ICYMI: this story, published on 1/1/26, takes place over Easter weekend. It's a highway romance marked by cheap motels, Old Style, and a three-song piano concert in the Old Market in Omaha. One song is by the inimitable @dawestheband.bsky.social.

A huge, huge thanks to @roxanegay.bsky.social and @therumpus.net for publishing my autoerotic-asphyxiation, porn-in-a-Little-Free-Library short story. (Seriously, I owe those people a lot of beer.) It's called "Hell Is the Absence of God's Love," & I hope you dig it. therumpus.net/2026/04/02/h...

I'm stepping away from my editorial role at Cutleaf, for this year, but we have three excellent guest fiction editors: Monic Ductan, @arahko.bsky.social, and @karammck.bsky.social -- fiction cap is 500 and we're getting close to that mark. If you're thinking of sending work, now is the time...

remember when people used to cup their hand under a spigot of running water and then drink out of their own hand?

rural writer friends, take heed

a new story that came out earlier this month. Still available to read online. It's about friendship, marital woes, and NICUs.

It's such a joy to see this story (originally pub'd in Cutleaf) selected for Best of the Net 2026. Congrats, @kirakh.bsky.social!

Sunday morning read w @fbereaud.bsky.social. His debut novel is structurally inventive, propulsive, heartbreaking, hilarious. The title tips its hand: A Question of Family. Wonderful debut!

haven't posted yet this month -- AWP/travel, etc -- but posted quite a few reviews in Feb of some GREAT short stories published in @brownhoundpress.bsky.social Short Story, Long, @fracturedlit.bsky.social, and @mrbullbull.bsky.social Check them out here: read-short-stories.com

Your heart will break. You will shed a few tears. And—most of all—your faith in love and the human spirit will be renewed. Buy @barbarabyar.bsky.social’s IN THE DESERT www.cowboyjamboreemagazine.com/in-the-deser...

While you're waiting for the Oscars, why not read some excellent short fiction? We've published many award-worthy stories. Just saying. doric-literary.com/nominations/

two damn fine poets

It’s pub day!! She makes good company www.rockandahardplacemag.com/womans-guide...

Our new issue is truly epic. So many feels in this one. It's impossible to pick a piece to tell you to start with because they are all so good. Please read the whole issue! Let me know what you think. Thank you so much for supporting our talented contributors! 💕

this is a wild ride of a story: a fabulist tale of money, credit, and gratitude, all rooted in the complications of all-too-real relationships. Propulsive, hilarious, heartbreaking. electricliterature.com/please-accep...

a new all-fiction issue of Cutleaf featuring new stories by Sarah Bradley, Nikki Barnhart, and JJ Amaworo Wilson. Check it out here: cutleafjournal.com

grateful to the Bennington Review for publishing my story "Soap to the Elbows." It's a print journal, but my story is currently available online, for the time being: www.benningtonreview.org/fifteen-lesm...

had a ball reading this one on the train from B'more to NYC Thank you @aaronburch.bsky.social for writing this one. Full of fun, mystery, friends, cocktails, trips down memory lane, & Becket Baseball Card monthly: "A nostalgia storm rained down on me, washing me away in a time traveling river..."

ICYMI:

join EastOver Press, Porphyry Press, and TrioHouse Press for an off-site event, Friday, March 6, 7-9pm. Free food, cash bar! More details below:

This is awesome

short story review of "Cabin 28" by @marythor.bsky.social published in BULL. A dark, eerie story set, appropriately, at a cabin in the woods. check out the review here: read-short-stories.com (also, check out some of the other reviews from earlier this month)... #readshortstories

a new review up today. This one comes from @caelyncobb.bsky.social "Time Management" published in Short Story, Long. It's a fascinating tale that examines corporate life, ambition, coffee, cubicles, and notions of time. review here: read-short-stories.com

congrats to @yasminadinmadden.bsky.social whose debut collection "You Know Nothing" is now available!

here's a "highway romance" for your Valentine's day. also, the first time I've ever had a story published on New Year's day. thank you, again, @doricliterary.bsky.social for giving this one a home.

flash fiction Friday review of "Sometimes Grief is a Moonrise" by @allisonfieldbell.bsky.social, published in @fracturedlit.bsky.social. The piece is a heartache of complicated emotional processing. Read my brief review here: read-short-stories.com

Extremely honored to be lonlisted for the 2026 Joyce Carol Oates Prize!

Read Sophie Newman’s interview with “Tacoma” author Aaron Burch. They talk about the last 20 years of the literary scene, writerly obsession, autofiction, and more. buff.ly/wOBxFyz

new issue of Cutleaf, featuring poems by Richie Hoffman, an essay by Matthew Sidney Parsons, and a short story by Kate Finlinson. Read them here: cutleafjournal.com

for anyone not watching football, here's a review of Bob Johnson's latest short story, "The Train to Union Station," published in the new lit journal @brownhoundpress.bsky.social. The review along with a link to Bob's story: read-short-stories.com

Please help me get the word out about our lovely lit journal! www.south85journal.com/submissions/

This book is now out in the world and I’m jazzed to have a story in it. eastoverpress.com/book/an-anth...

new issue of Cutleaf, featuring an essay by Jim Huff, poems by Judy Kaber, and a new short story by @georgesingleton.bsky.social cutleafjournal.com

Here's a brilliant story we published on New Year's Day. If you were indisposed at that time, now's your chance to read this wonderful work about a road trip romance with music, dance, ashes, and a family reunion. Link in bio. #DesMoines @keithlesmeister.bsky.social

a brief review of Pardeep Toor's tense and uneasy story "Dinner Party" published in @greatriverreview.com. Also, Toor's debut story collection is coming out this April. Review here: read-short-stories.com

it was a pleasure to interview @tayyba.bsky.social about her debut story collection "Talking with Boys" -- a beautiful collection published last week with @blacklawrence.bsky.social.

new issue of Cutleaf, which features an essay by Chrissie Anderson Peters, poems by Clayton Adam Clark, and a short story by Daniel Abiva Hunt. cutleafjournal.com

“I was an innertube on the Lazy River of life, allowing it to spin me around, slow me down, bump me against the edges, and then dump me into whatever cesspool of piss water awaited.” Incredible piece of fiction here. I already feel the ache of missing the characters. Read this.

Really thrilled to see, The Shape of Things, will be included in the Best Microfiction of 2026 as chosen by Diane Seuss! Special thanks to the Heavy Feather Review for publishing it and to my 804 retreat friends who I wrote this for after a prompt :).

excellent opportunity in Minneapolis.

Short Story, Long submissions are open.

Take a road trip for a wonderful start to 2026! "Des Moines" by @keithlesmeister.bsky.social doric-literary.com/2026/01/01/d...

a new story out today. I like the editor's description here: "...every thing you'd want in a highway romance." Happy New Year!

⏰ FINAL CALL! Only two days left to submit to WTAW Press’s 2025 Open Call. If you’ve been waiting for a sign… this is it. Your book could be next to join our shelf! Submit by December 31st. ✍️

a beautiful and haunting story about friendship, art, and the muddle of one's life in their 20s. This story, I think, serves as a kind of coda to @andrewporter01.bsky.social collection "The Disappeared." The story here is available to read online thru 12/21 www.cincinnatireview.com/articles/vig...

what a fantastic group of debut collections. I already own four of these, but I'm looking forward to checking out the others. Congrats @lmichelcassidy.bsky.social @ladiwoods.bsky.social Hayden Casey, and Bob Johnson, and others!

a new all-nonfiction issue of Cutleaf! cutleafjournal.com

stories included were previously published in some wonderful lit journals. Thanks to all of them for publishing, and nominating, such wonderful work:

When I found out my story, How to Survive a Black Hole, had been selected for this anthology, by Deesha Philyaw no less, I was like, um, you have the wrong person... But it's real and I'm pinching myself. Thank you Keith, Deesha, and @kimmagowan.bsky.social ❤️ for being the best supporter and friend.

this past weekend, b/c of all the hype on Netflix, I reread Train Dreams by Denis Johnson (really, in my mind, a long short story packaged as a novella), and it me as hard on the second reading as it did the first, which was well over ten years ago now. A perfect little masterpiece.