The story of the week for September 7 to 11 is…
Cradle by Mikaila Nalbantova
JOANNA NORLAND: My Monthly E-Mail From Aunt Grace
“…Bea’s Alzheimer’s – Don’t ask! She’s become a stranger. If my mind ever wanders like that, shoot me.
Kisses.
PS Wish Charles luck with his university applications. His great aunt is cheering him on.”
“Charlie’s a sophomore at Emory,” I answer, then start over.
“Thanks, Auntie G. I’ll let Charlie know.”
Joanna Norland is an expat Canadian playwright and writing coach based in London.
LYNN KOZLOWSKI: Ride
The old man delivers groceries in the neighborhood. One leg is stiff. He works to climb the slightest hill. He uses a child’s red wagon. When routes allow, he folds his bad leg onto the wagon, and, poling with his good leg, he rides in style down the small hills.
Lynn Kozlowski has appeared in The Citron Review, The Zodiac Review, Molecule, 50-Word Stories, Bright Flash Literary Review, Every Day Fiction, The Dribble Drabble Review, Friday Flash Fiction, Switch, and The Malahat Review. He has a volume of short pieces, Historical Markers.
NICHOLAS DE MARINO: Ufe Uife
My pirated copy of Cortázar’s “Hopscotch” is rundled with e-reader formaging errorors. The sliding li-
ne breaks meake Chapter 34 espatially interluse. The blundiest part is the mimastic transfer errorors subpausing “life.”
Or is that just post-frankle Gliglish?
I refillill my mate, creep Eden, and refususe to crudate a purated copy.
Nicholas De Marino conserves money, not sanity.
HALEY JAMESON: The Linty Piece of Gum at the Bottom of a Purse
The gum lost flavor an hour ago. It was the last piece, lost to the bottom of the bag. To spit it out is to end something, or to acknowledge its end. So I chew and dig through her purse to find what else is left. She’s nothing but receipts.
Haley (she/her) is a queer autistic writer with an MFA who has published some stuff and spends too much time on Instagram @QAWriterHaley.
NICK van OSDOL: Piggyback Ride
I gave my nephew a long piggyback ride. We chanted “It’s a new record!”
“Let’s tell the whole world,” I said.
He paused, then replied, “I don’t want to.”
He’s shy about his speech impediment. But I understand him perfectly.
“You’re right,” I said. “We already are the whole world.”
Nick van Osdol enjoys reading and writing prose and poetry. He is drawn to scenes of decay and rejuvenation. He also enjoys stick shift cars with no SIM cards. His writing is in Hobart Pulp, Citywide Lunch, Plague Circus Press, Dishsoap Quarterly, and several other places.
JOHN H. DROMEY: Occupational Hazard
“What makes you think Dave’s a pessimist?”
“The way he describes personal possessions. He has a tornado watch, a hurricane lantern, a doomsday clock, and a drop-chute to a fallout shelter with enough survivalist rations to last a decade.”
“What does he do for a living?”
“He’s an insurance actuary.”
John H. Dromey has had short fiction, humor, and poetry published in many different venues.
STORY OF THE MONTH: August 2026
The Story of the Month is chosen from the Story of the Week winners announced from the past month.
The finalists for August were:
Tug of War by Trish Fegan
Sticky Fingers by Alyson Floyd
Leo Season by Sarah Sorenson
The Cache We Carry by Paul D’Arcy
Inheritance by Atif Nawaz
Teaching the youngest how to drive by Robb Lanum
Abyss by Alyson Floyd
The winner of the August 2026 Story of the Month is…
Inheritance
MUREALL HEBERT: Still Life in a Department Store’s Bracken
A woman and child lose one another under fluorescent bulbs. Scouring aisles, the mother trumpets alarm. Alone. Halved. Cleaved by her sudden emptiness. The child curls to a fiddlehead in the cave of an endcap. He hears his mother’s voice, but he’s a fern and not a lost boy anymore.
Mureall Hebert lives near Seattle, WA. Her writing has appeared in trampset, Hobart, Citron Review, matchbook, and elsewhere. Find her online at www.mureallhebert.com and @mureallhebert.bsky.social
LIAM MacDONALD: The Unequal Distribution of Invisible Weight
His mother-in-law wears PTSD like a crown. She regales anyone within earshot about leaving her government job after her coworkers were mean to her and collecting disability for years.
He never mentions it, but he has not set foot in Lower Manhattan in the twenty-five years since the towers fell.
A recovering lawyer, Liam MacDonald has seen some things and carried a few burdens. Some weigh more than others. Find him at liammacwrites.com.