JOHN HOLMES: Punctuation Sale

Amusing, Submissions, Top Stories, , ,

I was disappointed, discouraged and sad to miss out on last weeks Black Friday Bonanza at the Oxford Comma shop. However, my brothers friends mother said theres a closing down sale at Berts Apostrophe Store. Apparently its going into administration, but Im not that bothered; I never go there anyway.

John has recently had stories published in People’s Friend, 101 words, Paragraph Planet, Westword and FFF. He’s the author of ‘Rough Rides’ and ‘Short and Sweet and Sour’. Previous winner of The Times short story competition.

RACHEL DU MONT-GREENLEE: Time Crunch

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , ,

History: so much of it. All day in the ship’s library, she archives dates, names, places. Overwhelming at times, yes, storing the collective past in data files on the small, boxy tablet she holds. But someone, she says, will need it some day: the world’s story rests in her hands.

Rachel is a tricenarian Cultural Studies PhD candidate who researches historical preservation.

THOMAS MALLOCH: An Epiphany

Submissions, Touching, , , ,

On the evening of the twelfth day of Christmas, I lit a candle at our bedroom window, curtains open so that, framed by the darkness and the ice-rimed glass, the flame would seem to burn the brighter. A fitting first remembrance, my love.

Sometimes, even grief can be a gift.

Thomas Malloch is retired. Always a reader. Fancied writing. Sometimes gets published.

JENNIFER L FREED: My Mother Dreams of Christmas Past

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , ,

I hold my tongue as I listen to my mother spin
more festive plans. No point reminding her
that she hasn’t decorated the house for years,
that no one expects a woman with a walker
to prepare a party for twenty,
that this is her last winter in her home.

Jennifer L Freed is author of When Light Shifts, a memoir-in-poems about the aftermath of her mother’s cerebral hemorrhage. Please visit jfreed.weebly.com to learn more.

CHARLES C GAINES: Drapes of Dusk

Artistic, Poetry, Submissions, , , , ,

The drapes of dusk
descend across the forest.
Four thin daggers of sunset
pierce the dark fabric,
shining through tightly woven wood.
Bright needles, burning orange
and red, glowing hotly.
The last shouts of daylight
in the slumbering wildwood,
quietly succumbing beneath
the gloaming’s weight.

Charles C Gaines is a recently retired former gunfighter, school teacher and coach, general dentist living in Fort Worth, Texas. At 73 years of age, he has begun to take seriously a life-long love of poetry, writing on a wide variety of subjects that capture his attention.

JENNY MATTERN: Signs of Angels

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

I freeze, listening to the curious tinkling.

Hugo taps my shoulder and signs, What is it?

A… noise? I reply with my hands.

Eyebrows raised, he gestures to his ears—as useless as mine—and awaits the punchline.

I’m too busy watching the angels descend, one by one, to respond.

Jenny Mattern is a poet, a crafter of stories, and a cake-for-breakfast enthusiast who lives with her family in Montana. She is represented by Nicole Eisenbraun at Ginger Clark Literary Agency.

VICTOR KREUITER: Harold

Artistic, Submissions, ,

He was generous, that’s what everyone said. He just passed away.

He was a Weber, lived three doors down from us. There’s never been a shortage of Webers around here.

Halloween, he’d pass out quarters. Quarters would get you into a movie back then.

Harold. That was his first name.

Victor Kreuiter lives, reads, and writes in the Midwest. His stories have appeared in Bewildering Stories, Halfway Down The Stairs, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Literally Stories, Tough, Del Sol SFF Review, The Windhover, Crimeucopia’s 2024 “Let Me Tell You About” anthology, and other online and print publications. His story, “Miller and Bell,” originally published in the August, 2022, issue of Mystery, was selected to appear in The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of 2023.

KAREN LOZINSKI: Making an Honest Man Out of Him

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

A comet graced the violet sky of their fourth year. They swigged bottle cap equivalents of cheap wine in the produce section, then laughed their way around the sundry aisles. In the parking lot, she proposed. He wondered why she didn’t grab a knee and if he’d get a ring.

Karen Lozinski hails from NYC and lives in New Orleans. She’s a multidisciplinary artist who earned her MFA at the California Institute of the Arts. At work on a novel and poetry collection, her writing appears in Talon Review, Scapegoat Review, Red Ogre Review, The Dead Mule, Chapter House Journal, ellipsis… literature and art, The Citron Review, 300 Days of Sun, Mantis, and here and is forthcoming in Defunkt.

IZZY FERGUSON: Those Baby Shoes

Artistic, Submissions, Touching, , , , ,

I bought those Hemingway baby shoes, the ones he said had never been worn. I examined them when they arrived, and it wasn’t true: a baby had clearly spit up on the laces. Why would Hemingway lie? Everything is worn, if only by the air around it, and by time.

Izzy Ferguson has written for several journals (Pank, Books in Canada, Cottage Life, Section A et al), was an associate editor at The Idler, even won a Silver Medal from the International Magazine Association. One of his essays appears in a college ‘How-to-Write’ textbook between Jonathan Swift and John Updike, a couple of guys who might vouch for him. Canada’s national literary competition (the CBC Literary Prize) shortlisted him for the Poetry Prize, longlisted him for the Fiction Prize, tacked on three longlistings for the Creative Non-Fiction Prize. And he directed a Toronto improv troupe for several years (until “The Kids in the Hall” emerged from it), more recently devolved into a Fringe Festival and cabaret storyteller.