Our summer flash fiction series returns for a seventh year! Send us ONE piece of your best flash fiction in 750 words or less.

Necessary Fiction will publish weekly flash fiction each Wednesday for your summer reading enjoyment beginning in June and lasting through Labor Day. Here are 10 things we've noticed about our broad aesthetic tendencies over the years:

1. We're often fans of the absurd, the off-kilter, and the darkly comic.
2. We tend to fall for beautiful language or an unexpected phrase.
3. We're interested in how a story gets told.
4. We prefer stories that are stories, not static moments or a character's memories lacking broader context.
5. We're open to reading the slyly speculative, the strange, the uncanny, and the weird.
6. We love when stories take a risk.
7. We rarely find body part humor all that funny.
8. We publish fiction; please don't send us poems. We aren't qualified for those.
9. We find that stories dependent upon very particular pop culture references sail right over our heads.
10. We especially encourage marginalized and traditionally underrepresented writers to submit, though your piece does not have to encompass those themes.

Multiple submissions will go unread. Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but please note in your cover letter. No reprints. Translations welcome of stories not widely available in English, with all rights the responsibility of the translator — to submit translations please email translations@necessaryfiction.com.

Here are a few recent flash pieces we've published:

• Cheryl Snell, "Convergence" (~140 words)
• Ivan Davenny, "Horse Girl" (~360 words)
• Erin Calabria, "My Sister Is Part Martian" (~500 words)
• Brendan Gillen, "Did You Know Elephants Play With the Bones of Their Dead?" (~500 words)
• Dan Crawley, "General Principles" (~725 words)

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About Our Upcoming Calls: Our October spooky stories series will open for submissions up to 3,000 words from June 1-30. This year's theme is "Dangerous Creatures." Submissions for our theme "Hunger" will be open September 15-30. Unthemed, general submissions up to 3,000 words will reopen on July 1. We look forward to reading your work!