I like writing flash science fiction, and I like The Grinder, but one recurring headache I've had is identifying flash markets on the listing that actually specifically are looking for flash. A lot of "flash" markets are included in The Grinder's Advanced Search output simply because their guidelines don't specify a lower bound; e.g., "up to 10,000 words" would be listed as a flash market (and they very well might love flash, but to me it's much more of a gamble than a market that explicitly says they accept flash; maybe it's just me...).
So I decided to look at flash markets in more detail to try to pin down a list of markets that actually accept flash or can reasonably be assumed to do so. And here it is:
| Market Name | Flash Word Count | Acceptance Rate | Mean Response Time (Median) |
| SpeckLit | up to 100 | 0.6176 | 42 (43) |
| Timeless Tales | up to 2,000 | 0.2857 | 43 (55) |
| Nature: Futures | 850 to 950 | 0.2 | 62 (61) |
| Grievous Angel (Urban Fantasist) | up to 700 | 0.0984 | 13 (11) |
| Daily Science Fiction | 100 to 1,500 | 0.096 | 24 (21) |
| Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing Newsletter | up to 1,000 | 0.074 | 40 (29) |
| Lakeside Circus | up to 1,000 | 0.0704 | 68 (61) |
| Freeze Frame Fiction | up to 1,000 | 0.0672 | 22 (14) |
| Flash Fiction Online | 500 to 1,000 | 0.0513 | 14 (11) |
| Terraform | up to 2,000 | 0.0488 | 38 (54) |
| Mad Scientist Journal | 500 to 2,000 | 0.68 | 15 (13) |
| The Future Fire | up to 1,000 | 0.33 | 40 (40) |
| Perihelion Science Fiction | 400 to 1,600 | 0.3021 | 59 (59) |
| Odd Tree Press Quarterly | 500 to 1,500 | 0.2727 | 47 (153) |
| The Colored Lens | up to 2,000 | 0.25 | 20 (1) |
| Bete Noire | 100 to 2,000 | 0.1818 | 51 (57) |
| Unlikely Story | up to 2,000 | 0.1162 | 49 (33) |
| AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review | 500 to 2000 | 0.0804 | 79 (76) |
| Fantasy Scroll Mag | up to 1,500 | 0.0559 | 36 (30) |
| On Spec | up to 1,000 | 0.0526 | 202 (203) |
| Unsung Stories | up to 2,000 | 0.0508 | 29 (25) |
| T. Gene Davis's Speculative Blog | 250 to 2,000 | 0.0444 | 14 (12) |
| Drabblecast | 500 to 2,000 | 0.043 | 11 (5) |
| Plasma Frequency Magazine | up to 2,000 | 0.0375 | 15 (11) |
| Blue Monday Review | up to 2,000 | 0.0363 | 49 (60) |
| DarkFuse Magazine | 99 to 999 | 0.0339 | 119 (150) |
| Orthogonal | 5 to 1,000 | 0.0328 | 40 (42) |
| Spark: A Creative Anthology | up to 1,500 | 0.0323 | 103 (100) |
| Fantastic Stories of the Imagination | up to 2,000 | 0.0179 | 12 (5) |
| Strangelet | up to 2,000 | 0.0093 | 25 (23) |
| Devilfish Review | up to 500 | 0 | 82 (104) |
| Neo-opsis Science Fiction Magazine | up to 2,000 | 0 | 1 (1) |
| Pinball | up to 2,000 | 0 | 19 (20) |
| Three-Lobed Burning Eye | 500 to 1,000 | 0 | 35 (23) |
These were identified from searches during 1/23-1/27/2016 for currently open science fiction flash that were listed as semi-pro or better (at least $0.01/word) with at least 5 submissions in the past year. I defined flash liberally with stories up to 2,000 words (and capped at that point for markets accepting longer work), and I considered a market a flash market if their guidelines limited submissions to that range, specifically mentioned that they accepted guidelines with upper bounds within that range, specifically mentioned (favorably) accepting "flash," or had word count guidelines such that it could be expected that at least 50% of submissions would fall within that range. There are certainly other listed markets that accept flash, but since they don't explicitly say they do, I'd say submitter beware.
I considered including temporarily closed markets in this list as well, but The Grinder is always in flux anyway, so by the time those markets re-opened this analysis would be out of date and many new flash markets would likely be available. As of last week, these were the solid options. I'll update it when this list starts feeling stale....
