All posts by Tim

LARISSA THOMSON: Let’s Pretend

Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

She was always immaculately put together—linen suits, manicured nails, hair colour every six weeks—but a heart attack has you in her apartment discovering her unwashed undergarments and a cache of diet pills in a bathroom cabinet.

You can’t just shut that cabinet and walk away now, my friend.

Larissa Thomson is from British Columbia, Canada. She loves to write flash fiction and short stories, but this is her first foray into micro fiction. She is raising two humans and hopefully teaching them the importance of looking beyond the superficial.

MARY KUNA: Another Ugly Duckling

Artistic, Submissions, Touching, , , , ,

Wistful, she sketched long-limbed, elegant ballerinas. Twelve was too old to start dancing.

She learned otherwise at thirty, hand on the barre, feet turned out. Age thirty-two, peachy-pink satin pointe shoes, bloody blisters, bruised toenails, no talent. Rare moments of effortless double pirouettes or soaring leaps were worth the wait.

Mary Kuna lives in Saint John, New Brunswick. Her flash fiction has received second prize in Brilliant Flash Fiction’s Librarians’ Choice Writing Contest and an honorable mention in Queer Sci Fi’s Innovation contest and anthology. She tweets sporadically at @MaryKuna.

ROSALEEN LYNCH: The Succulent

Artistic, Poetry, Submissions, , ,

She was,
He said,
Most tender,
Juicy at the core,
And delicious.
Thick fleshy limbs,
Like he liked,
Engorged organs,
Full of liquid life,
Until the cut,
When he watched it sap away.
Sticky in the gathering earth,
Surrounding her return to roots,
In death buried to be born again.

Rosaleen Lynch, an Irish community worker and writer in the East End of London, pursues stories conversational, literary and performed. Words in Jellyfish Review, EllipsisZine, Fish, Mslexia, The London Reader and other lovely places and can be found on Twitter at @quotes_52 and 52Quotes.blogspot.com.

HAYDEN KAMIDE: It’s a girl!

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

It’s celebratory and devoid of any guidance on how hard it’s going to be. Life anew. They beam, hand you a baby. Everyone back slaps you. Hugs. Gifts. They never tell you how it will feel to find her on the bedroom floor with a needle jammed in her arm.

Hayden Kamide lives in New York. Probably not the hip part you’re thinking about, but the other part. He believes in the importance of kindness, yet recognizes his own hypocrisy, especially when he sometimes swears at people who cut him off in traffic. But, when it happens, he does feel bad about it… later. Much, much later.

STORY OF THE WEEK: November 22

News

The story of the week for November 16 to 20 is…

Extra Time by David Holloway
and
Songs for the Light by Noriko Jayasekera

Been a while since we had a double, but I wanted to honour both of these!

LINDA McMULLEN: The Gallant Ship

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

The water’s rising; it’s washed away the righteous and the sinners. I’m still here. I’ve bailed, prayed, bailed again. Ahead, there’s a girl huddled on a rooftop. I navigate toward her, lift her into the hissing raft.

It sighs, loudly.

I wave goodbye, clambering onto the slates.

The water’s rising—

Linda McMullen is a wife, mother, diplomat, and homesick Wisconsinite. Her short stories and the occasional poem have appeared in over seventy literary magazines.

SHARON GERGER: Happy Days Ahead

Amusing, Submissions, , , ,

He forced her retirement.

She used to love writing. He mocked her stories, told her he paid her to edit, not write drivel.

His words ate her confidence and she stopped writing.

For a while.

Bookkeeping will soon discover a theft. She’s left plenty of writing behind to implicate him.

Sharon Gerger is about to retire. She will not be committing any crimes on her way out the door. Her writing appears here and there, in print and on the internet.

DAVID HOLLOWAY: Extra Time

Amusing, Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , , ,

I cleaned out the kitchen junk drawer, and along with toothpicks, ballpoint pens, and dead batteries, I found three hours I’d lost in 2006. Should I mow the lawn, get extra sleep, fix my life?

Caught in traffic, I pulled them out. No good: they were deader than the batteries.

David Holloway lives and writes in Northern Virginia. He has had work published in Gargoyle, Kayak, and The Mad River Review.

BRIAN MAYCOCK: The Museum of the Lost

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

It looks at the Blue Whale suspended overhead and sadness clouds its thoughts. It is a robot but not unfeeling.

Programmed to preserve, it has overseen the installation of thousands of extinct species.

It watches the latest display being lowered into place. A male and a female. Designation: Homo sapiens.

Brian Maycock recently won the Scottish Book Trust’s monthly 50-word story competition and lives in Glasgow.

CHERYL SOMERS AUBIN: Sleeping

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

A baby boy sleeps, tummy side up, arms and legs open in vulnerability and confidence. A mother puts a hand to his chest, feeling the rise and fall, listens to his ragged breathing. On the floor beside the crib, she lays on her side, curled inward, fear coiling around her.

Cheryl Somers Aubin’s work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, and online journals. She has an MA/Writing from Johns Hopkins University and is the author of The Survivor Tree: Inspired by a True Story. Cheryl teaches memoir writing and is featured speaker at book festivals and writing conferences.