The Blue Frog

The Blue Frog is Flash Frog’s annual flash fiction contest. Taking place each January, the contest features a new theme based on what type of stories we wish we had seen more of in the queue. Each year also features a new Guest Judge and Guest Artist. The Blue Frog awards a total of $700 in prize money as well as signed books and original art!

2026 Theme: “Family”

There are so many versions of family: given, chosen, absent. Families can be who we depend on for love and support. Families can also be our source of pain and trauma. And there’s a whole spectrum in between. In fact, people write whole novels centered around the complexities of family. But of course, we’d like you to do it in fewer than 1,000 words. Explore this term in all its meaning.

2026 Guest Judge: Camille U. Adams

Dr. Camille U. Adams is a writer from Trinidad and Tobago. Camille is the author of the memoir, How To Be Unmothered: a Trinidadian memoir, released August 2025 with Restless Books. Camille also narrated the audiobook for the memoir, whereby the distinct poetic prose can be aurally enjoyed.  How To Be Unmothered has since been recognised by Electric Literature’s Best of 2025 Nonfiction List and Camille has been invited to several national book fairs and panels to discuss the ground-breaking concept of unmothering. Her manuscript was recognised as a finalist in the Restless Books Prize in New Immigrant Writing 2023. 

Camille earned her MFA in Poetry from City College, CUNY and a Ph.D. in Creative Nonfiction from FSU. She has been awarded Best of The Net – nonfiction 2024, has received five Pushcart Prize nominations and three Best of the Net nominations for her published CNF work in literary magazines. Her writing has also received recognition as a notable essay in Best American Essays 2022. Among Camille’s awarded fellowships is an inaugural Tin House Reading Fellowship, an inaugural Granta nature writing workshop fellowship, an inaugural Anaphora Arts Italy Writing Retreat Fellowship, a McKnight Doctoral Fellowship, a Community of Writers Fellowship, and a Roots Wounds Words Fellowship. Camille is also a Tin House alum and has received support from Kenyon Writers Workshop, VONA, and others. 

She has led a generative writing workshop for a Tin House workshop and served as a juried reader for Tin House for two consecutive years. Camille has also happily contributed to the literary community as a CNF editor at Variant Lit, and as an assistant editor at Split Lip Magazine and at The Account. Camille’s memoir writing is featured in Passages North, Citron Review, XRAY Literary Magazine, Variant Literature, The Forge Literary Magazine, Kweli Magazine, and elsewhere. She currently lives in NYC where she teaches and is hard at work on book two.

2026 Guest Artist: Ali McLafferty

Ali McLafferty is an Austin-based artist and writer moonlighting as a high school history teacher. Her fiction has been published in The Forge, and Flash Frog has featured both her flash fiction and several of her art pieces. She loves working in acrylic, watercolor, colored pencil, and graphite pencil, and believes every surface–paper, wood, walls, stone, or skin–is better with a little paint on it. When not writing or creating artwork, she spends her time gardening, mountain-biking, and dabbling in green witchcraft. Her biggest fans are all the neighborhood children who demand painted tattoos on every limb. 

Prizes:

1st Place: $500 / Publication / Signed book by Guest Judge / Original artwork that accompanies your story

2nd Place: $150 / Publication / Signed book by Guest Judge / Original artwork that accompanies your story

3rd Place: $50 / Publication / Signed book by Guest Judge / Original artwork that accompanies your story

Entry Fee:

$5 per story. Enter as many times as you like.

When:

Contest Runs: January 1 — 31st

Finalists Announced: Early February

Winners Announced: Late February

Winners Published: Mid/Late March

How to Enter:

*Please read all contest rules before submitting*

Simple Two-Step Process:

1. Email your story as an attachment (.doc; .docx; .rtf) to flashfroglitmag@gmail.com or paste into the body of the email. Please format the subject as “CONTEST SUBMISSION: Your story title”.

2. Send the $5 contest submission fee using the button below.

— You do not need to worry about removing identifying information from your submission. For all stories that become finalists, we will remove this info before sending to the Guest Judge.

— If the name on your payment method is drastically different from the name on your email submission, please note that in your email.

— You will receive a confirmation email (typically within 24 hours) once we have received both your submission and your contest fee.

Rules:

— Fiction only.

— 1,000 words max (this is a hard limit).

— All submissions should be the author’s original work and not previously published elsewhere, this includes blogs, social media, etc. (And obviously no AI involvement. We hate we have to even say that now.)

— Multiple submissions are are okay, but each must be submitted as a separate entry (and there is no limit).

— Simultaneous submissions are okay, but please withdraw your story if it is accepted elsewhere for publication. There are no refunds in this case. Please keep in mind our quick turnaround time (especially for a contest!) when considering simultaneously submitting to other journals.

— Publication Rights: If published, we ask for the right to display the work for the duration of the journal. Copyright remains with the writer in all cases. If your work is subsequently reprinted elsewhere, please acknowledge Flash Frog as the site of first publication.

— All previous Flash Frog contributors are eligible to enter, regardless of when their story was published.

Other Things to Know:

— All submissions will receive a response before the finalists and winners are announced.

— All submissions are also eligible for standard Flash Frog publication.

— The Guest Judge will read all finalists’ submissions blindly. Flash Frog will remove all identifying information before sending the finalists’ stories to the Guest Judge.

— Winners are paid via PayPal on the day of their publication.

— All entry fee money goes to writers and artists. Here is a breakdown of where the entry fees go:

• $700 goes to the prize money
• Guest Judge and Guest Artist receive a small honorarium for their time and effort
• Any remaining funds go towards Flash Frog authors and artists throughout the year to help ensure we are a paying market while keeping general submissions free for everyone

The 2025 Winners

1^st Place: Materials Needed by Kyle Weik

2^nd Place: The Third by Alison Morretta

3^rd Place: Gulls of the Algarve by Matt Barrett

Finalists

2025 Theme: “Voice”

2025 Guest Judge: Gina Chung

2025 Guest Artist: Jiksun Cheung

The 2024 Winners

1^st Place: The 250^th Annual Radishtown Day Summer Parade by Ani King

2^nd Place: Three Miles Off the Highway Past Exit 509 by Jo Gatford

3^rd Place: Pool Hoppers by Phoebe Gibb

Finalists

2024 Theme: “A Sense of Place”

2024 Guest Judge: Kristen Arnett

2024 Guest Artist: Ruri Kato

The 2023 Winners

1^st Place: No Dead Bodies in the Dining Room by Kathryn LeMon

2^nd Place: The Whale Bone Man by Kaylie Saidin

3^rd Place: Patagium by K.C. Mead-Brewer

Finalists

2023 Theme: “The Surreal”

2023 Guest Judge: Aimee Bender

2023 Guest Artist: Daegan Lunsford

2022 Winners

1^st Place: Press 3 for Random Track by Dri Chiu Tattersfield

2^nd Place: Alligator Girls by María Alejandra Barrios

3^rd Place: Why I Say We’re Cousins by Shih-Li Kow

Finalists

2022 Theme: “Around the World”

2022 Guest Judge: Tara Isabel Zambrano

2022 Guest Artist: Rob Kaniuk