All posts by Tim

CAROL HUEBSCH REEVES: For Lia with Love

Submissions, Touching, , , ,

When the sun set on your soul, the world went dark. We who loved you are left to stumble in darkness—shattered. Dawn will come again, but never the dawn we knew. May we reach into our hearts, where the beauty of you dwells forever, and find solace.

A prolific writer, Carol Huebsch Reeves embraces the freedom and creativity of Flash Fiction. Most of her stories speak to life’s joys and challenges. Her work is found in Flash Fiction Magazine and 50 Word Stories. Carol’s memoir, “All the Little Miracles,” was published in 2022.

ABBAS IRAVANI TABRIZIPOUR: The Painting

Artistic, Submissions, ,

One day, the photograph said to the painting, “Why are you so valuable and precious? Compared to me, you are full of flaws and defects.”

The painting humbly replied, “You are like an angel: all your goodness is inherent. But I am like a human being: my goodness is art.”

Abbas Iravani Tabrizipour is a 54-year-old from Iran who recently won second prize in the Ahvaz 2025 International Very Short Fiction Competition (stories under ten words).

JOANNE MERRIAM: The Farmer

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

Insurgency started with small seeds, the woman he compromised lying under oath, the celebrity he made famous shot at the border. Every year a new crop of plump Kalashnikovs, succulent Swiss accounts. He thought he understood cultivation, but finds himself set out to dry, the seed of some future flowering.

Joanne Merriam lives in Nova Scotia. Her writing has appeared in dozens of periodicals including Baltimore Review, Pictura, and Under the Basho. She owns Upper Rubber Boot Books, known for the first English-language anthology of solarpunk, Sunvault. You can find her at joannemerriam.com.

AJ JOSEPH: The Taste of Forgetting

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , , , ,

Lila served Gerald the same iced latte in 1892, 2025, and 3041. He never remembered. She always did. “Happenstance,” he said, smiling at the déjà vu. She stirred in grief, knowing he’d forget again before the foam settled. Time bent for him; for her, it only bruised, and always lingered.

AJ Joseph is trying to tame her overgrown garden so that her cats don’t get lost in the weeds.

JOANNA ALEXANDRA NORLAND: Sticks and Stones

Artistic, Submissions, Touching, , , , ,

She seized a stick and scrawled “I love you” in the sand.
He chose a boulder and sharpened his chisel.
All afternoon, he scored, hammered and chipped.
He called to her at last to present his reply.
By then, she had skipped away and the tide had erased her words.

Joanna Alexandra Norland’s plays, including Lizzy, Darcy and Jane, and Mothers Have Nine Lives, have been produced on four continents.

KEN GOSSE: When the Fig Falls

Amusing, Poetry, Submissions, , , , ,

Has anyone ever given a fig
about credit due to the Cheshire cat?
Proving gravity, and without breaking a twig,
he knocked down an apple, a well-timed cat pat,
beaning the fellow below writing trig.
“Eureka!” he quoted, but as he yelled “Scat!”
the cat disappeared while adjusting his wig.

Ken Gosse usually writes whimsical, rhymed verse. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, later in Pure Slush, Home Planet News, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Spillwords, and many others. Raised in Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife live in Mesa, AZ, with rescue dogs and cats.

COLLEEN ADDISON: Bee Hospital

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

“Half-sugar, half-water,” says my friend, as tiny forelegs grasp at the eyedropper. I peer at the drinking insect and note its wings, ragged from the neighbour’s mosquito repellent. Later we watch the bee burrowing into its nest of roses, of ripped-up tissues. We listen to its buzzing, sweeter now, sugar-happy.

Colleen Addison completed a PhD in health information and promptly got sick herself. She now lives, writes, and heals on an island near Vancouver. Her work has been in River Teeth, Painted Pebble Lit Mag, and Halfway Down the Stairs.

STEVEN LEMPRIÈRE: Rough and Tumble

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , , ,

Wexford summers. Cousins. Some removed, others should be.

A bruising stick-and-ball game settles scores.

Red Lemonade, 99s, ice-cream wafers, crisps and slap-up feeds.

Ravenous teams jostle, devouring gritty ham or salmon paste sandwiches. Each liberally seasoned with sharp, salty silica.

At day’s end, sunburnt cousins dream, war-painted with Calamine lotion.

Steven is still picking sand granules from between his teeth years after the long hot summers of childhood holidays spent visiting family in Ireland.

KC SELBY: Our Spot

Submissions, Touching, ,

We were fifteen paces west of the boardwalk. The sun threw itself, orange and glowing, against the sea. You left to grab marshmallows.

Today I scooped a handful of sand from the spot. Brought it home and poured it on your side of the bed. Almost believed you were here.

K.C. Selby is a fiction writer living in the Midwest with her husband and too many houseplants. Her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Killer Nashville Magazine, Blink-Ink, several anthologies, and more. She can be found at www.kcselbywriter.com.