“At first, you think it’s snowing.” This opening line of “Some of Your Favorite Things Aren’t Made to Last,” the first story in Laurie Marshall’s masterful flash collection, Proof of Life, sets the tone for an unexpected and wild, but, ultimately, very...
Bending Genres
Process, Process, Process: A Review of Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash by Michael Loveday (review by Jonathan Cardew)
When I opened up Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash by Michael Loveday, I did what I imagine most writers will do when they get this brilliant guide: I wrangled and chivvied a bunch of flashes into a novella-in-flash. Ergo, this guide works. It’s...
What We Talk About When We Don’t Talk
We’ve been together most of your life. And, I have only one rule. An eighty-four year old widow, hands trembling and crying on her marital bed - remembering her ninth year on earth and the death of her mother in 1919. Too afraid and confused to say, They took turns...
The Howl of a Cat
A rush of warm liquid puddles between my legsthen another gushes outsaturates the hospital bedpush the red button with the white outline of a nurse“let’s see here, honey...yep, you broke your water”it was too early, but the baby had almost come out way too early:late...
Review of A World Beyond Cardboard by Jonathan Cardew (by Dan Crawley)
I was ecstatic to find out that Jonathan Cardew published a debut microfiction collection, A World Beyond Cardboard (ELJ Editions, 2022). I have been following his writing for years and greatly admire his talent of creating memorable short fiction. Cardew’s use of...
A Review of Leigh Chadwick’s YOUR FAVORITE POET by Dan Crawley
Leigh Chadwick is the kind of poet who causes me to constantly blurt out, “That is so true!” when I read her superlative writing. And her new collection, Your Favorite Poet (Malarkey Books, 2022) causes me to shout my praises to the top of the sky about her...
Michelle Ross’s They Kept Running, review by Dan Crawley
They Kept Running (University of North Texas Press, 2022) by Michelle Ross is the 2021 Winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction. As I read this gem of a book by one of my favorite writers, I was not surprised this collection of flash fictions...
Baggage
The woman I met that night at the bar later became my wife. Then a little over a year ago my ex- wife. That night we were drinking on the patio and she asked to bum a cigarette. She stayed after I lit it. You couldn’t smoke indoors. This was July. Heat sticking around...
Scream
Kelsey heard it first. She shared this huge ancient wood frame house with her grandmother, her baby brother, and her cousin Joey. Many of her friends came up with excuses when asked to come over, she understood but would still be disappointed.But she heard it, the...
A review of Jayne Martin’s Daddy Chronicles by Jonathan Cardew
Less is more, so they say. But more what? In Jayne Martin’s case: more devastating, more incisive, more insightful. This book is a case in point. Through 37 bite-sized chapters, each about 100-300 words, Martin recounts her experiences growing up without a...
A Review of Stella Lei’s, “Inheritances of Hunger” by Amy Cipolla Barnes
Pull up a seat to Stella Lei’s word table with her collection Inheritances of Hunger. It feeds the soul in five story courses: “Games,” “Changeling,” “On Building a Nest,” “Graftings,” and “Meals for the End of the World.” Throughout, she...
Triumph of Female Empowerment: a review by Claire Polders of Let Our Bodies Be Returned to Us by Lynn Mundell
I’ve been a fan of Lynn Mundell’s writing ever since I discovered her work in 2015, so when her debut collection won the Yemassee 2021 Fiction Prize, I was not surprised. Mundell is a master of the darkly funny and tenderly magical. In this collection, she...
With the Help of Leigh Chadwick, I Review Shane Kowalski’s Small Moods
by Leigh Chadwick I first came across Shane Kowalski’s writing while doom-scrolling through Leigh Chadwick’s Twitter feed. It was a piece of flash fiction—nothing more than a slight paragraph. It’s been months since I read that piece of Shane Kowalski’s writing on...
How Far I’ve Come by Kim Magowan
How Far I've Come by Kim Magowan, review by Dan Crawley Kim Magowan’s How Far I’ve Come (Gold Wake Press, 2022) is a collection of flash fictions and a few longer works that brought me joy while I read. Yes, I smiled with delight, finding myself smiling time...
A Review Q&A with Myself on the Subject of Dan Crawley’s Collection The Wind, It Swirls with the Principal Answer Being I Couldn’t Put This Book Down by Jonathan Cardew
Q: Could you put this book down? A: No, I could not. I could not put this book down. Q: Why is it you couldn’t put this book down? Can you put your finger on the reason? A: I think there are many reasons. The stories fizz with interesting characters and...
TURMERIC & SUGAR: STORIES by Anna Vangala Jones; review by Dan Crawley
The debut short story collection, Turmeric & Sugar: Stories by Anna Vangala Jones (Thirty West Publishing House), is a feast for the senses and a tour of the challenges of love, triumph, and regret. Throughout, Jones’s prose is a wonderful mix of magic...
Day 2 Writing
This is where you post Day 2 Writing!
Day 1 Writing!
This is where you post Day 1 Writing!
My Fave Five- May 2021
May 2021 Series Curator: Jonathan Cardew May Selector: Andrew Bertaina What’s rare, what’s bright, what’s new? This is what we ask a new writer every month in search of the best hybrid, poetry, and flash writing from the previous month. In this edition, we catch up...
BENDING GENRES PRESENTS!!! Meg Tuite interviews Garielle Lutz about writing, life and so much more! So honored to have these two amazing writers in conversation…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTIyc9wIjL0 And you can order Gari's new book, WORSTED, from SF/LD here: https://www.hobartpulp.com/books/worsted
My Fave Five- March 2021
March 2021 Series Curator: Jonathan Cardew March Selector: Hannah Grieco What’s rare, what’s bright, what’s new? This is what we ask a new writer every month in search of the best hybrid, poetry, and flash writing from the previous month. In this edition, we catch up...
The Fall of Toby and Lady
Before the neighbors leashed and fixed their dogs, they roamed freely through our fields, and Toby, my dog, courted Lady, the Airedale next door, who had nappy hair and bivits dangling from her shaggy ass, and who was anything but. Goats climbed on tractors and ate my...
The Terminator (or How I Learned to Love My Mother)
Imagine it—a four-foot-eleven, ninety-pound Jewish woman from Brooklyn with a metabolism permanently set to hummingbird, who constantly tries to shovel partially hydrogenated high fructose food into your face. Her hearing must have gone out years ago because she never...
We Hadn’t Had the Best of Relationships
I’d heard prisoners were getting vaccinated, so I decided to get arrested. I wasn’t the only one. A temporary station was set up at the old Maytag repair center—they weren’t busy. Five people ahead of me, out front, each on a 12-inch blue circle with a pair of white...
Bubbles
“The bubbleis what you make itlevying an emotional tax …as magical as a typicalDisney trip.”(Excerpted from “The True Cost of Life in the NBA Bubble” NY Times 9/2/20) * Curly haired Rachel Landau blew a bright pink Bazooka bubble bigger than a basketball. Just as she...
On Buying Playboy with Queer Men in the Bush Era
The year is 2004. We have invaded Iraq on a lie. Over 4,000 American troops will be sent to die in the desert. 9/11 is still fresh; the nation remains flush with its victimhood. I am a senior in college. I am rife with undiagnosed mental illness. I long for security,...
Bending Genres Reading for SMOLfair- March 5, 2021 at 9:00 p.m. E.S.T. This Friday, we have a great line-up for our Bending Genres Reading for the SMOLfair book fair event happening March 3- 7. Fiction Editor, Meg Tuite and EIC Robert Vaughan will be hosting a...
What Are The Chances? by Robert Scotellaro (review by Paul Beckman)
In Robert Scotellaro’s latest collection of gems, “What Are the Chances” he tells us the chances that way only he could write of lovers, friends, family, and more in a way that leaves you shaking your head in wonderment with these fast-paced stories filled...
Time. Wow. by Neil Clark (review by Jonathan Cardew)
Full disclosure: I am a complete and utter sci-fi nerd. Give me Star Trek. Give me LeGuin. Give me 2001: A Space Odyssey. Give me anything that is not of this planet/ space-time continuum-related/full of stars. So when I first came across Neil Clark’s small,...
A Big Test
And then he thought to himself, gee, I hope it works this time. But I haven't done anything differently, so why should it?
What I Like
Thanks I hope it works!
PLEASE
Enter your post here
Hello World
Please work, oh my golly
Sister Copper Hair
I. My sister tells me that if I stare too long at the clothes whirling around in the washer I will get cancer.A. It takes a while for me to figure out this is a lie. For years, I will glance at the washer’s soapy porthole and quickly look away.B. As we grow older, I...
Review of Laurie Marshall’s Proof of Life by Francois Bereaud
“At first, you think it’s snowing.” This opening line of “Some of Your Favorite Things Aren’t Made to Last,” the first story in Laurie Marshall’s masterful flash collection, Proof of Life, sets the tone for an unexpected and wild, but, ultimately, very...
Process, Process, Process: A Review of Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash by Michael Loveday (review by Jonathan Cardew)
When I opened up Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash by Michael Loveday, I did what I imagine most writers will do when they get this brilliant guide: I wrangled and chivvied a bunch of flashes into a novella-in-flash. Ergo, this guide works. It’s...
What We Talk About When We Don’t Talk
We’ve been together most of your life. And, I have only one rule. An eighty-four year old widow, hands trembling and crying on her marital bed - remembering her ninth year on earth and the death of her mother in 1919. Too afraid and confused to say, They took turns...
The Howl of a Cat
A rush of warm liquid puddles between my legsthen another gushes outsaturates the hospital bedpush the red button with the white outline of a nurse“let’s see here, honey...yep, you broke your water”it was too early, but the baby had almost come out way too early:late...
Review of A World Beyond Cardboard by Jonathan Cardew (by Dan Crawley)
I was ecstatic to find out that Jonathan Cardew published a debut microfiction collection, A World Beyond Cardboard (ELJ Editions, 2022). I have been following his writing for years and greatly admire his talent of creating memorable short fiction. Cardew’s use of...
A Review of Leigh Chadwick’s YOUR FAVORITE POET by Dan Crawley
Leigh Chadwick is the kind of poet who causes me to constantly blurt out, “That is so true!” when I read her superlative writing. And her new collection, Your Favorite Poet (Malarkey Books, 2022) causes me to shout my praises to the top of the sky about her...
Michelle Ross’s They Kept Running, review by Dan Crawley
They Kept Running (University of North Texas Press, 2022) by Michelle Ross is the 2021 Winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction. As I read this gem of a book by one of my favorite writers, I was not surprised this collection of flash fictions...
Baggage
The woman I met that night at the bar later became my wife. Then a little over a year ago my ex- wife. That night we were drinking on the patio and she asked to bum a cigarette. She stayed after I lit it. You couldn’t smoke indoors. This was July. Heat sticking around...
Scream
Kelsey heard it first. She shared this huge ancient wood frame house with her grandmother, her baby brother, and her cousin Joey. Many of her friends came up with excuses when asked to come over, she understood but would still be disappointed.But she heard it, the...
A review of Jayne Martin’s Daddy Chronicles by Jonathan Cardew
Less is more, so they say. But more what? In Jayne Martin’s case: more devastating, more incisive, more insightful. This book is a case in point. Through 37 bite-sized chapters, each about 100-300 words, Martin recounts her experiences growing up without a...
A Review of Stella Lei’s, “Inheritances of Hunger” by Amy Cipolla Barnes
Pull up a seat to Stella Lei’s word table with her collection Inheritances of Hunger. It feeds the soul in five story courses: “Games,” “Changeling,” “On Building a Nest,” “Graftings,” and “Meals for the End of the World.” Throughout, she...
Triumph of Female Empowerment: a review by Claire Polders of Let Our Bodies Be Returned to Us by Lynn Mundell
I’ve been a fan of Lynn Mundell’s writing ever since I discovered her work in 2015, so when her debut collection won the Yemassee 2021 Fiction Prize, I was not surprised. Mundell is a master of the darkly funny and tenderly magical. In this collection, she...
With the Help of Leigh Chadwick, I Review Shane Kowalski’s Small Moods
by Leigh Chadwick I first came across Shane Kowalski’s writing while doom-scrolling through Leigh Chadwick’s Twitter feed. It was a piece of flash fiction—nothing more than a slight paragraph. It’s been months since I read that piece of Shane Kowalski’s writing on...
How Far I’ve Come by Kim Magowan
How Far I've Come by Kim Magowan, review by Dan Crawley Kim Magowan’s How Far I’ve Come (Gold Wake Press, 2022) is a collection of flash fictions and a few longer works that brought me joy while I read. Yes, I smiled with delight, finding myself smiling time...
A Review Q&A with Myself on the Subject of Dan Crawley’s Collection The Wind, It Swirls with the Principal Answer Being I Couldn’t Put This Book Down by Jonathan Cardew
Q: Could you put this book down? A: No, I could not. I could not put this book down. Q: Why is it you couldn’t put this book down? Can you put your finger on the reason? A: I think there are many reasons. The stories fizz with interesting characters and...
TURMERIC & SUGAR: STORIES by Anna Vangala Jones; review by Dan Crawley
The debut short story collection, Turmeric & Sugar: Stories by Anna Vangala Jones (Thirty West Publishing House), is a feast for the senses and a tour of the challenges of love, triumph, and regret. Throughout, Jones’s prose is a wonderful mix of magic...
Day 2 Writing
This is where you post Day 2 Writing!
Day 1 Writing!
This is where you post Day 1 Writing!
My Fave Five- May 2021
May 2021 Series Curator: Jonathan Cardew May Selector: Andrew Bertaina What’s rare, what’s bright, what’s new? This is what we ask a new writer every month in search of the best hybrid, poetry, and flash writing from the previous month. In this edition, we catch up...
BENDING GENRES PRESENTS!!! Meg Tuite interviews Garielle Lutz about writing, life and so much more! So honored to have these two amazing writers in conversation…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTIyc9wIjL0 And you can order Gari's new book, WORSTED, from SF/LD here: https://www.hobartpulp.com/books/worsted
My Fave Five- March 2021
March 2021 Series Curator: Jonathan Cardew March Selector: Hannah Grieco What’s rare, what’s bright, what’s new? This is what we ask a new writer every month in search of the best hybrid, poetry, and flash writing from the previous month. In this edition, we catch up...
The Fall of Toby and Lady
Before the neighbors leashed and fixed their dogs, they roamed freely through our fields, and Toby, my dog, courted Lady, the Airedale next door, who had nappy hair and bivits dangling from her shaggy ass, and who was anything but. Goats climbed on tractors and ate my...
The Terminator (or How I Learned to Love My Mother)
Imagine it—a four-foot-eleven, ninety-pound Jewish woman from Brooklyn with a metabolism permanently set to hummingbird, who constantly tries to shovel partially hydrogenated high fructose food into your face. Her hearing must have gone out years ago because she never...
We Hadn’t Had the Best of Relationships
I’d heard prisoners were getting vaccinated, so I decided to get arrested. I wasn’t the only one. A temporary station was set up at the old Maytag repair center—they weren’t busy. Five people ahead of me, out front, each on a 12-inch blue circle with a pair of white...
Bubbles
“The bubbleis what you make itlevying an emotional tax …as magical as a typicalDisney trip.”(Excerpted from “The True Cost of Life in the NBA Bubble” NY Times 9/2/20) * Curly haired Rachel Landau blew a bright pink Bazooka bubble bigger than a basketball. Just as she...
On Buying Playboy with Queer Men in the Bush Era
The year is 2004. We have invaded Iraq on a lie. Over 4,000 American troops will be sent to die in the desert. 9/11 is still fresh; the nation remains flush with its victimhood. I am a senior in college. I am rife with undiagnosed mental illness. I long for security,...
Bending Genres Reading for SMOLfair- March 5, 2021 at 9:00 p.m. E.S.T. This Friday, we have a great line-up for our Bending Genres Reading for the SMOLfair book fair event happening March 3- 7. Fiction Editor, Meg Tuite and EIC Robert Vaughan will be hosting a...
What Are The Chances? by Robert Scotellaro (review by Paul Beckman)
In Robert Scotellaro’s latest collection of gems, “What Are the Chances” he tells us the chances that way only he could write of lovers, friends, family, and more in a way that leaves you shaking your head in wonderment with these fast-paced stories filled...
Time. Wow. by Neil Clark (review by Jonathan Cardew)
Full disclosure: I am a complete and utter sci-fi nerd. Give me Star Trek. Give me LeGuin. Give me 2001: A Space Odyssey. Give me anything that is not of this planet/ space-time continuum-related/full of stars. So when I first came across Neil Clark’s small,...
A Big Test
And then he thought to himself, gee, I hope it works this time. But I haven't done anything differently, so why should it?
What I Like
Thanks I hope it works!
PLEASE
Enter your post here
Hello World
Please work, oh my golly
Sister Copper Hair
I. My sister tells me that if I stare too long at the clothes whirling around in the washer I will get cancer.A. It takes a while for me to figure out this is a lie. For years, I will glance at the washer’s soapy porthole and quickly look away.B. As we grow older, I...