"But, like I said, I’m only flesh and blood, and seeing my dog at that moment was worth sacrificing the $120 to me, because I was worried she was worried, you see. And the sex wasn’t that bad. But I had to drink something first." - Kellan Jansen mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"That summer I learned monkeys are sneaky avengers, you tease them once, stick your tongue out, & later they’re already a roof away; ants live in dripping faucets & behind damp plaster; Also, that my father might have a drinking problem." - Garima Chhikara mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

I have a new story out today in @mrbullbull.bsky.social ! Thanks so much to @thedrevlow.bsky.social for his continued support of my Aldous stories. xoxoxo #FlashInTheFeed P.S. This was begun in a @mattkendrick.bsky.social workshop and finished in a @smokelong.bsky.social workshop! Many thanks! 🥰

"He’s always told his boys, If at first you don’t succeed, say to hell with it and give up. His ankle’s been hurting him since 1939. It wasn’t even his fault; he was only a little bit drunk when the car slammed his motorbike into a brick wall." @lmbayley.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"I’d sit on his lap while he watched TV & smoked cigars, letting me take a drag or two. It was in these moments that I fell in love with many things: the scent of tobacco on a man’s shirt, the stubble from his chin, & the crack of the bat." - Salwa Emerson mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

NOLA has such grit & characters it does 90% of a writer’s job. But NOLA’s also a place that will chew you up & spit you out. NOLA is a broken black mirror of brutal self-discovery, & ain’t nobody walking away without his or her face cut up." - Dee P.R. Kay mrbullbull.com/newbull/the-...

"I grab the ice bucket from the dresser, but there’s a thumb in there, so I don’t want to use it. I check my hands to see if it’s my thumb, but it isn’t." @matthewtmeade.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

a tribute to a great writer and better dude

so grateful my CNF piece on misery and snaking skin in North Carolina heat finally found a home!! mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

Writing is a lonely, depressing, masochistic gig most of the time. Find a writer who inspires you & tell them how they inspire you today. You might find out tomorrow’s too late.

"I have fucked my life up and now I’m unemployed, smothering in the high August air of Greensboro, North Carolina. The nearest soul I know is sixty-seven miles away, but they rip ass on the highway here, I can make it under an hour." - Sophie Nunberg mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

Thanks to @mrbullbull.bsky.social for giving my equity research report flash fiction a home (and a cool photo)

"Dad claims cheer is banal & salacious. He threatens to stop funding rah-rah-sis-boom-bah. Mom offers that there are college scholarships in cheer. Dad holds that Lucy needs better grades not a better Herkie. Mom offers a divorce. Dad goes silent." - Deems Ortega mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

And so the TBR pile gets taller... @thedrevlow.bsky.social @mrbullbull.bsky.social @cowboyjamboree.bsky.social @tldrpress.bsky.social

"Every day is a new performance for me. Today, I’m on stage as Punk Boy: Mannequin Pussy tank. Black Levi’s. Nail color: black." - Judy Slitt mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"PAUL’s ability to withstand hours of exposure to alcoholic, inappropriate relatives confirm our belief in PAUL’s long-term growth profile. Maintaining our STRONG BUY rating and increasing the 12-month target." - Molly McCarron mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"I woke up sobbing because God, in the form of my girlfriend, helped rest the pistol in my mouth and the last thing I heard was his laugh echoed over hers when she helped pull the trigger." @foreverasheley.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

If you like your fiction cinematic and with unfolding tension and layers of emotion - get your chops round this one from @youcanandyouwill.bsky.social. It will discombobulate you and mess with your sense of right and wrong. Brutal and unnerving and very British 🖤

"If he has a sexual encounter, he'd have to confess to the collective. Abusing white supremacists could justify such involvement but he does not know if sleeping with clients is a mortal or venial infraction of the collective’s moral code." - David Gilbert mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

‘Ours is a nation of seconday law. Attack first and you won’t suffer. The nation is very firm on this.’ One of my favourite things in life is this journal. Thank you, @mrbullbull.bsky.social for publishing this. mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"Sometimes in group we play a game. We call it survivor though it’s usually the opposite. I win a lot because people have funny ideas about that word." @eireneeleni.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

Just finished reading “Ina-Baby: a love story in reverse” by @thedrevlow.bsky.social published by @cowboyjamboree.bsky.social and it has already shifted my thinking about every word I’ve ever written. Like, I want I do- over. Burn it all down. My God, this book.

"The day six version of him was an ugly puddle of a man—his shattered knees spreading, his severed nubs flexing, The sting to him had returned, his scheming soul looking to grab, his sawdust compassion dried to a sneering paste." @youcanandyouwill.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"I like a little junk in the trunk. I ain’t your typical white guy." - Shaun Anthony McMichael mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

“You know how things happen, your brain just can’t quite compute, it all seems like some big joke. I can handle everything else but the idea of lying awake another night wanting to strangle an innocent woman snoring on the cot next to me—” -Heather Clague mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"You went to school, went to Mass every Sunday, whether you liked it or not, made the sacraments, blew out birthday candles each year on your day, finished high school & went to college, and that was that—there was no arguing other options." @spmccarthy.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

(...the shortlist cont'd) Aylyen in @rfpress.bsky.social Mariana Enríquez in @literaryhub.bsky.social George Singleton in @mrbullbull.bsky.social Caitlin Campbell in @electricliterature.com Check out the Shortlist:

"I am no longer a child & know these efforts won’t atone for the sins of a father, transform a stranger into a mother, yet I keep going as if at some point I will be rewarded, handed whatever it is I seem to want from one of my almost-mothers." - Lou Storey mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

Featured: @thehooghlyreview.bsky.social @mrbullbull.bsky.social @fifthwheelpress.bsky.social @ratbaglit.bsky.social @trashcatlit.bsky.social @thecitronreview.bsky.social @electricliterature.com @clereviewbooks.bsky.social @sawpalm.bsky.social @bloominonionlit.bsky.social @templeinacity.bsky.social

"A television mounted high on the opposite wall showed white women with facelifts and fake tits screeching at one another while drinking wine. He checked the time on his phone. Leaving the house for even an hour was taking a chance." - John McMahon mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"Females. Also known, culturally, as women. Appropriate undergarments are required to be worn with all uniform combinations. How do we define appropriate? You show us yours & we’ll know it when we see it. But, seriously, don’t show us yours." - MaxieJane Frazier mrbullbull.com/newbull/crea...

"On about the fortieth time I wrenched the steering wheel all the way to the left he said, “Just pull out. You did good enough.” I thought about this guy a lot in college, when I was with my girlfriend." - George Singleton mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"Tomorrow I’ll be legal, but I was thirteen when I discovered, sitting before a mirror with my legs butterflied, that I had an ugly vagina." - Ash Anderson mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"Chinooks blow misgivings for days. But with each warm lungful possibility is inhaled. Change may not be in the cards for me but for a few more hours it will feel like a possibility, remote and slight, but nonetheless, a possibility." - Loren Kim mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

“He doesn’t tell them that tomorrow is a memory so great and a hole so deep it cannot be measured. He doesn’t mention how he beats his hands on his chest to try to excise the grief that sits there so stubbornly.” @catherineobrien.bsky.social in @mrbullbull.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

“… I have become addicted to the process of undoing. So addicted to the process of undoing that I will cause the pain, just to feel hope that things can be normal and that I can fix myself again.” Meredith Aristone in @mrbullbull.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/crea...

"It’s not always clear what a hole is for." - Ed Sage mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

Glad to have a flash up in @mrbullbull.bsky.social thank you Ben! 🙏

"Poetry gets rid of the chaff. We’re taught to not linger on the unnecessary. To hone something until it's bone on bone. Writing's about making choices—what to leave in, what to include that may not seem obvious, & what to take out (lots)." - Brian Townsley mrbullbull.com/newbull/the-...

"Within three weeks, he’d gone from six steady hands to eleven. Eight men, three women. Tattoos. Scars. Nervous smiles. Hard eyes. All of them wanting something....He respected that. Wanting something was how you stayed alive." - Kate Sjostrand mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"I don’t know how to describe to this boy that I’m not Santa, I’m just a 30-year-old guy without a chimney or a roof over my head. That I got this stint because of my friend who works here as kitchen staff." @swethaamit.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

“The liquid climbs higher around you. You thrash, keeping your head above the surface. The steam curls and bites at your skin.” Loved this story!

"You’re sick of another 'deep dive' or 'brain dump.' You tell yourself to 'buy in' and be a 'trusted financial partner,' to 'meet customer needs,' to 'contribute to community well-being.” But you can’t even lie to yourself." - Wanying Zhang mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

Spent way too much time revising our submittable stuff about who we are and what we're looking for, so here you go (or you know just read the stuff we publish): mrbullbull.submittable.com/submit

"Looking away was a breath of fresh air. A breath like the first after drowning, or after a passionate strangling by a pair of cold and dormant hands. Hands they’d rather not recall." - Henry Markowitz mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

Buy this book. That is your job. You have one job. Don't f*ck it up.

"I think that a lot of what I am, what I’ve always been, is inherently dirty, so I indulge the sickest parts of myself all at once, thinking that I’ll get so nauseous & so done with being me that they will leave my system in one fell swoop." - Meredith Aristone mrbullbull.com/newbull/crea...

"I say we can burn some incense, scatter something on water, bang a drum, make an incantation, what in your opinion will be an act that is life affirming? You say I think there’s a Harley-Davidson dealership around here." - Merridawn Duckler mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

“Homesickness begins to creep in. Loneliness. I showed them a picture of my girlfriend and they love her hair. It’s long and blond and she has it pulled back into a ponytail. One of them asks why I came all alone, across space, to this distant place. What have I done, I wonder.”

"Everyone on my new planet grows from what resembles a cactus flower. They bud and sprout. They unfold and then they begin the business of being loved and loving back. They cry when I tell them about money." @jeffreyhermann.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...