What Did Graham Know About Spiders?
Steve Campbell Janet slumped down onto the sodden floor, back against the side of the bath, a high-pitched ringing in her ears. […]
Warning
Eda Tse Decide this time you’re done. Find a secluded section of the park. Put your back into it when you dig. […]
I is She.
Sally Khan I is She. Enola. She could go days without actually speaking with anyone because the Voice inside My head would […]
In Pursuit of Red —or Why I Never Knowingly Left a Scarf in Someone’s Apartment Hoping They Would Still Remember Me a Decade Later
Lucy Holme —after Anne Carson It was February or March, I don’t recall. A garden-terrace flat, in the Latin Quarter. The trees […]
Science Never Sleeps
Stephanie Carty Stella is a scientist of men. She logs every detail in the notebook of her mind: the creasing of […]
Witch
Janice Leadingham Your wife called to me, John Bell. She came to the craggy grin, the doorway to my home under […]
Portrait of the Scream Queens, With Apples
Avra Margariti Neighborhood beauties competing for Best Scream, an apple red and rotund on each of our coiffed heads. We are making […]
There’s A Shit Monster In The Shape Of Your Father, Moaning On Your Bathroom Tiles
Eliot Li …and the plumber in navy blue coveralls rattles his sewer auger, ready to impale it. Moments before, the […]
The Storm on All Hallows’ Eve
Jared Povanda Matilde shuts her eyes to spite falling dust,rain spearing holes through the roof, and her wifeis up there alone in […]
The Sisters Find a Use for That Electric Carving Knife Mother Demanded Last Christmas and Never Even Unwrapped
S A Greene Judith serves herself both of Mother’s breasts without consulting. ‘An arm for me, please.’ says Emma. ‘Actually, […]
Mint Sauce
Frances Gapper We invite Auntie to tea. Hiding our lips behind flowery teacups, we peep at her. She is lamb chops, […]
He Her Tollund Man, She Jutland Girl
Karen Walker The Gods took Papa. So where is spring? Winter drips from the thatch. He was a good papa, a careful weaver […]
Wolf Spiders Hunt in Packs
Cole Beauchamp Not all spiders catch their prey in webs. We learned this on the longest day of the year. […]
The Geometry of Dead Girls
Kik Lodge You can never leave the place you die in, Harriet says, and Fay nods like a hand puppet. […]
Roadkill
Louise Norgate … look out! Careful!Oh god, poor thing, it doesn’t look likeit’s been there all that long.We should go back – […]
In The Shadow of a Bird
Shome Dasgupta Writer’s Note: I wrote this piece more so with the intentions of entering a stream of consciousness mentality. I like […]
Touchstone – A Cancer Diary, 2014
Susmita Bhattacharya (First published in The University of Winchester Writers’ Festival – The Best of 2016) Writer’s Note: I wrote this essay […]
Two CNF Pieces: ‘Letters From Loved Ones’ and ‘Grasshoppers’
Caroline Bock Writer’s Note: These works were jumpstarted in an asynchronous workshop ‘Less is More’ run by Sarah Freligh, a master teacher […]
Double-Glaze
Mary Byrne Writer’s Note: Travelling to Ireland from France could sometimes cause culture shock. This piece started with my father’s reaction to […]
The Weight of Feathers
Lindz McLeod Writer’s Note: Near my home, there’s a high tunnel where pigeons nest; whenever I pass through it, I wondered whether […]
Small Town
Mary Byrne Writer’s Note: Small Town came from observations when visiting my old home town irregularly over the years, noting the changes, […]
Delete water, insert rubbish
Mary Byrne Writer’s Note: Delete water was provoked by a very vivid memory of myself and a few student friends huddled over […]
Mr. Dupont and the Death of Romance
Mary Byrne Writer’s Note: I set out to write a flash about a quiet teenager who seems more mature than her parents’ […]
White Feathers, Scarlet Heart
Sarah McPherson Pristine snowfall; the familiar made unfamiliar by winter. The early morning light touches each heap and hollow lightly. She is […]
Whelk
Frances Gapper Now it’s not safe to go out, they order bottles of guaranteed healthy air and crave injections of fresh young […]
Torque
Marie Little Jennifer carefully tightens the last tiny wingnut, a turn for a word: serendipity, coruscate, hullabaloo. The press is beginning to […]
Things Left Behind in an Oxfordshire Field in 1989 the Day After an Illegal Rave
Amanda Saint A pair of scuffed Kicker boots (size 5) —love-heart patterned socks tucked neatly inside, rainbow laces tied together to make […]
Special Victims
Colleen Kearney Rich Pam doesn’t plan to lie. It just slips out. Imagined life made real. The girl at work, her face […]
Snapshot
Peter Burns Sixth day standing at this bus stop staring across at him in the bookies, he comes out plunging his […]
Saints, Sinners, and the Dirt Track to Redemption
Kate Axeford Saints It started with the cows. Jacob saw them straight-lining it out of Hobson’s farm as if they sensed […]
On the Backroads
Jeanine Skowronski 1. We dig holes, because Wren insists there’s treasure buried in this dirt. We unearth silver slips of paper, two […]
Expressions of Joy
Nathan Xie He exclaims things like nodders, or yagoo, or hrmhrm, and the first time folks ask him what he means, […]
After She’d Gone
Cath Barton He was here the next morning, my brother. Sitting at my kitchen table, spooning marmalade onto his toast. […]
A Thing With Fur
Sherri Turner I have been waiting for you, Mr. Fox. I knew you would come when you were ready, that wild […]
The Only Constant is Change
Mary Byrne Writer’s Note: This flash piece was inspired by a very real woman who used to sit at my tram stop, […]
Night on Preston’s Bald
J. Dianne Dotson Writer’s Note: This story bounds ahead of a real-life terrifying encounter on a mountaintop in East Tennessee many years […]
Slaughterhouse of Love
Max Hipp Writer’s Note: I’d been thinking about how isolating love feels when it goes wrong and how marriages crack along childhood […]
Annie Is Sleeping
Sherri Turner Annie will wake in the morning later than usual. She will have a hangover that she doesn’t remember getting. […]
The Color Brown
Shipra Agarwal Writer’s Note: It’s been seventy-five years since the British Raj ended, but its remnants live on in sections of Indian […]
The Writer Tries to Address Her Origins
Deborah Zafer Writer’s Note: I am fascinated by the lost Jewish East End in London. My grandparents (and those of many British […]
A Climmer’s Chance
Christine Collinson Writer’s Note: I was listening to a podcast on birds through history when I first came across ‘Climmers’ (or Climbers). […]
Two Poems: Memories and Satsuma
Susmita Bhattacharya Writer’s Note: In 2016, I started a Facebook Group with a few of my friends who, like me, had just […]
Love, Departed
Emily Devane Writer’s Note: This piece started with a voice, and a feeling: I am looking for the key to the drawer […]
Truth or Death
Lori Sambol Brody Writer’s Note: I set out to write a flash novella about a high school theater kid (Julia) navigating her […]
Five Poems From A Wellness Check
Bri Gonzalez Writer’s Note: My collection-in-progress, currently titled A Wellness Check, inspects how pop culture, like DC’s Batman, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, […]
What We Leave Behind
Stephanie King Writer’s Note: This is part of a series I call “Monologues,” a loose collection of those really voicey flash pieces […]
Three Poems: Once We Were Kids, Moving Fear of Staying, Growl
Sage Ravenwood Writer’s Note: On writing these poems, ‘Once We Were Kids’ is based on an actual childhood memory. I wanted to […]
The Capris of Middle Age
Vicky Macdonald Harris No longer the resort capris of Laura Petrie dancing past her husband forever flat on the floor; she espousing […]
Music Lesson
Anthony D’Aries Don’t tell your four-year-old son how Marvin Gaye died. Unless you want to answer questions about fathers and guns and […]
The best vintages have a distinctive character
Eleonora Balsano Fresh blood is the colour of Pinot Noir, bright red and translucent. I’ve never said this to the […]