LAURA BESLEY: A season for healing

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

When you tell me you no longer love me, the late autumn sky is rose petal-red, and by winter solstice, you’re gone.

I retreat, wake only to eat. Hide away. Hibernate.

Spring trumpets its arrival, the days long and light like daffodils. I awake, I emerge, ready to live again.

Laura Besley is the author of (Un)Natural Elements, 100neHundred, and The Almost Mothers. She has been widely published in online journals, print journals and anthologies. Having lived in the Netherlands, Germany and Hong Kong, she now lives in land-locked central England and misses the sea. She tweets at @laurabesley

ANGELINE SCHELLENBERG: Giant Silk Moth

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, Touching, , ,

The kind of human who can walk through a dump and see wings, Michelle believes people make too much of distinctions: hair vs. headscarf, bike vs. cane, breast vs. scar the shape of the crescent moon. Butterfly or moth—both so beautiful. Even caterpillars, she thinks, wrapping her quilt tighter.

Angeline Schellenberg is the author of Tell Them It Was Mozart (Brick, 2016), Fields of Light and Stone (UAP, 2020), and Mondegreen Riffs (At Bay Press, forthcoming 2024). She hosts Speaking Crow: Winnipeg’s longest-running poetry open mic. See more at AngelineSchellenberg.WordPress.com.

LESLEY BUNGAY: Charmed

Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

She doesn’t believe in magic; it’s all deceit and illusion, like his promises. But when tiny fingers grasp hers, a mysterious force flows through her. What sorcery is this? she wonders. Two deep blue eyes gaze into hers. We don’t need him, they seem to say. You can do this.

Lesley also has short fiction published online at 101 Words, Paragraph Planet, and Wensum Lit, as well as a number of competition anthologies. She grew up in the North East and now lives in Hampshire.

DEREK McMILLAN: In the Soup

Amusing, Submissions, , ,

When I came down the stairs, I found my son Nigel was sharpening a knife in the kitchen. Meanwhile, his brother Maurice was boiling water in a massive electric cauldron. His sister Maria was spreading plastic sheets on the floor.

“I am really in the soup this time,” I thought.

Derek McMillan is a writer in Durringon in the UK. His editor is his wife, Angela. He has written for print and online publications in the UK, USA, and Canada. His latest book is the audio-book Brevity which is available on eBay. He also publishes a blog for flash fiction with the help of over 100 contributors.

ROWLAND SMITH: Moneta

Artistic, Poetry, Submissions, , ,

When I was seven,
My dad decided to smash everything
he’d bought for my mom in Italy:
clay sculptures of mythological figures, antique vases,
he threw each one against the kitchen wall.

We ignored it for weeks,
this pile of ceramic shards,
and the broken faces of frowning old gods.

Rowland Smith (They/Them) is a Korean-American writer based in Santa Clarita California. Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Rowland earned their BA in English Literature from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2022. They are currently pursuing an MFA at the California Institute of the Arts.

KAREN E MOORE: Death Masks

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

She emerges from his room, the mask of her grief dissolved in a mascara-streaked snotscape, black rivulets of her heart leaving trails down her beautiful face.

My gaze flicks away from the sharp-edged rawness of her private loss. North America acknowledges Death with sideways glances. Muted voices.

It’s easier, no?

Karen is a writer, pianist, and composer based in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Pivoting after a thirty-year teaching career, her studio-turned-writing-sanctuary continues to be a creative space for her art and her voice; she’s still weaving melodies, just with a different medium. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in So To Speak, Red Noise Collective, and been longlisted for the 2022, and 2023 International Amy MacRae Award For Memoir, GritLIT’s 2023 Short Story Contest, and The New Quarterly’s 2023 Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest. She has publications forthcoming in Slippery Elm, and Beyond Words.

B GARCIA: I Can’t Forget Baseball

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

I REMEMBER a mist-gray stoop, plywood propped against the fence. We played catch there, and the regular game. You taught me how.

Now I find your name in a different field. Hills, flowers, deer. A family reunites three plots away. The air is wet with their tears.

I miss you.

B. Garcia is a Creative Writing professor in the day time. At night, he moonlights as someone trying to figure out how to write in the first place.

MIKKI ARONOFF: Fool’s Gold

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

My thoughts revolve like rings around Saturn, buzz like flies circling the sap of my brain, snag on his craggy face. When I unroll the treasure map, he’s the gold glowing from inside the pirate’s chest. Funny, you say, reading my tea leaves. That’s not how he feels about you.

Mikki Aronoff has been writing more and more, but less and less when she does it.

CHRISTOPHER GANNON: Pondering

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

ACT 1:
A small pond in October.
Jimmy and I discover an old boat hidden in the overgrowth.

ACT 2:
Jimmy stands at the pond’s edge.
An elderly woman glides toward him through the fog.

ACT 3:
ME: Why can’t I see Jimmy anymore?
MOTHER: You’ll understand when you’re older.

Christopher is an Electroencephalographer from Buffalo, NY, with three published short plays: On Eating Bananas, A Conversation Over Harold, and Follow These Instructions.

MEG POKRASS: Cobb Salad

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

“You remind me of someone else,” she said, poking at the egg bits in her salad. It was happening more often now. A man would remind her of a different man who had reminded her of an even earlier man who reminded her of the only man she’d ever loved.

Meg Pokrass is the author of 8 flash fiction collections. Her latest collection, The First Law of Holes: New and Selected will be published with Dzanc Books. She lives in Inverness, Scotland.