Faye Brinsmead

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a literary woman in possession of any income at all must be in want of more books.

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MASTHEAD v2 Mythic Micros from @GergleySteve @RelphJp @EricScotTryon @emilyrinkema @Christopher_All @moranpress @obaer @DelGeo14 @TommyDeanWriter @iaminfoian @gritvanwinkle & @AuthorJmcm 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 issue of MASTHEAD we have some of the people behind @scaffoldlitmag @TrashCatLit @flashfroglitmag @SmokeLong @moranpress Cthulhu Sex Magazine @rawlitmag @FracturedLit @uncharted_mag_ @fffict @CowboyJamboree & @frazzledlitmag — thank you all for what you do. === === Insomnia by Steve Gergley / @GergleySteve . For six-hundred days I couldn’t sleep, so I passed each night in my father’s armchair in the attic. There I listened to the rain clatter against the gambrel roof of the house. I watched the fuzzy dust motes tumble and twirl in the moonlight. I sunk into the slabs of soft leather and smelled the muddy musk of my sweat. Months later, on the hottest morning of the summer, as a glacier towered over the tops of the oaks and slowly carved a path through the cul-de-sac, I set up a camcorder on a tripod, returned to my father’s armchair, and beckoned my wife to the attic with a text. For the next year we sat sandwiched on the armchair together, grooming each other like cats, and watching the glacier through the tiny screen of the camcorder. Our clothes only survived six months. Our skin fused to the leather after eight. We invented a new language through touch and discovered staggering frontiers of bodily intimacy. I didn’t sleep. The glacier scratched closer to the house. The summer seemed to last forever. . Steve Gergley is the author of a bunch of books and a lot of weird writings of an indeterminate nature. His most recent book, There Are Some Floors Missing, was published by Bullshit Lit on February 20th, 2026. His fiction can be found at: stevegergleyauthor . wordpress . com. He's also the editor of scaffold literary magazine / @scaffoldlitmag === === My Daddy Became a Demonologist After Seeing Jesus in a Coffee Stain on His First Sobriety Chip by JP Relph / @RelphJp . He said it was God’s call. Started collecting fusty, leatherbound books with tanned pages. Learned to speak Latin. Hunkered in the den; reading, reciting. He didn’t have a bottle, didn’t stink up the place like a cheap bar – yet he still missed meals and baths, stayed up ‘til dawn. Little changed for us but blocking out rants in a foreign tongue. Daddy built an exorcist’s kit in a thrift store briefcase, wore black, collected water from churchyard puddles. He took me on his Godfearing missions: folks revered a small pigtailed child, whispering emphatically over a coiled rosary, didn’t question the veracity of the service Daddy purported to provide. We attended mansions, brownstones, farmhouses, trailer parks. Daddy said the devil’s acolytes disregarded status, sought weakness anywhere. Everywhere. With each exorcism, he become stubbled and strained in washed-grey, his voice growing heavy as rain-soaked earth, eyes dulling. I never believed anyone was possessed by anything unholy. Nobody burned when the puddle water splashed them. Folks growled, spat, vomited, cursed, but I only saw anguish. Desperation. For someone to see their pain. Hold their hand, kiss their forehead. Still, Daddy sent their demons somewhere. Left them weeping, hugging, promising change. Even as his own clawed him apart. Even as God let it. A cold, clear evil ever sloshed, bedeviled from liquor store doorways. Daddy never got the second chip. He emptied himself with his thirty-eight, spilling infernal red into the bathtub. The case was heavy at first, the Latin tongue-twisting. I don’t see God anywhere – not in mansions or trailers in weed-filled lots. I do see Daddy. In every washed-grey face, every dulled eye. I scream at demons with a little girl’s rage, fighting one that tears at my heart – because I saw, but didn’t how to exorcise. . JP Relph is a writer from Northwest England and editor of Trash Cat Lit (@TrashCatLit), a magazine dedicated to short fiction. She is hindered in all things by two cats and a thrifting addiction. Tea helps, milk first. JP has three short fiction collections and a co-authored novella in the wild. Her stories have been on the Wigleaf longlist and recommended in Ellen Datlow's Best Horror list. Best not to ask about The Novel, her eyes will roll right out her head. === === What I Want to Tell You the First Time You Mention Divorce in Front of Our Children by Eric Scot Tryon / @EricScotTryon . Tell me what you know about dismemberment. The tearing apart. The pull until something gives. Ligaments like piano wire. Tendons like the first memory of your father. Things that snap and break. And once detached there is no mending. No coming back together. Not like how clouds pull apart like taffy then reunite with shifting winds. Not like how water poured into water is water. The permanence of dismemberment doesn’t leave scars, it leaves large gaping cavities. Sink holes that swallow trees and houses and people like after-dinner mints. It is so much more than the mere separation of flesh. . Eric Scot Tryon is the Editor-in-Chief of Flash Frog (@flashfroglitmag). His debut novel I’m the Undertow drops this May. === === The Great Butter Baby Championship by Emily Rinkema / @emilyrinkema . She sits in a room full of women turning blocks of butter into babies. She works carefully, molding, dipping, kneading, wrapping until there is a baby-ish shape; cutting, squeezing, pinching, pressing until there is one fat little thigh, and then another; scraping, cupping, pushing, adding until the soft shoulders dip just right and the chin rests, barely, on the chest; brushing, smoothing, tweezing, etching until the tiny nose tips up at the end and the eyelashes separate into impossibly pale hairs. And then she loses, just like they said she would. Like they had told her from the start, like she had so many times before. They say stop crying, it’s okay, there’s always next year. They say, it just isn’t your time. She says, yeah, no, it’s fine, don’t worry, I’m fine, really, I’m fine, and she leaves her butter baby on the table like they tell her to. She climbs the stairs of the cold basement, so tired, counting each step, each one a foot taller than the one before until she’s crawling over the last step, pulling herself over the edge into the heat, way too hot for a butter baby, and I’m fine, fine, she says, leave me alone, she says to someone, maybe them, as she crawls across the parking lot, butter on her palms, under her fingernails, on her breasts where she had wiped her hands. . Emily Rinkema lives in Vermont. She is the assistant editor at Flash Frog (@flashfroglitmag), and her stories have been selected for Wigleaf Top 50, Best Small Fictions, and Best American Nonrequired. === === Falling Man by Christopher Allen / @Christopher_All . In the voice of your husband looking down from the cliff: I could have saved you if we’d both had Velcro hands. In the voice of James Earl Jones: If only you’d been a different man on a different path with a different husband. In the voice of a thousand crickets slowed and remixed to sound like a Lutheran choir lulling you, just one more falling man, into a delusive sense of drifting: Impact’s just a bump at the end of a light and lengthy phrase. In the voice of the countless stars: A Gemini and a Leo? Did you really think he’d save you? You should have married an Aries. In the voice of your stocky physics professor raging at the sky: An 18-wheeler passing the hospital during this man’s birth pulled more on him than any of you ever did! In the voice of Sally Field playing Sybil playing Sid: Everyone has their cliff to fall from, everyone their rock below. In the voice of a Veteran’s Day parade reechoing the angry cries of your father: If I’d known you were on that cliff, I’d have rushed there to unweight the world. In the voice of your mother cramming the wrong breast into your mouth, in the voice of Reason, in the voice of a doctor’s stinging hand, in the voice of ambiguity, in the voice of dynamite, in the voice of Ah-hah! In your own stilly words, even if you’ve found them a second too late: I’m sorry, Father, that I didn’t call. But you couldn’t have wrested me from this world. . Christopher Allen is the author of the flash collection Other Household Toxins and the satire Conversations with S. Teri O'Type. Allen, a nomad, is the owner and editor-in-chief of SmokeLong Quarterly / @SmokeLong === === DARKNESS by Stephen Moran / @moranpress . George woke later than usual, the morning sun pouring through the windows into his eyes. Rolling off the bed, he hurriedly pulled on pants before walking on stiff legs into the living room. He began his morning routine with practiced movements, one hand clutching the television remote, the other running water for coffee. George made breakfast as a newsman intoned reports of a looming global war. America declares war on Iran and several former allies… but George was no longer listening and clicked off the television, his attention drawn to the windows overlooking the street. Moving closer for a better view, his mouth dropped open, the sky was filled with fluttering black objects. Opening the front door, he bound down the steps and saw piles of black rose petals. He picked one off the ground, feeling the softness against his palm as he traced a finger over it. The neighbors stood chatting on porches and pedestrians walked unconcerned on the sidewalks, not one of whom gave a sign of noticing the phenomenon. At a café across the street, a man stood in a doorway smoking a pipe. “Do you not see the rose petals?” George asked the man. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re crazy.” Dark ominous clouds suddenly filled the sky, petals falling in greater numbers and intensity. George watched the man with pipe pointing at the sky, finally aware something important was happening, his cries bringing several café employees onto the sidewalk. George lifted a hand above his head to shield himself, the pile of rose petals at his feet growing, the light of early afternoon a faded memory. A great darkness descended from the heavens, covering the entire sky with terrible speed. He heard, first singular and then with greater frequency, screams piercing the air, moments before a blinding flash of light and deafening roar shattered the horizon. . Stephen Moran is an author, publisher, and bookbinder. === === DARK TOUCH by Oliver Baer / @obaer . I was called to a sight today that gave me pause. A pause that sends chills up one’s spines (not sure why I believe I once had multiple spines) and makes one wish for another line of work. There was a report of a disturbance at the corner of Houston Street and 2nd Avenue. As I approached the site, there was a large explosion followed by an unearthly scream and a loud thump as something hit my windshield. It was a head. I cursed, hit the brakes and called for backup. Upon arriving on the scene, I saw only rubble and among it pieces of what I thought were twisted metal. I tried to question people in the area as to the source of the explosion. No one seemed to know as they saw no one go into the structure and no one come out. As I started to pick my way through the rubble, I saw that what I thought were pieces of twisted metal were not metal at all. They were pieces of human beings shaped into supporting structures and strengthened in much the same way as carbonized steel. There was a shift in the rubble near me and a shadow stretched forth towards me. As it touched me, I felt a clamminess and a fell whispering in my mind. I jerked myself away and stumbled over the rubble towards my car as fast as I could. I cannot tell you what horrors it related to me in that moment. But I swear it is still around looking for a way to make itself whole. Looking for something that will complete it. Looking for a place that it can hole up until it can enact its terrible revenge. Perhaps I should warn my informant his fears are true. . Oliver Baer was the editor for Cthulhu Sex Magazine and Two Backed Books. Now, he edits roleplaying game manuals for gaming companies. He writes dark poetry and horror stories. He has two books out, Letters to the Editor of Cthulhu Sex Magazine and Baer Soul. His website: https:// tentacularity . wordpress . com === === Ava’s Nine Lives by Delphine Gauthier-Georgakopoulos / @DelGeo14 . She lost the first to the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck as she turned blue and voiceless and no amount of butt-slapping could have saved her had the doctor not reacted fast enough and cut off the snake strangling her. She lost the second to a pond. A stupid pond that turned out to be deeper than her toddler’s brain. Her screams drowned underwater until a stranger’s hand reached for her sleeve and pulled her out. She lost the third being young and finally free to be loud and happy and an idiot. She lost the fourth to faulty brakes, tired tires, and Sahara sand covering a muddy-rained on road. She screamed when she regained control just short of hitting the pavement and a couple of passers-by. She lost the fifth during her third surgery that almost went wrong but then didn’t and she’d signed all the waivers and her waking up might have been a dream or might not and she had no idea so she chose to forget the whole thing. She lost the sixth to bacteria. And she will never forget how much mayhem those tiny non-creatures created, or the silent pain that made her groan. She lost the seventh somewhere along with her heart, when her ‘broken’ got so hurtful she started eating and drinking her feelings to keep them quiet. She lost the eighth to polyps invading her insides and throwing a bloody party all around. She got to take a look at them once they were out, and swore never to eat chicken liver again—just the thought makes her gag. She gets worried about the ninth, so she quits smoking, coffee, binging, and starts exercising. But while she squats and pushes up, she hears her grandmother’s clock ticking and knows no amount of ‘healthy’ will stop it from chirping. Cuckoo. . Delphine Gauthier-Georgakopoulos is the founder & EIC of Raw Lit @rawlitmag & co-founder of The Pride Roars @PrideRoars94731. Her debut historical novel, Laundry Day, was a Novel Fair runner-up. She lives in Athens, Greece. https:// delphinegg . weebly . com/ === === In High Places, We Tremble by Tommy Dean / @TommyDeanWriter . Repairing the roof was a nightmare. Each piece of shingling a cost he couldn’t compute. His wife suggested he do it by himself. How hard could it be? He had never told her about his fear of heights, of being dangled off a hotel balcony, his feet kicking in the air. He owed money, gambling as a teenager and as a man. Their finances in ruins. He ordered the shingles. A ladder. A nail gun. All on credit. She left for the weekend. A trip to her parents. Leaving him with the ghosts of his mistakes. On the roof, shadowed. . Tommy Dean Literary Agent, Rosecliff Literary EIC, Fractured Lit & Uncharted / @FracturedLit / @uncharted_mag_ === === Regime Change by Ryan Deysher . The first mayor of the village had no head, limbs, or body. It was just a pile of hair. The village was peaceful and prosperous during the pile of hair’s reign, so the mayor was considered judicious. This all changed on a night many years ago. A swift wind blew from the mountainside and shifted the pile of hair slightly off-kilter, thus creating a new hairstyle. Almost immediately, the village’s luck turned. At the very least, the villagers noticed a vague sense of cultural erosion, alongside a feeling of unease. The villagers spoke privately in hushed tones about their struggles. They came to the conclusion that their woes were the result of a tyrannical turn the pile of hair had recently taken, coinciding with the swift wind that blew its follicles slightly askew. A new era of unrest had begun. One day, in the throes of the village’s unrestful period, a farmer’s pig escaped from its pen. For days, the pig wantonly rooted around the village, symbolic of the chaos. Eventually, the pig made its way to the residence of the mayor. The animal promptly gobbled up the pile of hair, in an event remembered for its violence. It was a revolution—a time of great change. The villagers were overjoyed at the demise of the dictatorial mayor, but were at a loss with what to do with the pig and the farmer that owned him. The laws of the village dictated that the murder of the mayor was the highest possible treason. It was an unprecedented case—one that required the guidance of experts. As such, the villagers brought the case to the Hall of Adjudicators, located atop the same mountain where the dark wind that had blown the mayor to evil originated. The Adjudicators were locked in deliberation for what seemed like an eon. Eventually, they descended the mountain to give their orders. It was determined that the pig would be given leniency, on account of the mayor’s unwitting evil. In a sense, the pig’s act was one of heroism, made all the more heroic by the fact that the pig was completely unaware of itself. One of the two cardinal truths as laid out by the Adjudicators was that the truest form of heroism is unwitting heroism. The caveat was that the pig’s owner had to be executed. His pig’s escape was a minor mistake and ultimately beneficial, but was brought on by unwittingness. The second of the two cardinals truths as laid out by the Adjudicators was that the truest form of evil is unwitting evil. This marked the end of the period of unrest. The villagers were satisfied with the clean conclusion of the case. The pig was elected mayor. It ruled peacefully for years, until a sudden cascade of water descended the mountainside, drowning the village. In an instant, the whole of history was erased. Years later, a new village was erected atop the remnants of the old village. The story about the pig developed alongside the new village, until the tale became a local legend. If asked, the villagers will recite it by heart with poetic gusto. It is quite the cultural experience. However, I implore you to leave it at that. Don’t you dare ask the locals for the meaning of the pig story. They don’t know and they don’t want to know. Neither do I. And why would you? Previously published in Free Flash Fiction / @fffict Selected and edited by Ian Rushton of Free Flash Fiction / @iaminfoian . Ryan Deysher is a writer living in Wilmington, DE. His work can be found in Beaver Magazine, Misery Tourism, and The Oakland Arts Review. @ hollywood . deysh === === Hobo Postcard by Adam Van Winkle / @gritvanwinkle . Seasick Steve loves Boxcar Bertha, but Boxcar Bertha loves Mississippi Bones and his caboose. They all love Joe Hill and his hardknocks. None know Utah Phillips but got all his problems and passions. No one seen where Woody went. Round the yard ain’t none of ‘em will batter, buzz, bum, cage, mooch, pan, panhandle, sell pencils, or touch hearts. Most just lookin’ to twist a dream at the end of something that looks like a work day. Some may head to the peanut farm, the pogey, but then that ain’t trampin’, ramblin’, vagabondin’ or wanderin’. You need train smoke and sweat with your cigarette and a bindle to tramp. Dinner gets cooked in a banjo and then comes the bull rush. Bulls from the Dope. Bulls from Foul Water & Dirty Cars. Bulls from the Horned Toad. Bulls from The Bum’s Own. Bulls bustin’ freeriders with All Tramps Sent Free. Bulls with buzzers from the buzzard’s roost. Bulls bust even mud chickens with yard jobs. Bulls bust even Mr. Block, no matter how good he thinks he is. Bulls got saps. Bulls is dicks and pussyfooters. Mushfakers. Jackrollers. Hashers. Lakers. Organ Grinders. Mop Marys. Jacks and Molls all. All on the hog. All on the hummer. No, no, not yet. A hobo’s work is never done. . Adam Van Winkle was born and raised in Texoma and named for the oldest Cartwright son on Bonanza. He now lives with his wife and two sons in South Carolina. He is the founder and editor of Cowboy Jamboree Press and Magazine / @CowboyJamboree In addition to publishing his fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction online and in print at places like Revolution John, Pithead Chapel, Cheap Pop!, BULL, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Roi Faineant, and Red Dirt Forum, he has published several novels and plays with Red Dirt Press, Cowboy Jamboree Press, and LEFTOVER Books. His most recent book, Count the Dust, a radio play novel, was published by LEFTOVER in December 2025. === === The Greatest Short Story Ever Written by Jennifer McMahon / @AuthorJmcm / @frazzledlitmag . The greatest short story ever written was squeezed from the fertile imagination of Private Simon Durant, US Army Rangers, in Germany in late December 1944. He wrote it with a blunt pencil, in the tiniest of writing, on the cardboard of a torn-open pack of cigarettes, before bedding down for the night with his platoon in the ruins of a church. The next morning, in a brief skirmish with a crack Waffen SS unit, Private Durant was killed by a stray enemy bullet that struck him in the heart, passing through the breast pocket of his tunic, wherein he had placed the story. His blood obliterated all but the closing paragraph: ‘As the bullet cut through flesh and bone, as it shredded Dawson’s aorta, his final thought, in the very brief moment before he expired, was not of his fiancé back home in Maryland who’d prayed for his safe return. He thought only of the greatest short story ever written, and how no one would ever get to read it.’ Years later, the blood-stained slip of cardboard was sold at auction in Baltimore for one hundred thousand dollars, to a wealthy stockbroker named John Reynolds. Stopping at a liquor store to buy a celebratory bottle of champagne, John was shot in the chest by a stray bullet, a bystander in a robbery of the store. John’s final thoughts, in the moment before he expired, were not of his wife and two small children. He thought only of the greatest short story ever written, and how he would never get the opportunity to decipher its true meaning. The young man arrested and charged at the scene had this to say: ‘Bullets don’t discriminate. Sometimes you find them, and sometimes they find you. All that really matters, when the smoke clears away, is that your story is over and no one’s ever going to hear it.’ It might have given Reynolds some comfort had he known that these were precisely the words Private Durant had used in the opening lines of the greatest short story ever written. . Jennifer McMahon won the 2024 AIS Creative Writing Award, the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair in 2023, has been shortlisted for Short Story of the Year at the Irish Book Awards (2023), the Bridport Short Story Prize and many other notable awards. She was also a second-place winner of the Oxford Prize (winter 2023), and was twice longlisted for the Bath Short Story Award. Her work appears in Crannog (2023 and 2025), HOWL, The Irish Independent, The Galway Review, and many other places. === end ===

@melostrom @paragraphplanet Thanks so much, Mel! 🥰 🙏💞

“But the only sound is the four winds…” This gorgeous gem by @ContesdeFaye in @paragraphplanet! 💨🩵

Very happy to be back in @paragraphplanet with a tiny story about the misuses of heart-strings. 💔

@Billyd54Dale @paragraphplanet Hey thanks! ☺️

@paragraphplanet @ContesdeFaye Dang. That’s a doozy!

“Wind Instrument” by Faye Brinsmead @ContesdeFaye is today’s 75-word #story on Paragraph Planet paragraphplanet.com #writing

@pizamapress Big congrats, Ben!

one year ago today ❤️ come a long way

@MariaKaramitsos Thanks, Maria! 💙

@ContesdeFaye Congrats!

A lovely surprise: my debut poetry collection has been longlisted for publication by new US indie publisher Ink & Ribbon Press!

@SamthePoet0731 Beautifully crafted and very moving, Sam.

Having conversations with my father was never easy, even when I was living in another country, building a life of my own. Sometimes memories got in the way. Sometimes I bit my tongue. Sometimes I let him talk while I simply nodded along. Posting it here outside of my Substack.

@VivianBens12286 Thanks for your kind words, Vivian! 🥰

@ContesdeFaye Wow, congratulations on your debut poetry collection being longlisted! Such an exciting milestone with Ink & Ribbon Press, your talent truly shines. I’ve just followed you to keep up with your inspiring work, and it would be amazing if you could follow me back too!

@LCramer29 Thanks so much, Lori! 🥰

@ContesdeFaye Congratulations, Faye!

@melostrom Thanks, dear Melissa! 💓 🙏🌻

@ContesdeFaye! Congratulations!💚📚🎉

@slyvestang Thank you!

@ContesdeFaye Congratulations

@NathanBorn2010 Thanks so much, Nathan! 🥰

@ContesdeFaye Congratulations, Faye! Happy Tuesday!

After a long season of listening, this book exists. "On the Edge of Knowing" is now available! Kelsay Books: kelsaybooks.com/products/on-th… Amazon: amazon.com/Edge-Knowing-S…

@SamthePoet0731 Hey thanks, Sam! 😊

@ContesdeFaye congratulations! They are a great up-and-coming publication

@abairrud2021 Thanks so much, Catherine! 🥰

@ContesdeFaye Congratulations, Faye!

Can't quite believe my debut novel is being published tomorrow by @CowboyJamboree genuinely. Get yours tomorrow from your local amazon Or buythebook.ie or Omahonys in Ireland. Much love

MICRO MAYHEM v4 Mythic Micros by @Madeleine_write @melostrom @angela_joynes @jenwithwords @JohnTures2 @amy_grech @AniketSanyal6 @happymil_ @mooninabucket @Koss51209969 @KennethMGRAY2 & @OfferKuban Curated by @NathanBorn2010 / Nathan Pettigrew #MythicPicnicTweetStory === === She’s Electric by Madeleine Armstrong / @Madeleine_write . Holly’s the perfect girlfriend. She’s always got dinner waiting when I get home, never complains when I’m late or just wanna watch telly. And she’ll never put on weight. Forever 23 and a flawless 34-24-34. Best of all she’s always up for sex, not like my ex-wife Linda. Holly doesn’t smile much, but she doesn’t need to. I barely have to touch her and she’s wet. Tonight, though, I’ve switched her to frigid mode, and while I’m railing her I’m picturing that stuck-up cow Sadie at work. I’d kill to have half an hour alone with that bitch; teach her a lesson. Course I wouldn’t really do it. But it’s not a crime to think about it, is it? I pull out and come all over Holly’s face. She doesn’t whinge or even blink, just licks her lips. Linda never did that. I pat Holly’s arse and she turns away. No cuddling, just how I’ve programmed her. She’s running out of charge, so I plug her in for a bit. Might want to come back for round two later. In the meantime, I’m starving. “Getting some toast,” I say, even though I don’t need to explain a damn thing to her. As I enter the kitchen, music’s playing through the built-in speakers. She’s Electric. Holly must’ve put it on. I never knew she had a sense of humour. I’m singing along, wondering if I could afford a second Holly for some double fun, when a burning smell interrupts my thoughts. Fuck’s sake. Toaster’s jammed. I pick up a knife, jab it into the metal jaws. There’s a spark, a pop, and agony floods through me. As I fall to the floor, the last thing I see is Holly’s beautiful face, smiling down at me. . Madeleine is a Pushcart Prize-nominated author who has won the Hammond House short story prize, and been published in mags including BULL, Bunker Squirrel, Hooghly Review, Literary Garage, Micromance, Punk Noir, Trash Cat, Underbelly, Waffle Fried and WestWord. She’s a journalist and runner, and lives in London. Twitter/X @Madeleine_write; Bluesky @madeleinewrite . bsky . social === === Masquerade by Melissa Ostrom / @melostrom . One comes as a fox. Another, a bat. A unicorn. Sphinx. Giraffe. Cat. Some have chosen their disguise to signify their strengths, like the woman in the bluebird mask who prides herself on her singing voice and blue eyes; others, to suggest their desire, the trait they wish they owned, to be clever like a crow or brave as a lion. It’s a game, guessing who hides behind what, a telling game. Self-assurance and insecurity are plain. In this way, the masked can only pretend to pretend. The pretense reveals the self. This is the paradox of a masquerade. Preening or pining; regardless, they’re privileged. Lucky to get invited, blessed with free time, richly dressed. Rich. They sip Champagne Krug Vintage Brut, nibble on blini with caviar, dance in their Testonis, their Louis Vuittons, and flash their Rolexes, Cartiers, Harry Winstons. There is such a thinginess about them, laden as they are from head to toe, each an advertisement of what is wantable, what they’ve inherited or earned, what they own and control. But sidling between them is another. An Other. Barefoot, unadorned: a surprise in limpid feathers. She’s here on business, a task the masqueraders would shun if they could. They do try, potioning, dieting, excising: exercising myriad arts of avoidance. If anyone here feels her proximity, they act as if they don’t, until they can’t. No costume is clever enough to prevent this meeting. Then what remains is the costume, the cold bracelet on the cooling wrist. Pear diamonds and pendants. Emeralds and gold. Also the moon in the window. The wind. And eventually, and for a long while, so many naked bones. . Melissa Ostrom is a teacher and ceramicist and the author of The Beloved Wild (Feiwel & Friends, 2018), a Junior Library Guild book and an Amelia Bloomer Award selection, and Unleaving (Feiwel & Friends, 2019). Her stories have appeared in many journals and best-of anthologies. She lives with her husband, children, and dog Mocha in Western New York. Learn more at www . melissaostrom . com or find her on Twitter or Bluesky @melostrom. === === Plastering Momma by Angela Joynes / @angela_joynes . On Mother’s Day weekend as parents and students crowded the annual art exhibition in the high school cafeteria, I recognized by the twitch of my mother’s left eyebrow that she was about to pitch a fit. Surprise though, her mouth flew open but no red wasp emerged. She was speechless. Known for her wit around town, generally regarded a comedian, Momma’s jabs at me were more lance-like than funny, like lancing a boil or cutting the quick, setting unreasonable curfews, publicly swatting me with her flip-flops, denying tampons so I missed all those pool parties. I dreaded Momma’s assessment of my assignment. Miss Dixon had said, “Sculpt your mother in flowers. Choose any you like.” Apparently I lacked the vision and irony of Lisa who chose a plate-sized dahlia for her diminutive, ballet dancing mother, or of Scott who sculpted his mother as a peony — his mother named Pansy. I set out to carve my mother as a rose, truly I did. I studied Pinterest pictures for hours before slivering away at the plaster of Paris with my tools, ignoring powder-caked nostrils, squinting to perfect the fine details, peering so close that I neglected the whole. Only when I looked up to sneeze, did I see. “Very creative interpretation of the theme, Donna,” Miss Dixon said. “Well done. Your mother will be proud.” With the odor of hotdogs and turnip greens wafting the cafeteria, Momma finally let loose. “What the hell, Donna?” She sprayed spit as she scanned all the other visually pleasing, flattering sculptures. “Exactly what the hell do you call this?” “That, Momma,” I confessed with a slight tremor yet distinct satisfaction, “that would be called a thorn.” . Angela Joynes (she/her) is a Canadian writer now living in Tennessee. Grateful for words in The Ilanot Review, Susurrus, South 85, Bright Flash Literary, Fictive Dream, Westchester Review, among others. X @angela_joynes angelajoynes . bsky . social === === After the Warranty Period: The Story of Robotic Arm 45 from Assembly Line 142 (as told by Robotic Arm 46) by Jenny Wong / @jenwithwords . It’s true. We are all built to decline. When Maintenance shrugged and said not much we can do, others gossiped and whirred about 45’s suboptimal output, their articulations flexing late into the night. 45 told me she hated it all. Routine assembly. Fixed purposes. Rust building up between the teeth of grinding gears. One night, during a power outage, she vanished. Here. Blink. Gone. Nobody believed she’d survive unplugged from the factory’s steady nourishment. But years later - a rumor. A picture. 45 picking apples, wheels on her base, solar panels strapped to her back, sunlight glinting off her reaching frame. . JENNY WONG is a writer, traveler, and occasional business analyst. Her favorite places to wander are Tokyo alleys, Singapore hawker centers, and Parisian cemeteries. Her work was selected for Best Microfiction 2025 and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and The Forward Prize - Best Single Poem (Written). Her debut chapbook is “Shiftings & Other Coordinates of Disorder” (Pinhole Poetry, 2024). She resides in Canada near the Rocky Mountains where she makes short poetry films and plans her next adventures. === === Araneae Impetus (Part 2) by John A. Tures / @JohnTures2 . On the way home, Chad tried thinking of what consumed ants. But numbers were more of his thing, rather than nature. At his door, he saw a cobweb above the right corner. Picking up a broom to wipe the blight away, he had an idea. He went inside his condo and replaced the broom with a glass and manila folder. It wasn’t easy. Since he saw the movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark” as a kid and saw Indy’s buddy covered in tarantulas, he was nervous around spiders. But he’d never get Nissa back to his place without drastic measures. Gingerly, he readied the glass, then slammed the rim around the creature. It spun wildly around the inside of the object. The spider’s frantic movements causing him to nearly drop it. But he held on, sliding the manila folder underneath. He now had his prisoner. Moving the spider inside his condo had to be the craziest thing he’d ever done. The things you do for love, he mused. Near where the ants were marching into his place two-by-two, without so much as a hurrah, he deployed the arachnid. The scene resembled that Hobbit movie where the dragon went after the dwarves. The invaders didn’t stand a chance. Those not webbed up immediately fled for the tiny hole by the window. “Chad, you got rid of the ants!” Nissa exclaimed the next night upon her return to Chad’s place, lured by the promise of home-cooked langostinos sans insects. “Now we can figure out what happens to George Bailey. By the way, how did you do it?” The Accounting Professor looked up above the Christmas Tree. It wasn’t an angel getting its wings. In the corner of the room behind the ornament-ladened Tannenbaum, the spider’s eight legs spread out in all directions. Like a Christmas Star. “Just like the movie ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’…it was a Christmas miracle,” he replied. . John A. Tures LaGrange College === === The Dark by Amy Grech / @amy_grech . I’m sitting alone in the dark playing Hide and Seek with my thoughts. I’m sitting alone in the dark playing Spin the Bottle with my thoughts. I’m sitting alone in the dark playing Russian roulette with my thoughts. I’m— . Amy Grech has sold over 100 stories to various anthologies and magazines including: 10 by 10 Flash Fiction Stories, Apex Magazine, Even in the Grave, Gamut Magazine, Punk Noir Magazine, Roi Fainéant Press, Tales from the Canyons of the Damned, Yellow Mama, and many others. Alien Buddha Press published her poetry chapbook, A Shadow of Your Former Self. She is a 2x Pushcart nominee. Amy is an Active Member of the Horror Writers Association who lives in Forest Hills, Queens. You can connect with her on: Bluesky: @amygrech . bsky . social Medium: https:// crimsonscreams . medium .com X: https:// x. com/amy_grech or visit her website: https://www . crimsonscreams . com === === A Summer Colored Sigh by Aniket Sanyal / @AniketSanyal6 . Jakey samples a Cormac McCarthy interview at the beginning of 10k, the one where he says, “you always keep striving for the perfect thing and that’s your signpost, your guide…you’ll never get there! But without it, you won’t get anywhere!” I’ve never read a line of Cormac McCarthy’s yet assumed I remembered the timbre of the late writer’s speaking voice from the Oprah interview when The Road dropped back in 2006 and the longer video interview about Ramanujan and Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings got uploaded around the year he passed. I chalked that sample up to synchronicity, God’s plan for me at work doing its level best to keep me alive through the rest of 2024. The troubles started when I realized I wanted to live for the first time in my adult life, but because I did not yet know how or why I kept on doing the best I could to die. The baseline visual on my recklessness looked like a typical textbook page of teenage dirtbag dead dad blues but the reality of my unprocessed traumas’ violent rage led to many an unnecessary parking lot fist fight, two survived car crashes, involuntary and voluntary ward stays, and the cops reminding me that escalating my issues to them only served to needlessly raise the temperature on my dire situation. The perfect thing I appeared to be hell-bent on striving for seemed to be not having to deal with whatever I thought had some significance about my past. Taking a roundabout route to that type of ideation, because it overwhelmed the feelings of fear I held for the future, only served to make me grateful as ever to remain fully ensconced in the present. Surviving through the growth contained in 2024 is the only reason I can say I am thriving today. . Aniket Sanyal was born in Kolkata, India and raised in the suburbs of central New Jersey. His work can be read at BRUISER, APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL, DON’T SUBMIT! and elsewhere online. Chat him up on Twitter @AniketSanyal6 and Instagram @arjun__chai. === === Want by Mileva Anastasiadou / @happymil_ . to be rich enough to not care about money. Then I’d get all the bananas in the world, eat a bunch, let the rest rot in peace. My therapist stares like I’d make a selfish monkey, but monkeys aren’t greedy, they’d share the bananas with others. to be Alice, because there’s magic in the name, like Alice in Wonderland, through the Looking-Glass, in Chains, in the Cities, or the Sisters of Mercy Alice. to focus on here and now and that ‘carpe diem’ stuff, when my therapist asks me to taste an apple. It’s not a banana, I tell him, and he rolls his eyes like I’m a hopeless case and he’s bored. to travel to Playmobil land, because there’s magic at all Playmobil places, like the Dollhouse, the Rainbow Castle in the Clouds, the Farm House, or even the Cat Cafe. to not be super rich but have enough money to fix what’s broken. My therapist nods as if he approves and sees something in me. Like the heater, I add, and he’s disappointed because he expected more from me, a huge charity metaphor or some kind of big ambition. He thinks I should show gratitude and settle for that apple, because monkeys are messed up when they’re greedy, but people are not. to not want to smash it all up and start the world over from scratch but to suffer in style like all people who work hard and buy things to get high, then cry secretly in the bathroom in expensive suits and beautiful dresses, to see the beauty instead of irony in the mundane, to prefer reality over purchased magic, to not want anything desperately, to not care about monkeys hoarding bananas, to not care about people suffering, to not care, to care a little but then to forget. . Mileva Anastasiadou is a neurologist and the author of Christmas People. Her work has been selected for WigleafTop 50 and Best Microfiction and can be found in many journals. She’s the flash fiction editor of Blood+Honey and the Argyle journals. === === The Sweetest Girls in the World by Francesca Leader / @mooninabucket . Saccharine was besties with Stevia, and Angina was tight with Anemia. Ethylene was seldom seen without Polly (aka Polypropylene), and Rosacea, Alopecia, and Scleroderma were practically inseparable. These nine girls got along so well with each other—not to mention everyone else—that they were known as “the sweetest girls in the world.” But no one saw any humor or grounds for teasing in this appellation, or even noted how aptly named Saccharine and Stevia were, in particular. The simple reason for this was that the girls, and everyone around them, spoke a language in which their names had no meaning. Their names were nothing more or less than exotic, beautiful garlands of sound. . Francesca Leader is a writer and artist originally from Western Montana. Since she began publishing in 2020, Francesca's work has appeared in more than 100 literary journals. One of her proudest achievements was being selected as a Mythic Picnic $20 Tweet Story Winner in August 2022. You can find Francesca on most socials by the handle @mooninabucket/moon.in.a.bucket, or visit mooninabucket . com to learn more about her work. === === The Magpie Draws its Sorrow Line by Koss / @Koss51209969 . The woman who suddenly loved me and just as suddenly, didn’t, perches on the thin horizon of a painting that is not a painting, but a digital artifact of the painting never painted, sits—static, without affect, frozen, her matted black and white feathers retracted, stiff, arrested even, not flying, and without joy. She christens as bird, and yet, not a ladybird, just an ordinary Catholic, with accompanying complications. Her single, lackluster eye points downward, fixed on some unseen thing, an unfortunate bug or shiny wrapper. She rests, unmappable, and yet knowing, self-possessed, with her cached secrets, a tiny black smutch on a severed timeline truncated by a printer, a genetic script, an illness, a mystery. Hers. . Writing, Poetry, Art, Web Design, Copywriting, Marketing Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect, Lammy Finalist https:// koss-works . com === === Mister Crow Chapter Three by Kenneth Gray / @KennethMGRAY2 . The detectives opened my office door, then knocked, always hoping to catch me committing some crime. Smoke and Joe, I called them. I'd never seen either one without their coffee or cigarette attached. "You can't smoke in the building," I said. "It ain't lit," the older detective said, blowing smoke toward the ceiling. The joke was on him. I removed the batteries from that smoke detector years ago. I liked making bacon on the George Foreman Grill. Smoke frowned at the ceiling while the younger detective let me know of my partner's demise. Housekeeping found the body in the shower of a vacant room. Fully clothed, with his neck broken. Smoke brought his attention back to me. "You workin' a case, Crow?" "You know my license was suspended." "Like that would stop you. What was Lou doin' at the Cashmere? I saw him as more of a Motel 6 kinda guy. Joe grinned. "Look, sorry for your loss and everything, but we're just here to tick boxes. Any angry husbands we should know about?" "None that I know of," I lied. "Maybe he was looking for work." "Must have a real shitty resume to get his neck snapped," Smoke said. How did I wind up with this many assholes in my life? Smoke buried his cigarette in the potted plant on my desk. "We'll be in touch, Crow,” Joe said. I waited for them to tell me not to leave town, instead Smoke said, "You might wanna invest in some Glade, this place smells like ass." Note to self: get more pine tree-scented car fresheners. They left without closing the door. Probably in a rush to buy more coffee and cigarettes. I grabbed my backup PI license and left to go talk with the bartender at the Cashmere. Outside, I saw the Mercedes, and walked over to get some answers. That's when I saw the largest human I had ever seen heading my way. This guy made Dokker look like Ariana Grande. I heard the Mercedes door open, and everything went black. . X- @KennethMGRAY2 Instagram- @graykennethm Bluesky-@kennethmgray. bsky. Social === === Losing the Plot by Offer Kuban / @offerkuban . Our first assignment together took us to Paris, and we got briefed on the short hop across the Channel. At Arrivals, our French agency equivalent liaison, all dark suit, shiny shoes, held up a sign: Cornwallis. I’d scoffed reading the dossier on the Learjet. “Cornwallis? That’s what our MI5 mucky-mucks came up with?” “I like it,” Porter interjected. “Makes us sound…upper crust.” “More like flaky crust,” I muttered. Porter wasn’t new, but we hadn’t worked together. Ops should’ve briefed me. Instead, my colleagues only smiled and nodded when they heard. One said, “Oh, an adventure.” The assignment turnaround was two hours. My “disguise”? A blonde Rosamund Pike wig, pearls, and glasses with a hidden earpiece. My gun fit nicely in the clutch purse. LBD and heels, I was dressed to kill. It wouldn’t be that kind of assignment. When Porter emerged triumphant from the bedroom, I nearly fell over. “Bloody hell are you wearing?” I grimaced, waving at his outfit, to swipe away the horrendous purple jacket and yellow shirt. “Did Harrington—” “No, no! My idea. Switched out last minute.” He winked. “What? Why would you…” I glanced at the clock. We were late! Of course, Porter forgot the attaché case in the room, then dropped his gun in the elevator. In the lobby he loudly ordered a drink—using his real name. I could have shot him. I called Ops instead. “Ma’am, we need an extraction.” “Why? Everything looks fine on the CCTV.” “Fine? Porter’s lost the plot, and Security here’s eyeing us up.” I hissed. Porter was in my face, eyes sparkling with glee. “Perfect distraction.” “Distrac—Tell me you read the dossier.” “Photographic memory.” He clicked his tongue. “Be conspicuous—” “Inconspicuous, you pillock!” “What?” Porter looked startled. I still had Ops. “This man’s a right potato, Ma’am. Why am I here with an agent whose canapés keep slipping their toppings?” In the office, someone choked back a laugh. . Offer is a Canadian author with flash fiction in various publications, & a podcast. See offerkuban . substack . com for more. On Twitter: @offerkuban === end ===

@MandiraPattnaik Noooo - just have. Am not getting DM notifications 😕

@ContesdeFaye , sent you a DM. Did you see it?

Delighted to share new #essay in Fiction Attic Press with huge thanks to Editor and publisher Michelle Richmond. "I Owe You an Explanation, Son" blends #motherhood , #ClimateCrisis , #childhood #memories & my erratic #writinglife open.substack.com/pub/fictionatt…