The Iridescent Words Award for Best Short Fiction, 2025
- citrinesunstream
- 51 minutes ago
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Funniest flash fiction, most emotional story, best cosy fantasy and more...
It was not easy, but I've chosen my top stories of 2025. There are categories for short stories, flash fiction and micros, literary, speculative and dark speculative. Some have three stories, some have one.
Short fiction is highly subjective. Sometimes it hits you in just the right way, and other times it doesn't. If the elements align, you feel just what the author means to impart to you.. but you might feel something different, or nothing at all.
I read many stories in 2025. These are the stories that stood out for me in a big way, and each has earned an Iridescent Words Award.
There's no physical prize, but if you're one of the writers nominated, you can download this trophy and stick it on your notebook, fridge, or anywhere.
And if you're a reader, see what quotes catch you, and dive in!
Best Fantasy Short Story: Three great stories for this category.
'The Midwife in the Palace of the Forest King' By Jelena Dunato Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue #429, April 3, 2025
"The sleigh crossed frozen miles under the night sky, sliding over the ice where no trace of human life marred the perfect desolation. No villages, no bridges, no people. Just nature, majestic in its frozen, snow-dusted sleep. Sunlight seemed like a faint memory, a life-giving touch of warmth impossibly distant. She was a snowflake carried by the wind, drifting through the unfamiliar darkness."
'The Sword and the Scabbard or, Which Do You Prefer?' by Evelyn Pae, Electric Spec, August 2025.
"Saraide's hand was cool and dry, drier than anything I had felt before. She led me down a long hallway into a dark storeroom, narrow, with only a single ghost-light flickering in the window looking out into the lake. The water outside was murky, and I did not recognize the silhouettes of the fish that floated slowly by, their eyes tarnished silver, coins twirling and twirling slowly through the gloom."
'Born of the Mountain's Chill' by Louise Hughes, The Future Fire, 2025
"The dizziness started mid-afternoon. Everything bright and sharp. The dull pain behind my eyes crept up quietly enough that I didn’t notice it at first.
The air hung too still, and the wooden walls held the stillness in. The shared glances between every person around me made me want to scream.
'Please,' I asked. 'Can we keep the door open, just for a minute.'
'And let the cold in. Don’t be silly.'
Like the cold was a creeping shadow to be wary of, instead of the gloriously natural way of things. These people didn’t know what they were missing, twisted up tight and hiding."
Best Dark Speculative Fiction:
'The Light In the Heart: A Haunting' by Valya Dudycz Lupescu, Bourbon Penn
"After the children run away screaming, the creatures swallow the thick, delicious dread with wide-open mouths. They lick fear off the floorboards and catch it dripping raw from the ceiling onto their long, pointy tongues. They dance joyfully through your halls, kiss your corners, and tell you what a wonderful house you are."
'The Tawlish Island Songbook of the Dead' by EM Linden, PodCastle 879, February 2025
"They leave cold firepits and fulmar bones, middens, empty crofts with the thatch already collapsing. Sheep they’ve blessed and turned loose to fend for themselves.
And us. The dead of Tawlish."
'On the Muddy Shores Where the Oracle Writhes' by Amanda Cecelia Lang, narrated by Brooke Jennet Gideon, Thirteen Podcast, March 2025
"My parlour door breezes open to the sound of bell tones and chimes and the frothy tongue of the ocean whispers along my spine. I glance up from the indigo tides swirling in my teacup. A girls silhouette fills the doorway, a lovely, willowy thing, eclipsing my view of the boardwalk and the ferris wheel and the sunset beyond. She steps inside but hesitates at the sight of mermaid scales and tarot cards spread across my table.
'Don't be shy, girl, Ive been expecting you.'
And it's true. The sea promised two more visitors before the bloom of night."
Best Cosy Fantasy Short Story:
'Yarn as Warm as a Dragon's Breath' by Amanda Saville, Translunar Travelers' Lounge, August 2025
"The dragon turned and blinked aurora eyes at her. It chirruped, questioning the grey-haired woman yelling at clouds."
'The Washing Witch' by Erin Keating, Hearth Stories Issue Four, Summer 2025
"Actually, this was Gwen’s favorite part of her craft: the washroom so thick with steam she couldn’t see through it. And then, the steam parted just enough to reveal a dreamy haze. The bronze spouts poured hot water that smelled of lilies and lotus. The deep basin, lined with mother-of-pearl, cast opalescent light throughout the room."
'The Braided Lintel' by Amanda Fetters, Hearth Stories, Issue Four, Summer 2025.
"Raising the lantern would do nothing to reveal the stranger singing through the thick gloom, I knew, but I raised it all the same. Its light reflected off the fog, creating a halo around me as I descended the grassy slope, the crash of the waves on the cliffs behind me growing fainter as I walked closer to the sound of the voice singing, tiny bells jangling in its wake."
Best Science Fiction:
'This Sepulchral Aegis' by Rob Gillham
"Somewhere deep within the ancient starship, a bell tolled.
The weight of years had rendered the absence of noise on the bridge a tangible force. It pressed upon the basilica-sized arena, as heavy and cloying as the sticky black compound of soot and atmospheric moisture that coated the instruments on the bridge. The discordant bell ended the hush, echoing around the extremities of the vast chamber, irreverent as a raised voice in a necropolis."
Best Literary Short Story:
'Ae Well Done You' by Katie Webster, Extra Teeth, Issue Nine, 2025
"I turn it over on my tongue like a flavour. Like a single artisan chocolate, a sip o whisky liqueur, a smear o brandy butter, like somethin I have been close enough til smell on ae breath o ithers but never got til taste for mysel. Like you get on Christmas when ae nursies have til come back til ae wards after ae late shift teabreak. I know for certain that there is not anither soul on ae ward who has ever had a welldoneyou like this before."
Most Emotional Short Story:
'Miles To Go Before I Sleep' By Beth Goder, The Deadlands Issue 39, August 2025
"Zoey clutches the bag of kazoos. She didn’t expect to meet Death today. Not like this, with the chill of snow cutting into her ankles, with a satchel full of Entomology 201 test papers that she needs to grade, with the reek of cinnamon still clinging to her clothes.
Death holds out a hand, as if inviting her to join them. They ask if she finds the woods lovely, dark and deep, quoting her grandmother’s favorite poem. Their voice is only an impression in her mind, like the memory of someone speaking.
She fumbles in the bag, pulling out a green kazoo with the picture of a beetle etched in the plastic. She doesn’t know the rules of this engagement, this strange meeting, only that she will not lie down in the snow and freeze.
She places the kazoo in Death’s hand, where it melts, green overflowing onto white snow."
'Holly on the Mantel, Blood on the Hearth' by Kate Francia, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue #441, September 2025
"He leaned forward and pinned the brooches at her shoulders. Herewith held herself perfectly still. For a moment, she imagined stepping forward into the space between them, tucking her head beneath his chin: his salt-smell, the beat of his heart beneath the bones of his chest.
She almost raised her arms. But they hung strange at her sides and would not quite obey.."
Leygr by Gwendolyn Maia Hicks, Trollbreath Magazine, December 2025
"Leygr, I am dead, and I hold your name inside my mouth. No other mouth could hold it as mine holds it. No one could know you as I did. Here, listen—there is wind in the trees—there is an autumn wind. You loved it so. The falling leaves, the coming harvest. Do you remember the morning we climbed the basalt pillars, drank from the stream of sun-dyed water? You let me drink first, though the task was your ritual, your meaning, not mine. When we were through, you made a sign beside your mouth, your red hair blown sideways. You had taught me this sign, this word. Life. We were there, tasting life, together. Did I carry life to you, Leygr, as you carried it to me?"
Best Novelette:
Our Echoes Drifting Through the Marsh by Marie Croke, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue #423, January 9, 2025
"Grandfather would take me often to the Whispermarsh after that first time, where we would listen to Grandmother sing lullabies to a cooing baby or laugh at his murmured jokes I was too young to understand. There were only a few of the marsh sculptures of Grandmother left, though, and Grandfather didn’t call them that. He called them echo moments, pushed from the depths of the marsh by a mind gone to rest in that sacred place of our people’s old culture."
Best Speculative Flash Fiction:
We Sang Water into Lemonade, on the Eve of Summer, In the Wasteland by Robert Luke Wilkins, Factor Four Magazine, Issue 49: August 2025
"We passed the last dandelion by late morning, and by noon, the grass had faded. Nothing grew in the gray, aether-swept deadlands beyond the city’s eastern wall.
'I should bring Martha,' said Ma, her voice cracked with age. 'She’d love it.'
My younger sister patted Ma’s shoulder. 'I’m here, Ma.'
'Oh, not you, dear. I meant my daughter, Martha.'
The spectre of a girl appeared, matching our slow pace with her skipping walk. This was the Martha that Ma remembered, aged six, not a thirty-year-old woman with children of her own.
The girl shimmered, then vanished."
Funniest Speculative Flash:
The Forest Through the Teas by Wendy Nikel, Flash Fiction Online, 2025
"As the ladies sipped their tea and Violet propagated her gossip to those around the table, Hyacinth tried to cultivate a whispered conversation with her granddaughter."
Funniest Short Story:
Frequently Asked Questions about the Portals at Frank’s Late-Night Starlite Drive In by Kristen Koopman, Trollbreath, December 2025
"Is this a joke?
If you don’t believe us, check out the third booth from the emergency exit, near the pie case. Sit on the west side when it’s in direct sunlight, and you’ll find yourself standing on the Scottish moors amidst rolling fields of heather in (we think) 1866. Bring an umbrella or poncho since it will be raining."
Best Literary Flash Fiction:
Between Chamisa and Rengyo by Mizuki Yamagen, Smokelong Quarterly, June 2025, winner of The SmokeLong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction 2025
"Sun encapsulated in tree limbs like fruit. A whip crackle of thunder behind the tongue. A bluebird’s tail, stitched with rain. An approximation of the landscape that surrounds me."
Best Creative Nonfiction:
Selves by Paulina Jarantewicz, Writer's Hour Magazine
"I am your anchor to before. You are my bridge to elsewhere. We are each other’s proof that home can be a person."
Best Micro:
Party Song by Vaneeza Sohail, Smokelong Quarterly. Finalist in The SmokeLong Grand Micro Contest 2025.
"In Karachi we wrapped nightfall around our fingers, long silken black noose knotting into flesh. Pressed bottles of bootleg liquor to our mouths, lined our nostrils with white smoke, wings of ash around our footprints. We were itching to be at the mouth of a beginning."
By Lorette C. Luzajic
The Night Swimmers
MacQueen's Issue 27 march 2025
"A thin line of tangerine fire between the horizon and the deep. The pale glow of morning gently laps the saffron surface of the water. An acrid, sweet stench from the shoreline furnaces hangs heavy in the air."
The offering by Brigitta Scheib, Temple in a City, Joy, Popup Edition, 2025
"The boy painted the sky pink, purple and gold, holding tight to the boar bristle brush as thick paint globs ran down the handle.
'One splash, two splashes,' he recited as he threw the inky colors into the air. Then he swirled and swirled until they married into one long, feathery horizon."
And that's it for 2025! I hope you enjoy these. All are free to read online, but some have issues you can buy. Support these magazines and help them keep producing great stories.
Happy reading!
Malina Douglas
Iridescent Words
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