flash nonfiction
n. A very short literary nonfiction piece, typically consisting of a few dozen to a few hundred words.
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Etymology
Examples
2014
Inside the 5-inch by 7-inch journal are 131 pages filled with four pieces of flash nonfiction, four pieces of fiction and one piece of analysis.
—Peter McCrady, “Cracking the spine on 'The Austin Review',” Community Impact Newspaper, January 14, 2014
2013
On Aug. 3 from 4 to 5 p.m., Pleska will help writers locate and write about memories for "The Five Minute Memoir!" In so-called "flash nonfiction," writers take and compress particular memories to write rich, engaging mini memoirs, appropriate for sending to literary magazines that are looking for short shorts.
—“Arts Notes: July 21, 2013,” Charleston Gazette, July 20, 2013
2013
Blotter as #flashnonfiction: 13-y.o. daughter brought to police station because she doesn't listen. Case referred to parents' divorce attys.
—Katjusa Cisar, “Blotter as…,” Twitter, March 01, 2013
2004 (earliest)
Flashquake is a *paying* independent, quarterly, web-based publication that focuses on works of flash fiction, flash nonfiction (memoirs, essays, creative nonfiction, humor) and short poetry.
—Pamela Heffernan, “From Beginning to End - In a Flash!,” Fiction Factor, April 02, 2004
Notes
It seems to be the fate of relatively new art forms to suffer from an excess of names. Very short fiction pieces have been called "short shorts," "micro-fictions," "instant fictions," and even "smokelongs" (a literal translation of a Chinese term referring to pieces short enough to be read in the time it takes to smoke a cigarette).

The short nonfiction genre has been going through a similar identity crisis for the past few years. It has been called "concise literary nonfiction," "compressed nonfiction," the "micro-essay," and the "mini-memoir." However, just as "flash fiction" seems to be emerging as the preferred moniker for very short stories, "flash nonfiction" is currently the most common name given to very short essays.

See this post for a list of a few places to read (and submit) flash nonfiction.

I should clarify that very short fiction and nonfiction are not "new" art forms by any means — both are easily a few thousand years old. What's relatively new is treating these types of writing as separate literary genres, hence the need for new names.
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