Bending Genres LLC

All new @BendingGenres Anthology, Bending in the Breeze- 54 talented authors and their latest new, or repurposed, attributed hybrid beauties! Edited with Amy Marques, design by @pubgen Adam Robinson. AWP launch!!!

All new @BendingGenres Issue 49 is now live! Our Jan/ Feb 2026 issue is filled with fantastic hybrid flash, poetry and CNF, an amazing issue! Congratulations to all editors and writers! Happy Publication Day!!! #Writer #writerslift #writerscommunity

All new @BendingGenres Issue 49 is now live! Our Jan/ Feb 2026 issue is filled with fantastic hybrid flash, poetry and CNF, an amazing issue! Congratulations to all editors and writers! Happy Publication Day!!! #Writer #writerslift #writerscommunity

MASTHEAD Mythic Micros by @KellieScottReed @KMWriter01 @rtigernyc @rgvaughan @HAWKEYE_mag @fshrum @ColinMGee @moranpress @TCWestminster @VictorDeAnda @RobSmith3 & @Fijo_Frenchie Curated by @NathanBorn2010 / Nathan Pettigrew #MythicPicnicTweetStory === === We wanted to do a MASTHEAD series to celebrate the magazines and small presses and the great people behind them helping to create literature with little or no hope of compensation beyond the love of words and magazines and books. Because of them we’ve found new writers. And new friends. In this first issue of MASTHEAD we have some of the people behind @press_roi @litgarage01 @Blood_Honey_Lit @BendingGenres @HAWKEYE_mag @SkywayJournal @GorkoThe @moranpress @BunkerSquirrels @RHP_Press & @punk_magazine — thank you all for what you do, and thank you to @NathanBorn2010 for pulling it all together. Mark === === The Tyranny of a Sunny Day . It’s a late fall day but it could be June. I get up from the desk To the door To outside Feeling a bit crazy, a little compulsive. So terrifying is the winter’s promise, I can’t waste a moment of This unseasonable warmth. The sunshine; the trees in their gold and red gowns cannot contain it. It bounces off and into prisms Accelerating this manic energy into A world buzzing and confused. Like that uptick in the demeanor someone who really just wants to end it all, But keeps it hidden because they mean it this time. It’s all dying now you know. But when the last living human staggers and then crawls their way to the dry river bed, I will be long dead, And this thought, yet another distraction. I open the front door for the third time today, I have nowhere to go. Alone with this hunger that won’t be satisfied because my day lacks form and structure- or is the structure the problem? Who fucking knows. Maybe I’ll go in and start dinner. But goddamn it, I can’t seem to stop staring at the sky. . by Kellie Scott-Reed of Roi Fainéant Press @KellieScottReed / @press_roi Kellie Scott-Reed is a writer, songwriter, AEIC of Roi Faineant Press, and the 1st AD on the TV Series “Deep End”. Her work can be found in Punk Noir Magazine, Mythic Picnic, Synchronized Chaos, Eratio Post Modern Poetry, Book/Chapbook Reviews in Roi Faineant Press, Moss Puppy where her piece “Venom” was nominated for the 2025 Pushcart Prize , Bullshit Lit, Houghley Review, Maintenant 17(photography) and her short fiction is featured in “The Place Where Everyone’s Name is Fear” an anthology from OutCast/Anxiety presses and Roi Faineant Press. Her songs can be found on iTunes and Spotify, under the band name FIVEHEAD. The press can be located at roifaineantpress . com and the YouTube channel can be found at https://youtube . com /@roifaineantpress4163?si=TaJpeLIxTWaUha_M where she conducts interviews with authors from all across the world. === === Last Exit . On a two-lane county road west of Macon, the sky finally split open in a blast of lightning and earth-shaking thunder. When the rain hit, it wasn’t gentle. It was a downpour, jagged and relentless, slicing at the asphalt in sheets. The wind howled, the road gleamed like black ice, and Archer found himself squinting into the gray, trying to keep the Harley between the lines. Archer pulled the bike into a small bar tucked near the highway exit and went inside to shake off the rain, killing time until it eased up. Inside, a handful of locals leaned into the bar, nursing beers and shots and half-finished conversations. A couple of guys rattled pool balls at the far end, playing a game of eight-ball. Nobody looked up when Archer dropped onto a stool and ordered a Jack Daniels. Kid Rock thumped from the corner jukebox, and a redhead at the bar tilted into the beat, shoulders loose, eyes half-closed. She traced a finger around her glass rim, pulling it to her lips with a slow, careful drag. Something about the way she sucked away the salt held Archer’s attention. Quietly sipping his whiskey, he chanced a smile when she finally glanced his way, but she casually flipped the hair from her face, turning from his stare. Outside, the rain eased as fast as it had begun. She finished her drink, gathered her purse, smiling to the bartender and the people around her. She checked the mirror behind the bar before standing, not the door. As she said her goodbyes, Archer could already feel the warmth of her skin, the faint trace of tequila on her breath, the way her voice would change when he pulled her close. He laid a twenty on the bar, slid his fingers into his coat pocket around the cold steel of his switchblade, and stepped back out into the shadows of the parking lot. . by Michael Downing of Literary Garage @KMWriter01 / @litgarage01 Michael Downing is the author of SAINTS of the ASPHALT and editor of Literary Garage’s upcoming Warren Zevon anthology, LAWYERS, GUNS, AND BAD INTENTIONS. === === The Spanakopita was Soggy . from two rounds of re-heating and all they’d do in the kitchen is spit on it, standard protocol for difficult customers and yes, I know it didn’t taste authentic but you came to Mr. Gyro’s in the French Quarter; I told you to go somewhere else, get a hamburger, but you whined that you’re a vegetarian as if that had anything to do with me and I was just trying to spare you, get you to leave before Stavros came in, saw the uneaten green lump and made you or me pay for it, and you asked me why I worked there as if I didn’t wonder this too, as if I wasn’t three shifts away from quitting because I was only ever assigned to lunch, serving greasy fries and overcooked lamb slathered in tzatziki to day drinkers stumbling three blocks up from Molly’s Irish Pub too drunk to tip and Stavros would ask me if I was gay, “You always wear pants like man,” though that was the uniform he told me to wear and when he would call me to fill in a night shift, serve ouzo to his coked-up friends until 3 am for a $20 tip, he’d say, “next time wear skirt,” but next time, I quit and when Stavros drove his white BMW up and down the narrow streets, Chartres and Dumaine, with his gun because someone told him I called the health department to report violations, I was out of town and by the time he realized it was his scorned lover, the day chef Malik, there was nothing any of us could do to stop him. The police didn’t care, another dead black kid from the Lower 9th ward, and when we had our makeshift memorial, beers on the spot along the Mississippi River where Malik smoked weed during his break, we cried with disbelief and perhaps awe at the mercurial world whose rules we were learning as we went along. . by Rebecca Tiger of Blood + Honey @rtigernyc / @Blood_Honey_Lit Rebecca Tiger teaches sociology at a college and in jails in Vermont and lives part-time in NYC. She writes stories on the long train ride between her two homes. Her work has appeared in Bending Genres, BULL, Hippocampus, Mom Egg Review, Peatsmoke, Roi Faineant, Tiny Molecules and elsewhere. twitter: @rtigernyc === === Scales and Reckless / Abandon . Scales I was captured by the Algonquins. My parents stole me right back. Then a different tribe stole me again. One minute I was in the teepee suckling the dark teat of my new mother, the next I sat at the mahogany dining table eating my oatmeal with a silver spoon. It was the first day of summer. One of my fathers was rosining his bow. The other one was practicing his scales, especially the minor ones. . Reckless/ Abandon Reckless: He shows a wreaking disregard for the safety of others. He has of late, he knows not how, lost his mirth. Wild and foolhardy he bungee-jumps from sharp objects, dallying, drives three sheets to the wind, drinks kamikaze shots while bowling for dollars he doesn’t have. To be or not to be, he is reckless like a necklace strung too tight without a clasp, a wasp with no asp Abandon: She ditches the car on a back road in an attempt to flee her past. She puts her hand over her mouth, the robin egg crushes underfoot. She can taste danger seeping through her pores, down her back, into the willow roots. Incapable of her own distress, she will fling herself, unrestrained, to the swamp, rue, from the brook. She springs free from encroachment, skimming like an amoeba across quicksand. . by Robert Vaughn of Bending Genres @rgvaughan / @BendingGenres Robert Vaughan is an award-winning author, playwright, and teacher. His books include Microtones (Cervena Barva, 2012), Diptychs + Triptychs + Lipsticks + Dipshits (Deadly Chaps, 2013), Addicts & Basements (CCM, 2014), RIFT (Unknown Press, 2015), Funhouse (Unknown Press, 2016), and Askew (Cowboy Jamboree, 2022). He was twice the runner-up for the Gertrude Stein Award for Fiction. His work has been widely anthologized, including the New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction (W.W. Norton, 2018) and Best Small Fictions 2016 and 2019 (Sonder Press), His plays have been produced in S.F., N.Y.C., and Milwaukee. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Bending Genres. www.robert-vaughan . com === === My Glass is Empty . Outside my tent, which we all call “The Swamp” for its general untidiness and slovenly charms, I trace the stars through New England fog, my sad sigh dispersing in this village north of Seoul. Remember Crabapple Cove? I ask myself, gin in hand. I swish the glass and, bottoms up, chew the olive, thinking of Maine lobster, the world’s finest, and Hardy Island, where I once canoed with my sweetheart, losing our innocence on its rocky shore. The stars are as numerous in Korea as they are in coastal Maine, yet somehow, for some reason, they do not twinkle as they did when I was young. The lights from The Swamp, The Officer’s Club beyond, play off my martini glass, a small white fire. I smile at its fierce tiny beacon, though my grin is more bitter than home-brew gin. Back inside, Mozart plays—sophistication to mask brutality. Laughter echoes behind a fan of cards, a poker game, where money is exchanged: military scrip. Meaningless. Everything, meaningless. Don Giovanni bellows amid the night, women wailing, screaming—Mozart is the music of war. And there it is, a sound to herald the aftermath of slaughter. Helicopters in the distance, approaching fast, carrying young boys far away from home. Chariots of fire—chariots on fire. And we all know what it means: a long shift ahead, meatball surgery and last rites. The music stops. The cards are laid down. Outside, I sigh Atlantic fog, veiling the stars that do not shine. I raise my glass, its rim on my lips. But there is nothing there. My glass is empty. . by HAWKEYE / @HAWKEYE_mag === === HELP US FIND HER . ESBEYDA ITZAMELY LUIS SANCHEZ last seen in the neighborhood Santa Lucia, City of Oaxaca by the shutdown Pemex gas station, in clothes: purple yoga tights, red blouse with #19 on the back, black fanny pack, favorite baseball cap also black with no words. Maybe wore her Crocs and backpack from night school too. Personal characteristics: toothy smile, thick lips, lazy eye, good eye being black, hair black, flat nose, five foot two, thin to look at, about 85 pounds, no makeup or jewelry to speak of. Heart-shaped birthmark on right thigh, brown, but not a flasher. Not a big talker. Dialects spoken: Zapotec, Castellano. Likes teddies and anime, all kinds of cute things, puppies. Warm personality, very loving once you get to know her, once cried when she was watching The Lion King. Esby does not swim or go near the pools. Afraid of heights too. Esby does not drink alcoholic beverages except on New Year’s with her own family. Catholic, single mother of Deny, please contact mother Rosario Sanchez Gutierrez or family at 555-123-1231. Of course we also do WhatsApp. May the LORD help us find her. Esby if you are reading this please send a WhatsApp immediately, you are not in trouble. . by Colin Gee of The Gorko Gazette @ColinMGee / @GorkoThe Colin Gee (@ColinMGee on X) is founder and editor of The Gorko Gazette. Latest book Robinson Crusoe Maybe with Urban Pigs Press. === === THE BODY . Knock. Knock. Knock. Three loud raps on the front door of my apartment. I shut off my phone and set it on the table. Knock. Knock. Knock. “It’s the police.” I hear a man’s voice through the door. I open the door to a handsome man in his thirties, blond crew cut hair and sky-blue eyes. No words from him yet, just stares and smiles and his boot kicking up dust on the wood floor of my porch. “Can I help you officer?” I break the silence. “That’s what we are hoping.” That’s all? “…with?” His partner coughs. The blond cop grits his teeth. The other cop must be his boss. “We found a body.” I let out a low whistle. My eyes find the name tag on his uniform. “Officer Smith, is that your name?" He nods. “I had nothing to do with it. I can’t help you.” The other cop removes his sunglasses. “We were told you have specific expertise for this case; we would like you to come downtown with us to discuss the investigation.” They’ve seen my file. “Not a chance.” Officer Smith throws up his hands and moves aside for his partner. “I’m Detective Warren. We really do need your help, or we wouldn’t be asking.” I take my cigarettes out of my back pocket and tap one out of the pack. Lighting it, I blow smoke rings into the space between us. “I don’t give a damn what you need.” Sirens piece the afternoon sky at the same moment the two-way radio clipped to Officer Smith’s shoulder beeps, and a voice relays information about a body found by the river. I guess this is not the body Officer Smith wished to ask me about. “Another body?” I ask. Detective Warren doesn’t answer and instead turns abruptly and marches off my porch. Still kicking at the dirt, Officer Smith remains for a few moments. Officer Smith starts to descend the steps but stops and looks at me over his shoulder. “It’s the third body.” . By Stephen Moran of Moran Press / @moranpress Stephen Moran is an author, publisher, and bookbinder. === === The Perfect House . It was the perfect house. Inside the walls, the perfect husband gambled away his life savings. Every loss spurred the man with the perfect gold watch and the perfectly styled hair to place a larger wager. Locked in a spiral, he could not break; he would stand silent in his perfect shoes, betting big until they changed the lock on the front door. It was the perfect house. The perfect wife, with her perfect hair and makeup, berated her husband until he dreaded coming home. He listened to her perfect shoes stomp after him as he cowered in the bathroom, seeking a moment of silence, unwilling to hear another list of unmet expectations. The evening's spent with the perfect wife, in her perfect dress, waiting at home with the perfect dinner getting cold because her perfect husband stayed late at work, feeling unworthy of all he had accumulated there. It was the perfect house. The perfect daughter had changed schools four times in three years because she was the best mean girl in the state. The only reason she wasn’t in juvie was that her perfect father golfed with a senator and funded his campaign. It was the perfect house. Every passerby wanted to be one of “The Joneses.” After all, it was a perfect house. . by T. C. Westminster of Bunker Squirrel Magazine @TCWestminster / @BunkerSquirrels Tori Westminster—Editor of Bunker Squirrel Magazine—is a wife and mother, author and editor, baker and gardening enthusiast, lover of nature, art, and the delights of life. She strives to find joy in an imperfect world. And peace in an imperfect body. === === Dishwasher . Silas watched through the binoculars at the policeman. The policeman scanned the street like he always did. Then the policeman walked into his garage and closed the door. Silas smiled. “I’m so tired of this MF,” Silas said to himself. “But he going to be tired of me soon,” He grinned and rubbed the 9mm in his pocket. The policeman would pay for all the times he arrested Silas. He would pay for putting Silas’s brother in jail yesterday. Not once did Silas consider obeying the law. Silas followed the policeman for a couple of weeks. He looked up the policeman’s address in the County property appraiser’s website. He learned the policeman’s routine. It was easy to do. A few times Silas thought he was spotted, but he wasn’t. On the big night, Silas got really high. He read in the prison library that the word assassin was derived from the word hashish. This was because the assassins would get really high before they killed someone. It helped lower their morals temporarily. Silas parked a couple streets over. When he saw the policeman’s car enter the subdivision, he moved his car slowly. Lights off. Music off. Silent running. He parked a couple streets over and walked. He tucked behind the side of the policeman’s house. He waited. He felt so high. He was ready. The policeman pulled into his driveway. Silas took a deep breath. He stepped out and leveled the gun. But he tripped on a cat that happened to be passing by. He stumbled and righted himself. He looked at the cat. It reminded him of the one he had as a kid. It was a gray tabby with a calico face. He suddenly heard his Mom’s voice in his head say “always be proud of what you do.” His face fell. “Why am I doing this? Mom would be so disappointed in me.” He holstered his gun and began to duck behind the house. That is when a .40 round hit him behind the ear. All went black. . by Fred Shrum III of Skyway Journal @fshrum / @SkywayJournal Fred Shrum, III is EIC of Skyway Journal. === === Broke Down South of Dallas . Me and Big Business are just north of Waco on I-35 when the old lady screeches and sputters. You know the sound. The ’74 Eldorado’s engine dies. Like my marriage did after forty-some years. I throw Bizzy into neutral, coax her onto the shoulder. Flip on the hazards. The rush hour traffic rages past. Ditto for the ex-wife once she checks her driveway. My cell buzzes. Her name and image light up the screen. Fuck me. I put her on speaker. “Where on God’s green Earth have you taken my baby?” I check Bizzy’s mirrors. “I’ve got every right to—” “No you don’t,” Lilah says. “The divorce settlement was final. She’s mine now.” A mosaic of tail lights fills my sideview. “I thought we agreed on joint custody of the car.” “Like hell we did!” My cellphone screen glows hotter with her stinging words. “I’m taking Bizzy back, numb nuts.” My thumb hovers above the “hang up” button. “Over my dead body, sweetie.” Lilah shushes me. “That’s the idea, darling.” Tires spitting gravel from behind. A V8 roars minus a muffler. In the rearview: A hopped-up camo’d 4x4 tears down the freeway shoulder, getting closer. “What the fuck?” Lilah’s static photo on my cell seems to smile. “I put a tracker on the car, dipshit. My guys will be taking her.” “Bitch,” I yell into the phone. End the call. Scramble for the .44 in my glovebox. Glass break. Something pierces the air and thumps the backside of the driver’s headrest like in the old Westerns. I fumble the gun to the floorboard. No time. Out of the car and running away fast. Another whizzing sound cuts the Texas humidity nearby. Backwards glance: two mountain-sized men clambering out of the 4x4. One’s hefting a serious crossbow. I sprint harder. More arrows hurtle past. A blink later, pfffttt. I take a tumble. The pain is blinding. Losing Bizzy hurts even worse. I break down and cry. . by Victor De Anda of Rock and a Hard Place Press @VictorDeAnda / @RHP_Press Victor De Anda’s stories have appeared in numerous publications and anthologies, including the Best American Mystery and Suspense 2025. === === Just a Little . Gary tossed the trash bag into the garbage can at the curb. One last bag he had forgotten to get from upstairs, which Gina yelled about. He looked toward the house and didn’t see her watching. His vape pen was at his lips, and he took a hit. A plume of vapor rose to meet the other clouds in the night sky. The crescent moon peeked out behind a fat cloud. “Is that what you gave Lucy?” Gary fumbled his vape pen. It clacked on the concrete driveway. Miranda, his next-door neighbor, stood with her hands in her hoodie pockets next to a bush. “Jesus, you scared the shit out of me.” He picked up his pen. “Did you give Lucy a toke off that weed vape?” He flinched, glancing over his shoulder. “Can you keep it down? Gina’s not cool about this.” Miranda stepped closer and lowered her voice. “Nine months sober. And you fucked that all up.” “I didn’t know, but your wife’s still sober. It’s just a little weed.” Her hands come out of her pockets at those words. She flicked open a small blade folding knife and pointed at him. “This is only three inches. If I stabbed you, it wouldn’t do much damage. I mean, it would hurt, but it wouldn’t kill you.” “Hey now.” “It’s just a little knife. But if I stabbed you in the eye, right into your brain, or drug the blade across the artery in your throat. Those would kill you.” She made a quick jab at Gary, but not very close. Gary tried to back away, but he banged into the garbage can. It fell loudly on the concrete, and he picked it up, placing it between him, Miranda, and her knife. A door creaked open, and Gina yelled, “Christ, what are you doing out there. Oh, hey Miranda. Everything all right?” “Yeah.” Miranda waved with her knife-free hand. “Just having a little conversation.” Gary stumbled toward the house, and Miranda spoke softly to him. “Won’t need it again, will we?” . by Rob D. Smith of Rock and a Hard Place Press @RobSmith3 / @RHP_Press Rob D. Smith is a common man attempting to write uncommon fiction in Louisville, KY. His Anthony Award-nominated pulp thriller Good-Looking Ugly is available from Shotgun Honey. An editor at Rock and a Hard Place Press, his work has appeared in Best American Mystery and Suspense, Vautrin, Thriller Magazine, Dark Yonder, Tough, and several other crime, horror, and speculative magazines, anthologies, and online publications. Find his work at https://robdsmith . carrd . co/ === === Curtain Close . It’s very hot in the theatre and his jacket is itchy, his shirt too tight. He struggles through the routine, butchers words in an off-key tone. He’s sweaty, tired, nauseated, so thirsty. His tongue feels too big in his mouth, his body too constricted and he fights the urge to unbutton his shirt, inhales large gulps of stale air that the room seems to be in low supplies off. The light engineer is hungover again and keeps on misplacing the projector, and without the blinding light on his face, he can intermittently spot audience members. The woman in the centre of the third row is pretty, and pretty bored by the looks of it. She’s checked her phone a few times already and joins in the audience’s laughter half-heartedly, and a few seconds late, the punchlines seeming to hit her later than everyone else. The spotlight travels back to him and the woman disappears. The light is so bright, what the fuck is wrong with the engineer? It makes him feel even hotter. He wipes his sweaty palms on his trousers, feels them gliding on the cheap polyester. He feels his heart thumping loudly, smashing against his thoracic cage. He’s sweaty, tired, nauseated. His heart is thumping and his shirt is constricting, he slides a finger underneath his collar, feels his clammy skin. The lights are blinding. His heart is thumping. He’s sweaty, tired, nauseated. Sweaty. Tired. Nauseated. Clammy. Sweaty. Thump Thump Thump. Thump. He collapses to the sound of the audience gasping and the pretty, bored woman from the third row rushes to the stage. And the pretty woman in the third row is the last thing he sees. . by B.F. Jones of Punk Noir @Fijo_Frenchie / @punk_magazine B F Jones is French and lives in the UK. She writes flash fiction and poetry. She has two flash fiction collections published by Anxiety Press, one poetry collection with Outcast press. She also writes music-inspired chapbooks for The Alien Buddha. Five Years was published in 2021, The Song Remains will be out in January and (Kind of) Magic in the spring. === end ===