“Last Thursday, for example, I stuck my head in the oven and waited for death; but instead I grew wings, flew to Heaven, and killed God. It was a whole thing.”

We're open for submissions this week, for the last time until January. 🪟

amazing

new new: "Whalefall," by Kimberly Potthast: wigleaf.com

Thrilled for this!

new new: "Propinquity," by Daniel Sylvan Paige: wigleaf.com (first-published story alert!)

new new: "Mountain Time, Baby," by Meghan Proulx: wigleaf.com

new new: "The Inherited," by Alula Selassie: wigleaf.com

agh this is so good

Extremely pleased to have a story in Wigleaf.

“Even after I quit that job, I had oval red burns on the pale side of my right forearm from reaching into the top oven.” @eliseblackwell.bsky.social in @wigleaf.bsky.social with this story about the things you don’t understand burning scars into you 🧡

This is stunning! @eliseblackwell.bsky.social at @wigleaf.bsky.social ❤️‍🩹

Take three minutes to improve your Sunday, with this micro-story from @eliseblackwell.bsky.social ⬇️

new new: "Franchise," by Elise Blackwell: wigleaf.com

new new: TWO MICROS, by Judah Crow: wigleaf.com

We LOVE a story on ACCOMPLISHMENT SUNDAY 🤩 Managing Editor Wendy Olsen published an observant piece in @wigleaf.bsky.social we know you'll love too. Catch it here: buff.ly/mnHO9RK

Oh my heart this story by @wendyoleson.bsky.social ! The contrast between the child’s gentle, innocent perspective and the violence/danger in the story works so well. Very powerful piece. I don’t want to give too much away. But read it!

new new: "Kingdom by the Sea," by Zehra Habib: wigleaf.com

I just read The Boy Waits by Wendy Oleson @wendyoleson.bsky.social at @wigleaf.bsky.social Good, clever, killer ending: wigleaf.com

Honored and excited to be the Selecting Eddie the @wigleaf.bsky.social Too 50 2026!

new new: 2nd of season! "The Boy Waits," by Wendy Oleson: wigleaf.com

September sub window: OPEN 🪟

new new: first of season! "Lobotomy," by Philip Walker: wigleaf.com

Beautiful story, beautifully written, deeply felt. Well worth the read.

We’ve hit our submission cap. See you in the last week of September 🌟

Do you need something satisfying to read that will take you away from this hellhole for about 3 perfect minutes? Here is my recommendation, courtesy of @danchaon.bsky.social and @wigleaf.bsky.social: wigleaf.com/201302him.htm

Big thank you to SmokeLong for challenging us to commit to two weeks of reading and sharing daily flash. Diving into @wigleaf.bsky.social's archive has been both inspiring and rewarding. <3

Not quite sure if yesterday or today was the last day of the @smokelong.bsky.social Archive Challenge, so JUST TO BE SAFE here's a little one from the @wigleaf.bsky.social Hint Fiction issue by Ben White wigleaf.com/201008ied.htm

Today's @smokelong.bsky.social Archive Challenge story (the last?) from @wigleaf.bsky.social is this tiny little one by @kimchinquee.bsky.social Maybe it's bc my parents listened to REO Speedwagon or bc of the particular moment it captures, but this one hits hard wigleaf.com/201002speedw...

"Hi, Natalie," I said. "Where's Janine?" "I ate her," Natalie said without looking in my direction. Last day of @smokelong.bsky.social's #ArchiveChallenge Taking it back to year one at @wigleaf.bsky.social with this agile, intricate character study by Tai Dong Huai. wigleaf.com/200810natali...

Today's @smokelong.bsky.social Archive Challenge story from @wigleaf.bsky.social is this one from @horse-updates.bsky.social I like the way this one uses little touches to illustrate the edges of the fuller, more complicated live of the characters wigleaf.com/201902electr...

"Five years after that, I cried wildly with a good friend on the floor of a Radisson Blu bathroom." The anaphora here makes the closing line twinkle all the brighter. @martamaranda.bsky.social in '18 @wigleaf.bsky.social @smokelong.bsky.social #ArchiveChallenge Day 13 wigleaf.com/201804five.htm

"Pancakes" from @kristintenor.bsky.social in '23 @wigleaf.bsky.social threw me right into the moment and didn't let up once. "She doesn't know why her mother walked barefoot to the neighbor's pond that day..." @smokelong.bsky.social #ArchiveChallenge Day 12 wigleaf.com/202301pancak...

Wrote something while on vacation and got a prize for it 🥲 thank you Wigleaf and thank you jet lag! wigleaf.com/202409sydw.htm

Today for the @smokelong.bsky.social Archive Challenge, as we journey through @wigleaf.bsky.social : A neat little list story from Ling Ma in 2011. It's fun going back and seeing the stories big names published as they were coming up: wigleaf.com/201110lifepl...

"A strange vibrancy came upon us—the Betta a ruby glint in the corners of our eyes." This story of a drowning marriage by Emma Smith-Stevens in '14 @wigleaf.bsky.social so effortlessly laces metaphor with meaning. @smokelong.bsky.social #ArchiveChallenge Day 11 wigleaf.com/201409august...

BIG CONGRATS 2025 MythicPicnic winners, Sophie Hoss and @stephanieyu.bsky.social 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Still doing the @smokelong.bsky.social Archive Challenge bc art doesn't stop for fascism! This one in @wigleaf.bsky.social is a classic from @roxanegay.bsky.social back in 2012. You know how the best apocalypse movies have that one image that stays with you? This is THAT wigleaf.com/201203as.htm

I've lost track of what day we're on for the @smokelong.bsky.social Archive Challenge... This one from @wigleaf.bsky.social is a bit more recent, by @katetooley.bsky.social. The lyrical language creates a mist of ambiguity, like looking at a streetlamp through fog wigleaf.com/202301bodies...

"I have told her a thousand times that we are not all heading, every second, toward some quiet epiphany." Such a fan of this quiet, introspective, meta, story from @rebekahbergman.bsky.social in '21 @wigleaf.bsky.social @smokelong.bsky.social #ArchiveChallenge wigleaf.com/202104everyt...

Day 8 of @smokelong.bsky.social's #ArchiveChallenge Love this glum + grotesque + rather beautiful story from @aubreyhirsch.bsky.social in '16 @wigleaf.bsky.social "...at night it pooled around her like spilled milk that could not be un-spilled." wigleaf.com/201612place....

A whole week of @smokelong.bsky.social #ArchiveChallenge! "The air above me illuminates like sections of code I've been working on." This eerie piece by Tara Isabel Zambrano in '17 @wigleaf.bsky.social reminds me of Severance + the horror of time passing in cubicles. wigleaf.com/201711cubes....

Happy Wigleaf Day!

Just been reading some of these - top choices from Wigleaf 👏👏👏

Congratulations, everyone! 💚✨💚 #WigleafTop502025

new on our mainpage: THE WIGLEAF TOP 50 VERY SHORT FICTIONS 2025 (selecting editor @samanito.bsky.social )

"The lump in my throat tastes like overripe mangoes—the ones that are on the precipice of rotting." Love Hema Nataraju's sensory imagery + young narrator who knows and doesn't know what it all means. @wigleaf.bsky.social Day 4 @smokelong.bsky.social #ArchiveChallenge wigleaf.com/202103mangoe...

Update on Mythic Picnic prizes! Winners to be announced next week (reason: you know life).

For Day 3 of the @smokelong.bsky.social Archive Challenge, here's another one from @wigleaf.bsky.social, this time from 2021: I love this one from @nairarw.bsky.social for the way each segment reveals a new layer of meaning, like an onion wigleaf.com/202111men.htm

Day 3 of the @smokelong.bsky.social #ArchiveChallenge and I'm really into the passage of time and cyclical ending in this surreal story by Renée Jessica Tan in @wigleaf.bsky.social "A decade goes by. Toddlers in the sandbox become smoking teenagers on the swings." wigleaf.com/202209expect...