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Go shoppingFlash Friday · Readers’ Choice 2026
Litro can confirm that Heike Rentel’s Changing Tides has been selected as this year’s Readers’ Choice Small Fictions Award winner.
Across ten pieces, these writers move through grief, desire, memory, ecological rupture, private dread and the strange pressure of ordinary life.
The vote has now closed, but the work remains here for readers. Return to the winning story, revisit the shortlist and keep sharing the writers.
The shortlist
The Readers’ Choice vote has closed. Heike Rentel’s Changing Tides received the strongest reader response, and all ten shortlisted stories remain available to read.
01 · Fiction in translation
Pablo Baler is an Argentine writer, art critic and scholar based in Los Angeles. His debut English-language novel, Gilroy’s Gloryhole, won the 2025 New American Fiction Prize and is forthcoming from New American Press.
02 · Flash fiction
Eloise Poole is a writer and researcher based in Manchester. She is studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her short fiction has been published by, or is forthcoming with, Banshee, Short Fiction and Lunate.
03 · Flash fiction
Bethany Bruno is a Floridian author whose work has appeared in The Threepenny Review, The Sun, McSweeney’s and River Teeth’s Beautiful Things. She won the 2026 Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest.
04 · Fiction · Readers’ Choice winner
Winner · Readers’ Choice 2026
Heike Rentel was born in Germany and now writes and teaches on England’s south coast.
05 · Flash fiction
John Brantingham was the first poet laureate of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. His work appeared in hundreds of magazines and The Best Small Fictions 2016. He published nineteen books of poetry and fiction.
06 · Flash fiction
Ashley Mangtani is an editor and technology writer specialising in digital transformation and change management. He contributed to UK digital-strategy work with the Cabinet Office and now lives in South East Asia.
07 · Flash fiction
Sheila Kannappan is an astrophysicist living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She writes out of care for the Universe, the living planet and its beings. In 2005, she took part in animal-rescue work in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans.
08 · Flash fiction
James Hartman’s fiction appears in December, Raleigh Review, Hawai’i Pacific Review, New World Writing Quarterly and elsewhere. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and The Best Small Fictions. He lives in Pennsylvania.
09 · Flash fiction
Nathan Breakenridge is a Scottish writer living in Edinburgh. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in New Writing Scotland, Shooter and Mooncalves. He was shortlisted for the Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award in 2019.
10 · Flash fiction
Linda Ann Strang is a poet, fiction writer and academic writing lecturer at Nelson Mandela University in Gqeberha, South Africa. Her collection Star Reverse was shortlisted for the 2023 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry.
Winner announced
Voting for the Litro Readers’ Choice Small Fictions Award 2026 closed on 23 August. After reviewing the final count, Litro can confirm that Heike Rentel’s Changing Tides received the strongest reader response from the shortlist.
Thank you to everyone who read, voted and shared the shortlisted work. The shortlist remains live so readers can continue discovering the stories.