Editorial: Upkeep of the Menagerie
This issue marks the second full year I have been at the helm of Flash Fiction Online, and while the world at large feels unmanageable and unpredictable, I feel like we’ve done as well as can be expected for a small arts organization. In 2024, we succeeded in transitioning the magazine under the umbrella of a nonprofit publishing press. In 2025, we worked to increase the number of authors and artists we could uplift with each issue. We raised the number of authors we published from 60 in 2024 to 76 in 2025, and I had the pleasure to work with eight separate artists and three guest editors over the course of this year.
All told, the magazine spent $8,462 on authors, artists, and guest editors—a significant increase from the $3,100 which was what was spent in 2023. I provide these numbers because (a) we are a nonprofit and I think transparency is good; and (b) I see a lot of questions about what it costs to run a fiction magazine; and (c) I hope that by seeing these figures, you consider becoming a subscriber or patron.
Right now only 40% of our operating budget comes from subscriptions and ebook purchases. The remaining amount needed to run the magazine comes from direct donations and dividends from investment accounts opened in the name of the nonprofit. It remains one of my biggest goals to secure operating grants, but as you can imagine, under the current administration, the competition for these awards has grown fierce as federal funding to the arts has been slashed.
But we remain hopeful! Hopeful that with time, funding will return at a time when we will be even better at advocating for our authors, artists, and editors. As always, we’re grateful for everyone who has followed our trajectory over the years, and I hope you continue to think of us when considering which arts organizations you would like to support.
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This year, we’ve had animals appear in a few stories interspersed across multiple issues, but this month we have the opportunity to feature an entire menagerie. Scaled and feathered, warm- and cold-blooded, there are creatures scampering across the month of December.
We have two stories about house animals—a snakey pest in “Shedding the Weight” by Chiemeziem Everest Udochukwu, and a lazy pet in “Growing House” by Madison Ellingsworth.
“Ornithogonia, or Five Featherings” by M. R. Robinson gives us a look at the curse of a slighted goddess. And, Laurence Klavan’s “Homonyms” depicts time chasing an aging television writer like a marten chases the snowshoe hare.
Aging, or perhaps the exhaustion of living in a troubled world, also seems to be catching up with Jean, the ichthycraft, in Matt Dovey’s “Reflexive Benevolence Imperative.” Sometimes the answer is to rest, as we intend to do over the December holidays.
Finally, we close this issue and this year with Kate Francia’s “Small Prayers for the God of Sow Thistle Hill,” which shows us a kinder, less egotistical deity. One that can offer only a fluffy bunny or a single sunny day.
Here at FFO we want your 2026 to be gratifying and peaceful. But if nothing else, we hope our weekly offerings of fiction are akin to that bold, brief, beautiful flash of sunshine. To use the words of Francia’s God of Sow Thistle Hill: “It is all I can do, and it is never enough.”
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Ⓒ Rebecca Halsey