur Lit)
- Sian Meades-Williams, “Method for a Sunday roast” (The Prose Poem)
- Dawn Miller, “Culloden” (Fictive Dream)
- Laila Miller, “A tiny, tiny bit of beauty” (Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction)
- Erin Murphy, “In Case of Emergency” (Ilanot Review)
- Christopher Notarnicola, “College Boy and the County Fair” (Lost Balloon)
- Thomas O'Connell, “9/11 in Owensboro, Kentucky” (Paragraph Planet)
- Judith Ohikuare, “Spin Cycle” (hex)
- Mandira Pattnaik, “In Leaping” (The Citron Review)
- Keith J Powell, “Contortionists” (Emerge Literary Journal)
- Ken Poyner, “Beautification” (Open: Journal of Arts & Letters)
- Ken Poyner, “Proof” (Open: Journal of Arts & Letters)
- Imogen Rae, “The Contortionist” (New Flash Fiction Review)
- Ruby Rorty, “Yarnidermis” (hex)
- Michelle Ross, “Counting” (MoonPark Review)
- Carolyn R. Russell, “1987” (Blink-Ink)
- Aaron Sandberg, “The Wives of Husbands in Space” (Flash Frog)
- Aaron Sandberg, “Breaker” (Lost Balloon)
- Saumya Sawant, “Dead Girl Summer” (Tint Journal)
- Angeline Schellenberg, “Giant Silk Moth” (50-Word Stories)
- Donna Shanley, “Marie-Antoinette’s Nose” (MacQueen's Quinterly)
- Beth Sherman, “October Again” (100 Word Story)
- Kelli Short Borges, “Parallel” (The Dribble Drabble Review)
- Kelli Short Borges, “Hive” (Your Impossible Voice)
- Sumitra Singam, “There Are Four Words for "You" in the Malay Language” (Milk Candy Review)
- L. Sovier, “Everything is Flat” (Janus Literary)
- Phillip Sterling, “Flemish Tavern” (100 Word Story)
- John Elizabeth Stintzi, “I AM NOT AFRAID OF TRANSSEXUALS” (manywor(l)ds)
- Kristin Tenor, “Pancakes” (Wigleaf)
- Félix Terrones, “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” (Ilanot Review)
- Eric Scot Tryon, “Last Seen” (Peatsmoke Journal)
- Eric Scot Tryon, “At A Roadside Attraction On The Brink Of Divorce” (The Forge Literary Magazine)
- Rebecca Turkewitz, “Flotsam” (Pithead Chapel)
- Rick White, “Stargazey Pie” (Splonk)
- Nan Wigington, “Not the End of the World” (NUNUM)
- Francine Witte, “We Walked Out of the Forest” (The Ekphrastic Review)
- William Kelley Woolfitt, “Buying Snowball Pumpkins in Athens, Tennessee” (Gone Lawn)
- Jen Wyrauch Edson, “The No Longer Girls (A Song Unsung)” (FlashFlood)
- Addison Zeller, “When He Heard about the Y2K Bug” (The Cincinnati Review)
- Elena Zhang, “There is No Gold Here” (Your Impossible Voice)
