Oyster River Pages really are wonderful champions for writers and are nominating one of my most beloved (and long) stories, Black Sky, Blue Earth for a 2026 Pushcart Prize - an incredible honour, given the calibre of writers they publish. So grateful www.oysterriverpages.com/black-sky-bl...

I'm still in shock but I submitted 3 stories and they all made the longlist and now all made the @oxfordflashfiction.bsky.social shortlist. This feels surreal, and even if none go on to win a prize, getting three stories into the anthology is beyond my wildest dreams. Not sure it's happened before!

EEEEK! Me and @unmutualcharlie.bsky.social wrote a story together and now it’s in the shortlist of 10 for the 10th anniversary of the Bournemouth Writing Prize. There were a 1000 entries so it’s a huge honour. Wish us luck! thebournemouthjournal.com/selection/

Gone Lawn was one of the first journals that made me want to be a part of this flash community. I remember reading every story in an issue a few years ago and thinking “This is what I want to do!” (And then quietly dreaming of someday being published there…) Let’s help them keep going!

This story by @sarlynh.bsky.social in @yourimpossiblevoice.com is radiantly beautiful (and sad and true and heartbroken, but still beautiful). I feel awash in a melancholy nostalgia for someone else's past. That's quite a feat. (And I'm not presuming it's the author's past, I mean the narrator's).

A brilliant, clever, fabulous story! @jaimegill.bsky.social @unmutualcharlie.bsky.social @fracturedlit.bsky.social

Powerful. I loved it.

BEEP BEEP! This new very short story is a voicenote from a man whose brain is slowly disintegrating amid a zombie apocalypse, but really it’s about loving people & trying to remember them. It’s in the debut issue of ace new genre-blurring magazine Neon and Smoke www.neonandsmoke.com/issue-1/befo...

If I was in a slight state of shock before, now I'm catatonic. All 3 of my stories made it into the shortlist. I don't quite know how this happened but I won't fight the universe on this one - I'll be featuring in the Oxford Flash Fiction anthology which has been a dream for a couple of years now.

Brilliant! It's a finely-rendered story and I love that you wrote it together using the Buddy System. Congrats to both of you, @unmutualcharlie.bsky.social and @jaimegill.bsky.social . Here's to many more marvy collabs.

Gorgeous story in @fracturedlit.bsky.social by @jaimegill.bsky.social & @unmutualcharlie.bsky.social 💥

Compelling and smartly constructed slice of flash from @jaimegill.bsky.social and @unmutualcharlie.bsky.social on @fracturedlit.bsky.social: fracturedlit.com/before-the-e... #booksky #writingcommunity

Aw thank you @tomljanovic.bsky.social - I love this story. It feels less vain to say that when most of it is Charlie’s work!

This story’s a big deal to me for many reasons. It was my first collaboration with my friend @unmutualcharlie.bsky.social who wrote most, making it so intricate & gorgeous. Its in a dream title, @fracturedlit.bsky.social. And I love love love it. Maybe you will too? fracturedlit.com/before-the-e...

Theodora, I’m just as delighted. This writing journey turned out to be more of a writing labyrinth but I’m still enjoying wandering it, though staying alert for rogue minotaurs. You’ve helped me enormously - having friends who happen to be great writers is so important to this crazy undertaking

Grateful one of my most unusual and personal stories has found a home with La Picioletta Barca, a home of very fine writing. Amelia is a love letter to the Joni Mitchell song of the same name, a mini-tragedy and an exploration of the magics of music and memory. www.picciolettabarca.com/posts/amelia

I couldn’t agree more Liz! I’ve done a few readings now (hard to get over my hatred of my own voice, dont try and dissuade me!) but this was the best. Such outstanding diverse work, such great readings. I felt inspired and intimidated. @oysterriverpages.bsky.social is SUCH a good home for writers

We wish it weren't so important and timely, but we're also proud as peahens to publish this. <3 <3 <3

Thank you Linda, and you aren't wrong about Anne's artwork. Ah I do love my mutant child.

Thank you so much Morgan. Who knew a hate baby would inspire love?

I added a new section, The Palace of Cheering & Celebration, to my newsletter to celebrate good news I've been told about any piece of writing that's come out of one of my workshops or Unbox Your Words monthly prompts! If you've been on one of my workshops, send me your news, let us celebrate you 🥳

This a wonderful, complex, vibrant story - read it right away. And as someone who knows people who grew up behind the iron curtain, I can say the period detail is impeccable. True Blue really was a prized contraband icon. Bravo Cole!

Yesterday I mis-tagged the incredible @jaimegill.bsky.social whilst promoting his fan-f***ing-tastic new fiction, "The Hate Baby.". (Mea culpa!) Please read & give the real Jaime his much deserved flowers 💐: www.doesithavepockets.com/fiction/jaim... Art @anchalastudio.bsky.social

High praise indeed coming from a master. Thank you so much @mmschreier.bsky.social. If I had a womb and this story was real, I'm sure I'd be having triplets. I'd call them DTJ, EM and JDV.

So bowled over by the response to my Hate Baby. Thank you Sarah.

Thank you so much @katherinegarrison.bsky.social. The reaction to The Hate Baby is making the whole hideous gestation worth it!

"Fake it ‘til you make it, Tony says, though I’m not sure that works when the it is inside you." Sharp as an incisor, a phenomenal #fiction #mustread from @jamiegill.bsky.social | www.doesithavepockets.com/fiction/jaim... Art @anchalastudio.bsky.social

Okay so this reaction is as good as it gets. I’m gonna do a Lauryn Hill now and disappear at the peak of my powers. The next time you hear about me it will be in 15 years about a tax scandal. Toodle pip!

Slight state of shock. I was so desperate to get onto the Oxford Flash Fiction longlist that I sent 3 stories hoping one would scrape in - and all made it. I will be forlorn if all die before the next stage, but for now can stay in state of tingly disbelief. THANK YOU @oxfordflashfiction.bsky.social

More writing news! So happy my 1950s gay romance - All These Things I’ve Never Done - has won 1st place for short story in the Yeovil Arts contest. Maybe my gentlest story & happiest, & I love the judges comments. I work hard at my understatement! Read here: www.henshawpress.co.uk/september-20...

I’m SUPREMELY proud to be in this anthology of award-winning flash stories - which is also raising money for people facing fuel poverty this winter. The sheer calibre of the writers I’m with is humbling. So if you want to read the best of flash fiction (and me) buy this jam-packed bargain of a book.

I’ve got a couple of stories in this round up along with so many great writers and publications. My contributions are a very personal and intimate story, and an anti colonial murder love affair romp set in Myanmar and featuring cake. Hey, I’m versatile!

Why do headlines say "norms shattered" when what is meant is "laws broken" or "Constitution violated"?

It’s so weirdly lovely to be on a train & see someone reading a book by an author you like, just such a pleasant feeling of silent fellowship

If Trump says this, then hopefully many of the people who listened to him today will understand that this is a racist, cruel, and ultimately self-destructive policy for so many countries that actually benefit from the cultures, values, and labor that immigrants bring.

I miss my 50-year streak of not knowing who the Secretary of Health is or anything about them.

I really don't think hearing my voice is much of a selling point but thank you so much for reading, appreciating and sharing @tomljanovic.bsky.social - it's a long story, so I particularly appreciate you spending so much time cooped up with William. I'm sure he appreciated the company.

More new awards I hope editors consider. The Monarch Queer Literary Awards - with a range of options for editors to nominate writers for, including short fiction, non-fiction, poetry etc. Stories don't have to be directly queer as long as the writers are. Accepting noms until November. monarch.gay

Such a vivid, voicy, vaulting story - and I always love to see collaborative fiction. This should be much more common than it is. Fictive Dream are such a reliable source of beautiful, inventive fiction

Love the Genrepunk Awards, hope their popularity keeps rising among editors. Having several categories which are inclusive (inc an award for disabled creatives) & innovative (experimental work/ stories that haunted you) shakes up the short story award scene genrepunkmag.wordpress.com/genrepunk-aw...

"I'd put our stories against the biggest publications out there. Case in point, Jaime Gill's "Black Sky, Blue Earth". A man lost in space, a planet past the point of peril, and a heart that can't let go." By the Oyster River fiction editor. I love them. www.oysterriverpages.com/black-sky-bl...

Honoured to have my story Two Taxi Rides picked out for reprinting in McQueens Quinterly, a wonderful journal. This story’s had an interesting journey. Many rejection, then published by Fiction Attic, picked up an award and has now been reprinted 3 times. www.macqueensquinterly.com/MacQ30/Gill-...

The Smashing Pumpkins in their early incarnation were incredibly cool precisely because they were so aggressively uncool. And because even if you put them into identical silver suits they still looked like they were from 4 different bands who’d been flung together in a scheduling mishap

I know I’m bombarding you with stories but proud of the diversity. One aching epic space tragedy, one sliver of painful nostalgia & now this darkly comic anti-colonial murder romp romance set -again- in Myanmar, a country that obsesses me. Thank you NFFF! So many great writers sharing these pages!

Well I think I should probably just retire after this comment, the only way is down from here

Obviously all readers are equal but I’m not going to lie, when a very fine writer likes your story it does feel a little bit extra special. Thank you for reading and taking the time to share Liz.

Another old comment I am happy to find on one of my darkest and most knotty stories

I’m doing that most vile and narcissistic of things and searching my own name, including common and understandable misspells of my first name and I am so delighted to read this one on one of my favourite stories

My past life as a music journalist sometimes still echoes (that 7 was a bit miserly, this is probably an 8)

Ah this makes me happy. Thank you so much for taking the time to read and write that Graham