"In dreams it feels natural to make terrible decisions, evil decisions, careless decisions, or have no decisions to make at all..." @gingerko.bsky.social reviews Daisuke Shen’s VAGUE PREDICTIONS AND PROPHECIES in our recent Horror Folio. Link in thread.

"How do you write a story your characters aren’t supposed to tell?" On our site now: Editorial Assistant Mialise Carney reviews @nassos.bsky.social 's *Sour Cherry* (@tinhouse.bsky.social), a reimagining of Bluebeard stories. Link in thread.

Excited to have a new story (“Vigil”) in the latest issue of @cincinnatireview.bsky.social! It’s free on their site through Sunday! www.cincinnatireview.com/articles/vig...

We're delighted to announce our nominees for the upcoming edition of the Pushcart Prize: Jennifer Galvão, @loubnaelamine.bsky.social, Richard Hague, James Ciano, and Fran Qi. Best of luck to all!

Sale ends at midnight! Enjoy half off everything in the shop, including subscriptions, swag, and single copies! buff.ly/8puYcLw

"I wake to a bedside note from last night's self: '... like a thorn to a shrike." Our last miCRo of 2025 is a prose poem by @kevingrauke.bsky.social, "Loggerhead Shrike," which captures the lightning-in-a-bottle inspiration that can (sometimes) strike while inebriated. Link in thread.

Congratulations to contributor and editorial assistant @arahko.bsky.social on this week's publication of BRINE ORCHID with @yesyesbooks.bsky.social !

Our best sale of the year is still on until Dec 17th. Enjoy half off everything in the shop, including subscriptions, swag, and single copies! buff.ly/8puYcLw

"After all, the deepest parts of us retain traces of desert and glacier, volcano and sea; of tiger and ape, zebra and elephant; of spaceman and robot and murderer." Jen Fawkes on the sublime in our recent Horror Folio. Link in thread.

"Do you find yourself, at the end of the year, feeling quite Janus-like? Simultaneously reviewing the past while looking forward to the future? I certainly do." Associate Editor Kate Jayroe returns with a nostalgic look at the online literary scene of the past! Link in thread.

It's the most wonderful time of the year again! Our 50% off sale runs today until Dec 17th. Enjoy half off everything in the shop, including subscriptions, swag, and single copies! buff.ly/8puYcLw

"Tonight, the moon is a tangerine. Its juices drip down my chin." This week's miCRo by Whitney Waters redefines what it means to hunger for something slightly out of reach. Link in thread.

"Let the monster speak in your poem—let it run wild in the moonlight and find its target. The monster, when given the chance, will sink its claws into those who have dealt the most harm." CD Eskilson on monsters and queerness in our recent Horror Folio. Link in thread.

This week we celebrate two contributor book releases: BAKANDAMIYA: AN ELEGY by @saddiqdzukogi.bsky.social with @univnebpress.bsky.social and NOTES by Dean Rader with The Economy Press!

TODAY! If you're in the Cincinnati area, drop by the Mercantile Library from 6-7:30 for the launch of issue 22.2. Light bites and beverages provided, holiday coziness guaranteed (there will be a fire crackling in the fireplace)!

"Your partner is frustrated with you: You haven’t taken care of your body. You haven’t been responsible with your back or limbs or heart. You haven’t been good to yourself." Today we're featuring an online-only nonfiction exclusive from @allisonfieldbell.bsky.social, "Body Essay." Link in thread.

“That’s something I still strive for: mentally and emotionally disconnecting the act of writing from the business of sending out submissions of work.” Lisa Ampleman, managing editor of the Cincinnati Review, offers perspective on weathering rejections: at.pw.org/AERAmpleman

"It was also Mennonite style for children to listen quietly at the supper table while the grown-ups talked." This week's miCRo by Jodi Cressman explores the stratifications of gender and family in a Mennonite and farming household. Link in thread.

A reminder that we did not open for submissions today. We're making some technological changes to how we review submissions. Look for a call in early 2026!

miCRo is now CLOSED for submissions! Keep watching this space for future calls!

Issue 22.2 is here to help you get into the holiday spirit.

"we have no one to thank more than you, Estate ETQ4400XQ, our heavy-duty top-load hero . . ." Read "Ode to the Estate ETQ4400XQ" by Matt Del Busto in issue 22.2, out now.

"He bends/to petals, reaches/into stamens, stands still/among the flit of wings, his face against/a dusk horizon" Read "Horizon" by Brian Komei Dempster in issue 22.2, out now.

"One theory laments the invention of the ship as the invention of the shipwreck." Read "Impossible Bottle (2)" by Moriah Cohen, out now in issue 22.2.

"On the morning of December 24, 1979, a woman walking her dog near the Blue Ridge Parkway outside Boone, North Carolina, discovered my grandfather’s near-naked body lying in a ditch . . ." Read "The Last Cashion" by @mattcashion.bsky.social -- now out in issue 22.2.

"So when we heard  / the hollow screech of hull / and saw the water /  flood in, we ran those mail sacks / to the upper decks— / all those tiny vessels..." In this week's miCRo, Stephanie Choi memorializes the lost mail of the RMS Titanic. Link in Thread.

Congratulations to contributor @natanlast.bsky.social on the publication of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE with @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social @PantheonBooks.bsky.social

"Alice and her father’s second wife are going to the museum. When the second wife stoops to kiss Alice’s little brothers goodbye, Alice can see all the way up her skirt." Read "Alice & the Second Wife" by Jennifer Galvão, now out in issue 22.2.

We're in the process of making some big (good!) changes in how we accept and read your submissions. Because of that, we won't be opening for journal submissions on December 1 as we usually do. Stay tuned here for a call for submissions some time in early 2026.

"The sea cucumber is alone and cries in the corner. The hermit crab recoils after finger jabs." Read "Intertidal Zone" by @alexchand.bksy.social in issue 22.2, out now!

"At twenty-six, while I bore no obvious outward sign of Mormon roots, I still hoped to make decent, if not wise, decisions. And I still wanted to meet someone." Read Marilyn Abildskov's "At the Carousel" in issue 22.2, out now!

"Taco Works chips and guacamole: the task is simple, then for some reason it goes all, like, you know, existential . . ." Read "from Sixty-Four Trips to Vons" by Gabriel Arquilevich in issue 22.2, out now!

'You are told to not rummage through the office room’s items. That the homeowners are “private people.”' Read "[Disarticulated Prose Poem]" by @iancappelli.bsky.social in issue 22.2, out now!

The uncanny. The strange. However you slice it, things are getting spooky in our 22.2 folio featuring writing on HORROR by @gingerko.bsky.social, CD Eskilon, @richardscottlarson.com.bsky.social, Jen Fawkes, and Raul Palma. Link in first comment.

'Victoria didn’t understand what kind of couple would have a last name that was a noun and still name their son “Harry.”' Read "Struts and Frets" by Katherine Damm in issue 22.2.

Today's miCRo is a retelling of a classic fairy tale. Link in thread.

Congratulations to contributor @writerbrucej.bsky.social on the publication of LOVE, DIRT -- the winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award with University of Iowa Press! buff.ly/Sf9Md1u

"I am myself/a crime." This week's miCRo by Stella Wong makes possible an array of transformations. Link in thread.

V. Hansmann, "Innkeeper" at Prospect Street Writers House, tells us what it takes to run a residency for writers. Link in thread.

"My mother could swallow insults whole like a crocodile." Georgi Bargamian's miCRo enchants with its incantatory, riddle-like charms, swirling from line to line. Link in thread.

We're delighted to announce our 2025 nominees for Best of the Net. Congratulations to all, and good luck! @Talkinghyphae.bsky.social @cberwick.bsky.social

You read that right! miCRo submissions are OPEN! Send us your best work of 500 words or fewer.

"This liminal mood would spill into the house itself, no longer a constrained space, but porous and crackling with dangerous possibilities." This week on site, Associate Editor Andy Sia explores eerie and liminal spaces in a Halloween feature. Link in thread.

"For a decade I carry the rotting mango, its pit humming with maggots. I cannot rid myself of it, I cannot glance away." What happens when something goes from delicious to sickeningly sweet? Preeti Talwai's miCRo has all the answers! Link in thread.

"We’re taught that disability is tragic, sad, and maybe inspiring. But comedy is the genre of survival." Today on the site, contributor Anya Groner interviews @btrapperkeeper.bsky.social about his new novel, RANGE OF MOTION.

"That damn soul is going to go someplace else. It’s going to shrug me off the way we shrug off our raincoats, overcoats, and Ulster coats." This week's miCRo by Shikhandin pays mind to possession: what we own, what we do not own, and what we feel owed to.

Congratulations to contributor Paula Bohince on today's publication of A VIOLENCE with @princetonupress.bsky.social !

Congratulations to former CR editor @btrapperkeeper.bsky.social . His much-anticipated debut novel, RANGE OF MOTION, publishes today with our friends at @acrebooks.bsky.social .

Congratulations to former CR editor AND contributor Christian Moody on today's release of LOST IN THE FOREST OF MECHANICAL BIRDS, the winner of the Dzanc Short Story Collection Prize!

Playwrights (and CR contribs!) @bydanobrien.bsky.social and christopher oscar peña in conversation with director and producer @markarmstrong4.bsky.social about the two's recently published play trilogies and more. Link in first comment: