Would love to see you/hug you/shake your hand at Baltimore this week: @ book fair from 9'ish-5 Thurs-Sat selling BULL, Booth no. 254 @ The Golden Care reading, 7-9 Thurs @ The Love & Regret Gastropub reading, 7:30-9:30 Fri Spread the word. I am large. I got a lotta love to give.

"Dago,” Bill said, what do’yer think?” “I think I’ll put it in the creek,” Vic said. “Don’t you worry your pink cheeks.” “Eat shit,” the pitcher said. “I think I’ll put it in your mom.” - Chris Cocca mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"There was no reason to take it. No reason to stay, no reason to leave. She'd wake in the blue dawn light & know he was gone & that he'd taken something from her which she would not get back. Maybe that was the reason." - Sean Mcconnell mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

Getting into @mrbullbull.bsky.social was huge for me. Great journal, great editors, great writing. Let's keep this party going.

"It’s a sorry-ass way to go through life, being sorry that you take up space." - JR Wormington mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

Read my interview with Peter Mountford out today in @mrbullbull.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/the-... #petermountford #fourwaybooks #detonator #fiction #shaunanthonymcmichael #shortstories #bull

Honored that BULL included my short story “127 Feet” in this bad boy—check it out!

New Bull Interview with @shaunmcmichael.bsky.social

"There are people right now in Venezuela falling in love with each other, or breaking up, and there's some kid who stubbed his toe, and another who’s mad at his brother. All of these things are happening simultaneously." - Peter Mountford mrbullbull.com/newbull/the-...

Introducing BULL #13: The Longjohns Issue, featuring a bunch of longer fiction from the past year. Get it now for the low low price of 6 lousy bucks: www.amazon.com/dp/B0GPX54CRQ

"I used to think toughness was armor. Now I think it’s trust—running straight at the world believing it might love you back." -H.L.Delaney mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

My short story "127 Feet" appears in the new @mrbullbull.bsky.social anthology. Bull published it last year (thx @thedrevlow.bsky.social) and it's a story I had so much fun writing. I hope you'll check it out and the other contributor stories as well--it's only $6! www.amazon.com/dp/B0GPX54CR...

"We will plant a church and that church will grow like a flower I don’t know the name for. But we are not gardeners. We carry weapons fashioned against The Enemy. We are soldiers of God." - Christian Fuller mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

“…spoke of a town that never existed” This stunner by @sabrinahicks.bsky.social in @mrbullbull.bsky.social: 🔥!

This story is a masterclass in suspense, and I don't say that lightly. Every scene is perfumed with dread. Written by @marythor.bsky.social, published by @mrbullbull.bsky.social.

" ... said real men don’t wear condoms so they rolled them up like whispers in the backseat of their parents’ cars then blamed the town, the way it held and hated them ..." & what isn't believed in "around here" @sabrinahicks.bsky.social in @mrbullbull.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"She looked at me with that gorgeous face twisted into its worst shape: pity. I hoped she'd get hit by a slow-moving taxi on her way across the street. Just enough to tip her over, her big round ass hitting a red road reflector as she goes down." - Dina Dwyer mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"Here’s this little dude. He’s kicking me. Ow! That really hurts! He’s pulling my J’s off! I say, 'What the fuck, man?' He goes, 'Fuck you,' so I go, 'No, fuck you' then he kicks me in the nuts. - Vinayak Das Gupta mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"The Deli Boys were men everyone called boys, townies who never left their neighborhood, ther first jobs, their first girls, pulling the condom off when her head was turned, rolled them up like whispers in the backseat of their parents’ cars." - Sabrina Hicks mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"Anything is possible with horror, nothing's off the table. Social issues, personal fears, deep-seated dread about ourselves & our futures. There’s an endless trick or treat bucket to rummage through for new ways to do it." - Laurel Hightower (by @frank212.bsky.social) mrbullbull.com/newbull/the-...

New flash story out at @mrbullbull.bsky.social !

"My girlfriend Annesa says she needs to visit her ex-boyfriend’s grave today because she felt his presence in second period during a lesson about tectonic plates crashing against each other." - @rjbrash.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

The intercutting timelines on this story just AMP up the tension. So good! @marythor.bsky.social in @mrbullbull.bsky.social "I haven’t spoken to my wife in six days. I don’t know if the phone is broken or if I should be calling the police. Do you understand me?” mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

READ Ellen-Arwen Tristram in @mrbullbull.bsky.social ! mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

Mary is on 🔥

"There was vomit on the rug. That’s the first thing Thomas told his boss. This is something he would never understand. How he communicated what he saw. First he talked about the vomit. Then he talked about the woman in her bed." @marythor.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"First time I nearly died was a bit pathetic, Mum too caught up with the rest of the kids, I was bored. Only got 24 hours on a ward ‘til Mum picked me up for discharge. Didn’t get any therapy, don’t think she took the calls." - Ellen-Arwen Tristram mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"Dre was no good for quiet work anymore, he couldn’t blend in anywhere. His mass drew stares like a natural force. He was muscle pure & simple but Alfonse loved him since the moment they set eyes on each other in the frozen winter yard at Sing Sing." - John McMahon mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"You can come back every day and see how it changes, how that fur and fat and meat and all that just goes away, and you’re left with a little pile of bones that don’t look like anything except bones." - Chuck Strange mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"The shortest whitest-haired, most wrinkled, bony-fingered woman in the largest pink-framed sunglasses I'd ever seen looked the thief over like a blouse she was thinking of buying. Then pow! Her knee. His pee shooter. Perfect landing." - Michael Drezin mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"I really only understand myself, and I’m a misfit and a weirdo who doesn’t know how to interact and communicate with people very well, so other misfits and weirdos are the types of people I really like writing about." - Steve Gergley mrbullbull.com/newbull/the-...

The Shortlist for February 13: A new story from James Vella in Turn & Work Plus links to other great stories from: Wim Hylen and Henrick Karoliszyn in @mrbullbull.bsky.social Mallory Smart @mallorysmart.bsky.social in Little Engines Check them all out here:

"'It’s an animal,' Wife said. 'It belongs outside with the birds and bugs and everything else with teeth.” I said, 'He’s not an animal.' What I didn’t say was he was the only living thing I knew for sure would never leave me behind." - Shayne Langford mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"There’s a connection, a mutual understanding. Two waves one over. One grins. One breathes on one’s palm. One decides to chance it with two. Three will never find out. Three’s busy at home, a continent away, with half and third." - Christopher Linforth mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

“'Malcolm was taking away her cake and ice cream,” Barry said, edging me up. 'He should have known she was gonna fight for it.'" @astuterome.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/crea...

"But Muppets don’t end with your TV screens. Did you know? They infiltrate your workplaces, your idols, your governments." - Steven Whitaker mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

This was a fun one to write with an even better title! "My Neighbor Pays Me $100 to Dress Up Like His Dead Daughter" is now up at @mrbullbull.bsky.social: mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"And that’s when he told me I reminded him of his dead daughter because we both have red hair, freckles, and look like we’re keeping everybody else’s secrets." @christinaltudor.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

'I whisper "Sorry," hoping it doesn't sound like I told you so.' OMG, this #flashfiction by @phebej.bsky.social in @mrbullbull.bsky.social hits so hard!

"After the blaze I kept feeling like I was missing something. Wallet, parts of my face, my entire body even as I was holding my wallet, could see my reflected face, & far as I could tell, was still fairly alive. Still, some days I wasn’t sure." -Henrick Karoliszyn mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"See the wild painted dogs of North Charleston. The pregnant mother hounds snuffling the ditch-line for hours—to see them is to see ourselves. Something wild, the scars of night fights & bad love & still they get up after a hard rain." - Stephen Hundley mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"Nobody pays attention to Donny when he yells about fucking people up, but I do." @phebej.bsky.social bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"Tammy Faye face, dollar store wig, she smokes Camels on the chaise while I root through her kitchen for oven cleaner." - S.H. Woodgeard mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"For a sex worker, she was cheap; but for a prostitute she was harder on the wallet." - Emyr Payne mrbullbull.com/newbull/fict...

"Because my husband Bob, out to sea with his maleness, will fly around the front yard, nekkid as a rabbit, as if to challenge me, and because my mother never thought twice about murdering a jackrabbit in the late afternoon." - Meg Pokrass mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"People want to be sportsmen because sportsmen are rich. People want to be artists because of money as well. If binmen became millionaires everyone would want to be a binman." - Dominik Slusarczyk mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"You are violent / You are male / You want something other than this nuclear warhead in your throat / You want to be rough / You want to be roughly fucked/You want to be doing the fucking / You want a $1000 excuse for this ogre in the mirror." - Anthony Ikeh mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"People’s behavior is seldom as simple as some moral failing. Even the worst characters want the same things we all want—joy, peace, love, and dignity." @jdclappwrites.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/the-...

"I went into the debris field & found a piece of her, ignoring the screams of panic & shouts of police to clear the area. I thought of Leila’s minister who always said about tragedy & darkness, why shouldn’t it happen to you? Why shouldn’t it?" @rondionne.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

Once had a random dude respond to a rejection to ask if I was doing okay & to say he was worried about me.... Another random dude once threatened to track me down & kick my ass because he said my rejection letter was a buncha bullshit toxic masculinity = why I do BULL.