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Best Small Fictions 2025:
Flash, Haibun, Micro, & Hybrid: 110 Pieces by 110 Authors Nominated by Indie Presses Around the World

From the Introduction by Robert Shapard:
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. Short fiction readers may be given only a few lines to, in effect, help construct the story with whatever logic or rich imagery the author provides. […] As you read Best Small Fictions, one challenge may be to ask, after each story: To what extent are you the author, or do you share authorship? Is it the rule that the briefer the story the more you are required to fill in, thus you are higher on the author scale? Or is it vivid images, no matter the length of the story, that prompt you to conjure a world? I could never say, because I lose myself in stories altogether.