2026 Annual Flash Prose Contest

Saturday, September 19, 2026 at 1:00pm ET - Annual Flash Prose Contest

Our annual three-hundred word Flash Prose Contest was the diabolical brainchild of WMO’s founder, Al Manning. He wasn’t trying to be difficult. Instead, the exercise is designed to illustrate the importance of word choice and proofreading.

Writers’ Morning Out will accept submissions for the annual Flash Prose contest beginning September 1.

Contest rules encourage writers to read and follow guidelines when submitting. Publishers and agents assume writers who cannot follow guidelines will be hard to work with. Who wants to work with someone who’s difficult?

So, follow the guidelines! While numerous, the following guidelines are commonly used, in whole or part, by agents and publishers. Use the guidelines as a checklist before clicking the submit button.

Submissions to the Flash Prose Contest that do not follow the guidelines below will be rejected.

Submission guidelines:

1. Submission Period: September 1 through September 11, 2026.

2. Genre is any type of fiction or creative nonfiction.

3. Manuscripts must be no longer than 300 words, including the title, as calculated by Microsoft Word.

4. Words can have any number of syllables.

5. Manuscripts must have one-inch margins, be double-spaced, and use 12pt Times New Roman

6. Manuscripts must be emailed to info@writersmorningout.org as .doc, .docx, or .rtf attachments. No PDFs.

7. Manuscripts must not have author’s name or contact information.

8. Author’s name, manuscript title, word count, and email address must be in body of email.

9. Email subject line must be in the format: Flash Prose Submission: [Title of work] [state fiction or creative nonfiction]

Tracy Crow and MaxieJane Frazier will read and discuss the winning submissions.

Tracy Crow, a former Marine Corps officer, is a literary agent and the
president/publisher of MilSpeak Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to the creative writing endeavors from within the military community through writing workshops and a traditional publishing pathway for books authored by military veterans and family members.

She is a former assistant professor of journalism and creative writing and the author/editor of six books to include her award-winning memoir, Eyes Right: Confessions from a Woman Marine, and the historical biography with co-author Jerri Bell, It’s My Country Too: Women’s Military Stories from the American Revolution to
Afghanistan, earning a starred review from Library Journal. In addition to her role as an online MFA adjunct at SNHU, Tracy teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina.

Currently, as a work-for-hire author, Tracy is writing the first historical biography of women in Air Force special forces from 1990 to 2022, scheduled for release in 2027 from Air University Press.

She lives in central North Carolina on ten storybook acres with her husband—a Major League Baseball lifer—and their three pups, Rocky, Hope, and Fenway.

MaxieJane Frazier wields a stubborn pen from the Tunk Valley in Washington State where wide skies and farm animals keep her grounded. A writer, editor, and instructor, she teaches graduate creative writing for Southern New Hampshire University. With a Ph.D. in literature and an MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars, MaxieJane writes across forms, with a particular love of flash. She co-edited Necessary Turbulence: Fifty Years. One Unbreakable Sisterhood Forged in the Crucible of the Air Force Academy. You can find her shorter work in Gooseberry Pie, Switch, Cleaver Magazine, The Corvus Review, Booth, SoFloPoJo, Collateral Journal, and other places. She founded Mighty Mule Editing where she edits myriad fiction and nonfiction manuscripts. She loves summertime hummingbird wars, long mule brays, crazy blue heelers, and Okanogan Highland sunsets.