You're invited to our Master Series interview and reading with Aimee Bender on August 9th! This event is free! And we'll be giving away lots of books. Sign up through the SmokeLong Shop by "purchasing" this event for $0 dolares! www.smokelong.com/product/mast...

Yet, once they said it everyone remembers the original claim not their recant.

Day 15: Thanks for the challenge @smokelong.bsky.social and for the stories shared by everyone else who's posted. I'll definitely continue sifting the archives of flash-championing journals. The title grabbed me and I loved the juxtaposition of strange and normal. splitlipthemag.com/flash/0818/m...

Reread a longtime favorite story of mine, by a longtime favorite writer. She shared more writing wisdom during a recent incredible SmokeLong webinar. "The first time a guy said I look like a man was at the Jamba Juice stand in the mall." @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0120/v...

My only thought on finishing this story was wowzers! Talk about flash packing a punch. I wasn't prepared, the title is so beautiful, the opening sentence dives right in and the ending...wowzers. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0920/c...

So happy to have a story on this list!😊

Day 14: The weight of shoulds hangs heavy in this flash. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0621/s...

Day 13: "All the candidates take something with them when they go. They say they need to live with a part of us to determine if they can be comfortable there." An epic of a flash. Parts reminded me of Cheever's The Swimmer. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/1022/n...

Day 12: The pacing was spot on, and the layered meanings in the end struck an additional note. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0318/a...

The titles give the reader the containers of these flashes-- definitions--but not the way story and sensory details are used. The writer gives clues about characters while leaving a healthy dose of mystery.. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0415/k...

"Caitlin enunciates the words mother and kitchen and mopping like each syllable has scrubbing properties, like she’s flossing with vowels, cleaning her mouth out for Mr. Gilcrest, our drama teacher." I would love a Clean Girls Part 2. splitlipthemag.com/flash/1117/r...

@katedoyle.bsky.social has this ability to make a small action, feel so true to a character and circumstance and reverberate beyond the story. "I’m nowhere, I told him. I mean, I’m at home." @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0922/k...

"You probably remember it different. You probably remember the sun being so hot we had to close the shades in the middle of the day—that the AC couldn’t keep up, that the floors were sticky. " The unfolding of relationship and circumstance👨‍🍳👌 @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0318/a...

Love how the creep of the hypothetical blurs reality between story (author's imagination) and character's imagination in this flash by @rpmirabella.bsky.social I, too, can't stand to throw away books, as free-libraries near me can attest. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/1122/r...

Day 11: The unreality of a place is central to this story, and I was amazed by how the writer made the mystery of it so concrete through associations. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0715/g...

"Now you are in eighth grade and must interact with the caterpillar on a new level." I love the main character and the way they interact with this class and how the author plays with what has been said. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0415/n...

Is it ekphrastic, is it meta, is it fragmented? All of the above. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0415/j...

Monthly reminder: Many people have a book in them, but it takes a special kind of freak to leave the Land of Laziness, cross the Plains of Procrastination and Insecurity Mountain, find the Blade of No One Made You Do This, and use it to cut your chest open and yank that book out.

Day 10: The way the language slants and the use of repetition caught me up in this story. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0625/j...

If a picture is worth a thousand words then what are all the pictures of Murkowski saying? She looks confused, haggard, but this was a calculated decision. They show a conflicted woman but the actions were those of self-interest.

Part of me wishes this was just a nice story of a mom and her adult kid and a stolen bike, but this story resonated like I was a medieval church on a Sunday. If you have a parent you live far from, read at your own risk. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/1021/t...

Day 9: A story of space and sisters and both optimism and cynicism in the face of sucking black hole catastrophes by former SmokeLong fellow @pegahouji.bsky.social felt appropriate. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0924/p...

If you need a laugh (and don't we all) please read this story! @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0125/s...

"I don’t want turmeric that much, I say. I don’t want that much turmeric." The relationship between the narrator and the addressed main character was so well developed and a great use of the second person POV. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0425/n...

"the spumes of deep thermal vents; the lies that seep out of people, always tipping towards slight, almost unnoticeable, uncontrolled disaster." Take a few moments to read each beautifully crafted sentence in this piece with a killer title. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/1118/h...

Day 8: Endings feel hard to me so I'm always trying to pay attention to what other writers are doing to make them land well. This micro ended with not one but two questions, and it worked so well. Do you end your stories with a question? @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0115/j...

This work drama with a speculative tilt was so enjoyable. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/1014/r...

A great example of a mosaic or fragmented flash, whose segments make a deeper story. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/1014/k...

There’s still time. Call your reps!

Day 7: A micro that is as heavy hitting now as it likely was 11 years ago. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0714/r...

A voice that sings on the page. Just read the title and you'll see. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/fiction/0923...

The things we carry with us from and out of childhood can be so heavy. They can ripple outward for what seems like forever. Erica Frederick captures that in this story. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/1122/e...

"His chest was a crime scene of mangled tomatoes." This story has incredible imagery. Each sentence is alive. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0522/l...

Day 6: The memory of a thin sliver of fish bone horizontally gouged my esophagus as I read this beautiful story about and not about fish bones. I'm left with so many questions. Read with caution, but read this story! @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0622/r...

Jessica Barksdale employs a trampoline structure (Christopher Allen's word, not mine) with many small scenes that show the build up of time and tension for the main character. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0714/j...

"Grandma says my parents are stodgy Puritans." @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/1120/g...

Great rhythm and pattern that gets broken and opens the story up wider @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/1024/b...

Day 5. Congratulations @claudiamonpere.bsky.social on making the Wigleaf Top 50 Longlist! Today I dove into the @splitlipthemag.bsky.social story, Girl Locks. "A girl, she will inside-out the darkness." Thinking about darkness now. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0524/c...

This constitutes “a likely war crime” that violates international standards on aid distribution, according to the United Nations. interc.pt/44BkDtL

#palestineaction #gaza #genocide #rooney

Starving people targeted; babies and children dying of malnutrition as well as deliberate attacks against the people in Gaza. There is food, so many people are donating, trying to help, and Israeli forces are not only violently withholding this life-saving aid but are using it as bait. #stopgenocide

No Spoilers allowed, but the use of silence in this piece was masterful and I hope everyone reads it! @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0913/c...

I loved the literalizing of metaphor in this piece. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0713/w...

Day 4: A favorite topic of mine--female friendships--handled so well by Cyn Vargas! I'll be thinking about this one for a long time @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0114/c...

I love the way the setting (the heat) amplifies the tension in this story. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0913/c...

Disorienting and fun. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0513/s...

Day 3: "Stop, she begs, without me knowing you will." This was a very tactile story; the sensations and subtext played well off of each other. splitlipthemag.com/flash/0513/g... @smokelong.bsky.social

I love a story that manages to surprise me. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0113/p...

"My mother says that she was young too, once upon a time." "After he heard shots fired the man realized survival meant abandoning everything." Two very different stories for the price of one. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/0912/j...

I loved the way Gayle Brandeis stuck the landing on the ending of Scott's story which made it about so much more than a high school theater group. @smokelong.bsky.social splitlipthemag.com/flash/1112/g...