Our Editorial Ingredients

How to Cook Up Fabulous Creative Nonfiction (plus new Submission Guidelines!)

Happy June, everyone! Twice a year, we take a one-month hiatus from publishing flash pieces to speak directly to our readers. As many of you are new subscribers since our last hiatus in December (Hello, new subscribers! So happy to have you!), we wanted to tell the story of how the five of us— Leanne Rose Sowul, Nina Lichtenstein, Kate Lewis, Cynthia Allen, and Casey Mulligan Walsh— went from lonely writers of flash creative nonfiction, to a writing group we dubbed the “Flashies,” to founding and editing In a Flash. Here, on the day we open for the theme of RECIPES, we give you our recipe, including essential ingredients and optional seasonings that will turn your next flash essay into an enticing dish!

But first…

We’re Open— And We’ve Made Some Changes!

As of today, we will no longer be accepting submissions via email. Each month, a unique link for that month’s theme opens a Google Form with all the information we require. We do recommend, for formatting integrity, that you put an extra space between each paragraph when you submit the form. You will be able to access the Google Form links in the following places:

1. In our pinned “Submission Guidelines and Upcoming Themes” post

2. In each of our issues (subscribe so you don’t miss them!)

3. Via Substack Notes throughout each submission period

Please note that if you click on the link outside of the submission window, it will read “this form is not currently accepting submissions.” Our submission period will now begin at 10:00 AM (EST) on the first of the month and close at 11:59 PM (EST) on the fifteenth of the month.

Of course, you can still email us with questions and concerns at InAFlashLitMag(at)gmail.com; however, we will no longer be accepting submissions there. Please do not expect a response to your piece if you submit via email.

Our June submissions call opens TODAY! From June 1-15, please submit flash nonfiction (500 words or fewer) on the theme of RECIPES. Future submission calls are listed below, and detailed, updated submission guidelines are here.

And Now… Our Lit Mag Recipe!

Back in 2022, Leanne was unable to attend the much-loved Hippocamp Conference on creative nonfiction. Craving community with fellow writers, she posted a query on the Hippocamp Facebook page seeking interested writers to form a group around flash creative nonfiction and was delighted to receive almost twenty enthusiastic responses! Scheduling conflicts narrowed the size of the group, and for the next two years, the “Flashies,” as we dubbed ourselves, met once a month to read and discuss each other’s flash pieces. We championed each other’s successes and commiserated rejections. Throughout the years, many of us have continued to publish work improved by our joint editing skills.

And then Nina came to us with her big idea: Let’s take the success of the Flashies to the broader flash-writing community! We spent the next six months debating over the details of the workflow and formatting, but our goal was clear from the start: to create a space to celebrate writers who, like us, love the specificity and urgency of flash. We would be rigorous with our selection and editing, while treating writers with the utmost respect and showing buckets of enthusiasm for great writing. In that vein, we agreed to shower attention on a single writer per issue while highlighting, for our readers, the elements that make the piece special.

Fifteen issues in, we feel we’re still meeting that goal, and we’ve been blown away by the incredible pieces we’ve had the honor to publish. In streamlining our submission process, we hope to eventually open up new avenues of writing education and community.

But What About YOUR Recipe?

Now that we’ve read hundreds of flash pieces over fifteen themes, we’d like to share our top five essential ingredients for enticing, compelling, delicious flash writing, plus a few optional seasonings to elevate your work even further:

Essential Ingredients:

True stories

Beautiful prose

Authentic voice

Concrete, sensory details

Revelation

Optional Seasonings:

Humor

Surprise

Original metaphors

Urgency

Cadence

Photo by Katie Smith on Unsplash

Upcoming Themes

Reminder: all submission windows will be open from the first at 10:00 AM to the fifteenth of the month at 11:59 PM EST. To submit, click the unique link for each theme. Read full submission guidelines here before submitting.

June 2026: RECIPES

July 2026: COURAGE

August 2026: SURPRISE

— No Submissions in September 2026—

What’s Going On With Us

Zibby Owens loved editor Kate Lewis’ flash piece, “Fractures to Factions,” featured in Jenny Bartoy’s incredible anthology No Contact. Listen to their excellent discussion on the Totally Booked with Zibby podcast here!

Leanne Rose Sowul was thrilled to have uploaded her National Board Teaching Certification portfolio on May 15 and is now wondering… what’s next?

Editor Nina Lichtenstein is thrilled that her memoir-in-essays, Body: My Life in Parts, is a finalist for the 2026 Maine Literary Awards. She is also the featured author in the “Radicle Interview” series of the latest issue of The Maine Review. On June 23rd, Nina’s essay, “Annus Mirabilis,” about the discovery of her half-sister in Oslo, Norway, is coming out in the new anthology from ELJ Editions, Relative Strangers: Inheritance, Identity and the Meaning of Kinship. Order your copy here.