Best Small Fictions 2025

BEST SMALL FICTIONS is the first-ever contemporary anthology solely dedicated to anthologizing the best internationally published short hybrid fiction in a given calendar year. Inaugurated with the 2015 edition, the series features the best microfiction, flash fiction, haibun stories, and prose poetry from around the world. This issue celebrates the tenth anniversary of the series. When James Thomas and I, decades ago, gathered a seminal volume of small fictions called SUDDEN FICTION, revolution was […] in the air—after all, very-short fictions broke rules. They were experimental. But our goal was modest. We just wanted to bring attention to new forms that, no matter how daring or intriguing, got no respect from the literary establishment. […] But BSF recognized a wider net needed to be cast, […] actively scanning the increasing number of flash journals around the world. […] BSF is becoming—arguably already is—the richest, most inclusive anthology of small fictions now publishing. It’s often said a very-short story asks more of a reader than a novel, where we willingly allow the author to lead us through pages of memory or description.