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FLASH FICTION

Image is a color photograph of snowy barn with tracks leading toward it; title card for the CRAFT 2023 Setting Sketch Challenge Winner, "North Country, New York," by Gabrielle Hovendon.

North Country, New York by Gabrielle Hovendon

October 4, 2023

  In dreams at the backs of my eyelids, I was still twelve years old traveling in a car luminous with anger. I could feel the slow braking as we turned onto the county highway. I could see the horizon…

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Image is a color photograph of a jack-o-lantern in a window; title card for the flash fiction story "How to Say That We Want to Say Everything Is Okay" by Luka Poljak.

How to Say That We Want to Say Everything Is Okay by Luka Poljak

September 15, 2023

  She said she wanted me to meet her parents up in Squamish the week after I came back and that if I wanted to die it would be okay, but only after I meet her parents. So we drove…

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Image shows a blue-and-red striped circus tent from below, strung with star streamers; title card for new microfiction,"Sibling Circus" and "Hooked," by Meg Pokrass.

Sibling Circus & Hooked by Meg Pokrass

August 18, 2023

  Sibling Circus My brother was addicted to dog biscuits and this might have been how our act started. When our mother arrived, he’d pop one in his mouth, throw one to the real dog and then toss one to…

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Image shows a rhinoceros standing in a field of brown grass, with woods in the background; title card for new microfiction by Shih-Li Kow.

Sibling Parenting & Father’s Day by Shih-Li Kow

May 19, 2023

  Sibling Parenting Ai Ping’s brother said women who habitually declared they found happiness in everyday things were the hardest to please. If a woman required x affirmations of happiness a day, each having an effect which lasted an average…

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Image shoes a close view of nine bees entering a hole in a white beekeeping box; title card for 2022 Amelia Gray 2K Contest winner "Birds x Bees" by Katharine Duckett.

Birds x Bees by Katharine Duckett

April 28, 2023

  Esther was sixteen the summer that all the bees in her father’s hives died. Those were the days when she was in love with everything. The curtains in her room, billowing with the morning breeze; the spongy hills leading…

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Image is an aerial/overhead shot of trucks parked in a lot in the snow at nighttime; title card for 2022 Amelia Gray 2K Contest winner "Penny, Barbara, Ruth, Irene" by Amy Grote.

Penny, Barbara, Ruth, Irene by Amy Grote

April 21, 2023

  After three gin martinis, my mother-in-law spits out her teeth. “You’re a cannonball with a credit card,” she hisses. Her dentures glisten like pearls in her palm. Never, she likes to remind me, did she foresee her sweet son…

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Image shows colorful chappals hanging on a wire at a market; title card for 2022 Amelia Gray 2K Contest winner "Flapping Wings and a Shoeless Walk" by Sudha Balagopal.

Flapping Wings and a Shoeless Walk by Sudha Balagopal

April 14, 2023

  My daughter, Savi, instructs me to wear shoes when I go for my morning walk. She says it’s not considered exercise otherwise. I tell her my toes feel imprisoned in shoes and slide my feet into chappals before I…

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Image shows a switchback staircase at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; title card for When You Visit Manhattan on Saturday and Your Boyfriend Who Lives in Queens Says He Can’t Come by Nathan Xie.

When You Visit Manhattan on Saturday and Your Boyfriend Who Lives in Queens Says He Can’t Come by Nathan Xie

April 7, 2023

  after Jenny Offill On the hour-long train ride to New York City, you read a book about a divorce that almost but doesn’t quite happen. Your boyfriend says he’s knocked out from miscellaneous paperwork and allergy headaches and his…

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Image shows a cracked cicada shell on tree bark, partially obscured by green fronds of grass; title card for the new flash fiction, "House of Cicadas," by Gabriela Lee.

House of Cicadas by Gabriela Lee

April 3, 2023

  Aboveground I was twelve years old when I last saw Blanca Esperanto. She lived at the end of the road. Their house was a brown, dry affair of rustling wood and dark leaves. She loved sitting on the ledge…

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Image shows two security cameras on a pole in front of a blue sky; title card for the new flash fiction, "The Replacement," by Paul Rousseau.

The Replacement by Paul Rousseau

March 10, 2023

  4. It is prom night. A group of us are out to eat at The Urban Hive, on the rooftop. Couples sit in pairs around a table forged of meteorite. Smoky black, with a network of tiny bubble cells,…

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