"Sometimes the woman thought the trees protected her and sometimes she thought the trees would kill her. Sometimes, too, she could hear them talking, hear them calling to her..." New fiction by Justin McDevitt from our Spring 2026 issue. #fiction #shortfiction #shortstory #experimentalwriting

"...today is April Fool’s, but all jokes have become decrepit; the bouquets with roses are too neat, too coiled, too circular..." A flash nonfiction story by Nicki Youngsma from our Spring 2026 issue. @nickiswonderlist.bsky.social #flash #creativenonfiction #experimentalwriting

"...I wouldn’t mind being dizzy more often, falling down and into things, spilling other people’s drinks in fancy restaurants." Our Spring 2026 issue recently launched with three poems by jms xuange. #poetry #poetrycommunity #experimentalwriting

"Backyard" by Laurel Prieto for our Spring 2026 issue. New works of defamiliarized creative writing will appear in our spring issue throughout April and May. Learn more at thegravityofthething.com.

"Danny fell asleep. His hunting rifle was propped up against a tree. He left the safety off. You never leave the safety off..." Our Winter 2026 issue recently concluded with a short story by Brenna Dean, which experiments with point of view. #fiction #shortfiction #shortstory #experimentalwriting

"At three days post-treatment, eye contact was erroneously made between a member of the laboratory staff and an individual in the experimental group..." A genre-bending short story by Jack Dixon from our Winter 2026 issue. #shortfiction #genrebending #crossgenre #experimentalwriting

"Threshold is a wall. When you look at those orange bricks, you see smears of blood. It’s from the last woman who tried to go through the wall..." A poem by Wen Jing appeared this morning in our Winter 2026 issue. @wenjingauthor.bsky.social #poetry #poetrycommunity

"Next: relief. You have survived. Everything from here on out is improvement, no?" A new short story from our Winter 2026 issue. Click below to read "Postscript to a Horror Film" by John Higgins. #fiction #shortfiction #shortstory

"...she looks naïve. It’s sweet. But that sweetness is as brief as a camera flash capturing her. We lean to the side and see all at once how brief this moment is..." Flash fiction by @lillian-durr-art.bsky.social from our Winter 2026 issue. #fiction #flashfiction

"...it was the morning when the fish jumped out of the pan and swam around the room, when the pictures and their frames came unmoored and drifted into each other..." Our Winter 2026 issue recently launched with a flash nonfiction story by Ethan Stanton. #creativenonfiction #experimentalwriting

"Harvest" by Laurel Prieto for our Winter 2026 issue. New works of defamiliarized creative writing will appear in our winter issue throughout February and March. Learn more at thegravityofthething.com.

We are excited to share our 2025 nominations for the Pushcart Prize, the Best American anthologies, and the Best of the Net anthology. A very big congratulations to our contributors!

"The Boys could be found on the Rock whenever there was sun. Their brown and pink tones dappling the grey jut, an image of the languid summer they all wished could last forever..." Our Fall 2025 issue recently concluded with a short story by Eric Oman Callahan. #fiction #shortfiction #shortstory

"A mimosa represented chastity because the leaves of the mimosa close at night, or when touched. White carnation meant pure love and good luck, and a pink one, a mother’s undying love..." "Pink Carnation" by Rebecca Suzuki recently appeared in our Fall 2025 issue. #creativenonfiction

"work is a place where some adolescents and most adults spent a good deal of their waking time doing specified tasks or acting in prescribed roles in order to earn money..." Genre-bending writing by Carrie Nassif from our Fall 2025 issue. #crossgenre #experimentalwriting

"If you should ever miss me, take the boat. If the boat is stalling, jump and fly. May strong winds float you, levant kids." "The Firth of Forth" and other poems by Judy Thorn recently appeared in our Fall 2025 issue. #poetry #poetrycommunity

"I want the small sky brightnesses on the piece of hard ground like I want food, but different. I want to look at it. I want to touch it..." A new flash fiction story by Rob Swystun from our Fall 2025 issue. #fiction #flashfiction

"how our distant ancestors first learned to grind with their teeth how we have so many words for the act of sifting one thing from another" Our Fall 2025 issue recently launched with two poems by CS Crowe. #poetry #poetrycommunity

"First Steps" by Laurel Prieto for our Fall 2025 issue. New works of defamiliarized creative writing will appear in our fall issue throughout September and October. Learn more at thegravityofthething.com.

"did he touch a cigarette to synthetic? a single spark igniting. curtains / cabinets furniture. the hot cloud pawing through fusty / hallways..." Our Summer 2025 issue recently concluded with a poem by Kathleen Hellen. #poetry #poetrycommunity

"If anyone knows where this tlanguage of rocks leads then it’s a trap / A dead end for people who are looking for something resembling the truth..." A new poem by Mykyta Ryzhykh from our Summer 2025 issue. #poetry #poetrycommunity

"I convince myself that the view of sun breaking over water is what I need, to soothe this body whose pieces were cut with different blades, painted the same color, and built back together..." Two prose poems by @warmaiden.bsky.social from our Summer 2025 issue. #poetry #prosepoetry

"you're a fungus expanding your fibrous tendrils across dead skin and decaying organs; sing in the language of hunger, the words an ancestral memory buried in the genetic code..." Genre-bending writing by @gorillapoet.bsky.social from our Summer 2025 issue. #flash #experimentalwriting

"Malicious, bleary-eyed scammers, payola and crime and all that. It wasn’t a life I knew, was acquainted with at all. But I liked to dream about it anyway..." Check out Yuna Kang's short fiction story, which appeared this week in our Summer 2025 issue. #fiction #shortfiction #shortstory

"A man stands in front of a mirror wearing last night’s makeup. He knows he should have taken it off, but he didn’t. He was having a good time, living his truest self, and he got home so late (so early)..." Our Summer 2025 issue launches with a #flashfiction story by @adjinntonic.bsky.social.

"Lichen" by Laurel Prieto for our Summer 2025 issue. New works of defamiliarized creative writing will appear in our summer issue throughout July and August. Learn more at thegravityofthething.com.

"We had no language, you understand, only the possibility of it; three strands of hibiscus arranged left to right would mean grandmother" Our Spring 2025 issue concludes with a poem by Zachariah Claypole White. @zachariahcw.bsky.social #poetry

"Did you ever think you’d end up here Those times you went on Oprah, talking tough To teenage moms? You never quite became a star." New #poetry by Nadia Kalman from our Spring 2025 issue.

"In the beginning not yet sacred all is apropos. As I traverse a simple closed curve counterclockwise the interior is always on the left." A prose poem by Heikki Huotari from our Spring 2025 issue.

"Out of sight of the hero’s dead eyes, he brushes his bony hands and gets back to the very important work of writing his treatise on the condition of the undead..." New fiction by Henry Stevens from our Spring 2025 issue.

"I was told growing up 'you’re a quarter' of each thing, like a dollar bill, but with the weight of making sure you can keep all the pieces together, to be able to buy what you need at the dollar store." Creative nonfiction by Elica Sue from our Spring 2025 issue.

"Something wraps your ankle in a tight grip. A sharp end presses into your lower back and threatens to pierce your skin. A claw? A sting? A beak?"‪ Our Spring 2025 issue recently launched with a short story by @johansmits.bsky.social.

"Pathways" by Laurel Prieto for our Spring 2025 issue. New works of defamiliarized prose and poetry will appear in our spring issue throughout May and June. Learn more at thegravityofthething.com.

"the Valkyries predicted we would crave quake, that the stars existed to shine down on our teeth embedded in sidewalks like ivory sequins..." Our Winter 2025 issue concludes with three experimental poems by Panika M. C. Dillon. @withoutreports.bsky.social

"The seeds of my prison were sown in the third century when a drunk calligrapher scrawled an impromptu poem. On a spring afternoon beside a stream, the calligrapher Xizhi composed the Orchid Pavilion Preface..." A new short story by Alex Zhao.

"Within a nanosecond, we are alert, guarded, equipped. We multiply into a huge army, ready for action. Not for nothing, we’re called your first line of defense. We charge with one goal. To protect you." A new short story by Shanti Chandrasekhar from our Winter 2025 issue.

"when you were tucked in your grave, neat as a napkin in a lap, all words soared off to some shining tree, bereaving me..." Two poems by Amy Allison from our Winter 2025 issue. @byamyallison.bsky.social

"Says once she tripped that she was her own mother giving birth to herself. She was in labor for forty-eight hours and remembers every second of it..." New prose poetry by Noah Anthony Mezzacappa from our Winter 2025 issue.

"I’m different than other babies. Their gemstone eyes, chubby everythings, innate ability to wiggle. Me? I’m one legal-sized sheet of paper, blue lines barely visible..." Our Winter 2025 issue recently launched with prose poetry excerpts by Jason Fraley.

"Beeswax Batik Swatch" by Laurel Prieto for our Winter 2025 issue. New works of defamiliarized prose and poetry will appear in our winter issue throughout February and March. Learn more at thegravityofthething.com.