You’ve written your flash fiction or short story and are ready to hit submit—wait! You churn out title after title but cast each aside as worse than the last. That’s when you realize you’re stuck on the dreaded title treadmill. None of your selections fit your story. What do you do? Do you use a […]
Get OFF the Title Treadmill: 3 Simple Tactics for Flash Fiction & Short Story Submitters Read More »
Y ou do this man, we crew, yeah?” I nod, but it’s lost in the shake that has taken hold of me. I try to speak, but the drum and bass beat of the car radio batters my heart into a rhythm. I grip the steering, feeling my knuckles blanch. “We
O n my desk, nestled among the chess pieces I use for paperweights, is a To Do list with a single entry. Plan Life This should mean that sometime today I’ll be doing whatever such a note is meant to imply. It should mean that, but,
B e watchful of voices that shout shouldn’t, mustn’t, don’t. They said she shouldn’t climb up the fire escape and whisper conversations with the night sky. It was one thing to perch on the roof’s edge, feet dangling, and look down on the city below, taking in the glow of neon lights. But who was
The Wise Internal Voice Read More »
I cy wind rattled the coffee shop windows. The string of fairy lights outside the storefront shook, striking the glass in a repeating tink, tink, tink, like the drumming of skeletal fingers. Darkness came early this time of year, but the shop was lit with the soft glow of many stained-glass lamps. It felt safe.
T here was no room for fear at the circus. As infants, my sister Jenny and I learned to walk by balancing our child-soft legs on the gravity-defying materials of tightwires and bouncing ropes. We were birds, a fear of tumbling
Ghosts of Circus Past Read More »
What to Know About Promoting a Culture of Reading Stories Published in the Short Fiction Community…and Submitting to Magazines By Best Fit I recently read an X post between a harried magazine editor and a submitter who told him most authors shot gunned their submissions and didn’t have time to read the stories of every
I wake to the sound of bleating. What the fuck? While still half asleep, I crawl out of bed at–what–2:36 am? I grab my phone and the Swiss Army knife I keep on the bedside table and lumber down the stairs. I make as much noise as possible to scare any
Goats in the Boiler Room Read More »
“…Travellers ne’er did lie, though fools at home condemn them.” (William Shakespeare: The Tempest; Act 3, Scene 3) D aphne and Ari pulled up at the recharging station next to Conway Convenience Store. She said, “While you charge her up, I’ll pop in for an iced peppermint cone. D’ya want one?”
Daphne and the Driftwood Read More »
A woodsman gave me a ride for the last few miles. He was surprised to find a young woman on the mountain path. “You’re a student?” he said. “From Piarista gymnazium,” I said. “Where the witch burning happened last week,” he said. “Awful stuff.” We passed through small settlements; the path wound up through the
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