“I can no longer remember the words, only their drowsy warmth, like fuzzy socks after a bath” Our final piece from Issue 6: #Nostalgia is a beautiful CNF from @cake-girl.bsky.social: Real Like a Sung Prayer epistemiclit.com/current-issu...

Please join me in congratulating the #WelkinPrize nominations for the @genrepunkmag.bsky.social awards. For the Editors' Choice Award: @cake-girl.bsky.social @noranadj.bsky.social @mrallanmiller.bsky.social

"I wonder if you knew then what a gift it was, the space you held for me-- soft, like a favorite sweater?" Read @cake-girl.bsky.social in @epistemiclit.bsky.social epistemiclit.com/current-issu...

In “Hanging Stars” @cake-girl.bsky.social recalls a life-giving friendship, one that encourages you to be your best self. A beautiful thing. “but mostly, I remember being unafraid to hang stars just out of reach” Issue 6: #Nostalgia #poetry epistemiclit.com/current-issu...

‘Remember they may be frightened or storm-cloud-angry or desperately missing their mum.’ When a final line lands with such weight… Beautiful from @cake-girl.bsky.social in @gonelawn.bsky.social 💕 gonelawn.net/journal/issu...

🤍 Pick a story to read at random like I did. I bet you'll love it. gonelawn.net/journal/issu... @gonelawn.bsky.social Thank you for 'How to Avoid Falling in Love with Borrowed Children' @cake-girl.bsky.social

This haunting poem from @yoda-olinyk.bsky.social ‘Sadness poured from me, a bright yellow yolk, I was always / so much softer than the other kids, softer than / my mother’ 🥺 epistemiclit.com/current-issu...

This perfectly observed CNF piece by @cake-girl.bsky.social in @epistemiclit.bsky.social "a clumsy phrase flutters from me in the way of a small bird through an open door after being trapped inside" 🧡 epistemiclit.com/current-issu...

This is stellar. #EpistemicLitFamily

"Remember they may be frightened or storm-cloud-angry or desperately missing their mum. Let them show you how they do everything: hugs, bedtime stories, snacks, bathtime, playing" Such emotionally powerful writing from @cake-girl.bsky.social. This one has stayed with me since I first read it.

This is gorgeous 💔😢

Love this ❤️‍🩹 flash so much.

@cake-girl.bsky.social in @gonelawn.bsky.social with this heartbreaking piece “When someone at the grocery store asks if the toddler clinging to you is your child, smile and say just borrowing them for the weekend…” gonelawn.net/journal/issu...

So happy my little flash has found a home in @gonelawn.bsky.social 💗 this one was drafted in the Go With The Flow workshop taught by @mattkendrick.bsky.social (such a skilled & generous teacher!) gonelawn.net/journal/issu...

Such exquisite detail in these micros from @luannecastle.bsky.social 🥹 in the new issue of @gonelawn.bsky.social ‘…you sat in that front row seat where nobody else wanted to sit and didn’t look around so everybody could stare at you until lunch…’ gonelawn.net/journal/issu...

From our latest issue... We loved Karen's @cake-girl.bsky.social breathless, relatable single sentence prom night. The voice here totally drew us in and held us under the spangles until the end 💜 Enjoy the ride: trashcatlit.com/fairy-tale-f...

This atmospheric piece by @cake-girl.bsky.social in @trashcatlit.bsky.social is 🧡🧡🔥

“I’ll leave you,” you say as you put your coat on. And I say, “Yes you are doing it right now.” and you laugh and kiss me and say, “You’re funny.” Gosh, this is such a heartbreaking, beautiful flash by @pleomorphic2.bsky.social ghostparachute.com/issue/july-2... I’ll L*ve You — Ghost Parachute

So happy to be joining the @trashcatlit.bsky.social family with this flash-in-a-single-sentence 💗 trashcatlit.com/fairy-tale-f... Fairy Tale For a Good Girl – TRASH CAT LIT

‘…it won’t be long before you put on a smart suit and sacrifice your principles for a steady job, a semi-detached suburban lifestyle, church on a Sunday…’ Such a beautiful, quietly devastating flash from @alisonwassell.bsky.social 🥺 trashcatlit.com/1985-2/ 1985 – TRASH CAT LIT

COMING 1st JULY 🦝 Karen @cake-girl.bsky.social gives us streamers and spangle in a breathless single-sentence prom night Keith shows us the result of a terrible altercation, over mimosas In her fabulously titled flash, @stephanietorrance.bsky.social layers intense emotion under talk of prolapses

HERE THEY ARE! Our 19 contributors to the 1st Anniversary Issue (coming July 1st) 🦝 We can't wait to share their words 💜 @sophia-adamowicz.bsky.social @madeleinewrite.bsky.social @lmbayley.bsky.social @youcanandyouwill.bsky.social @angelajoynes.bsky.social @mikepiero.org 1/2

‘And while we’re stretching things, suppose my dad stays to watch. He sits there on the bleachers in his Izod and visor and cheers for my good shots and throws his big hairy arm around my sweaty shoulders’ 🥺 such a delicate, heartbreaking flash from @cbigs.bsky.social

‘…and you were so hungry for the Care Bear pencil prize and you felt as small as an ant and air scratched at your throat…’ - such painfully exquisite writing in this flash from @amymarques.bsky.social in @gonelawn.bsky.social 😭💗 gonelawn.net/journal/issu... Gone Lawn 59 : Amy Marques

Oof, this exquisite piece from @kelliborges2.bsky.social 🥺 ‘A year of watching our mothers Jazzercise, their Jane-Fonda-starved bodies teaching us to watch our figures, teaching us our worth.’

Thanks to the generous sponsors for my stair climb challenge, I have free spots for low-income writers on all my upcoming #WriteBeyondTheLightbulb courses. Details about the courses: www.mattkendrick.co.uk/courses-work... Sign up to the "lottery": docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

So thrilled to have a poem in this gorgeous anthology 💗

Oh-so-delighted to have a poem in this beautiful issue of @suburbanwitchlit.bsky.social 💗

This little micro just found a home in the pond at @duckduckmongoose.bsky.social 💗 duckduckmongoose.wordpress.com/publication-...

So excited to have a poem in this spicy little Valentine’s Day issue from @prairiehomemag.bsky.social ❤️‍🔥 prairiehomemag.com/a-spell-book...

Wonderful writing from double Welkin winner @cake-girl.bsky.social Give it a read!

"I didn’t want Jeremy to come. When he’s around, it gets noisy and scratchy in my head, like a petting zoo with every animal sound all at once" Wonderful creativity & use of the child-voice in this piece from @cake-girl.bsky.social. #WriteBeyondTheLightbulb

This flash - drafted in the Glorious Words workshop taught by @mattkendrick.bsky.social - has received so many sweet tiered rejections. Feels extra special to see it find the perfect home in WENSUM Literary Magazine 💗 wensumlit.co.uk/2025/02/01/p...

Oh, this one is so heartbreaking. "I want to ask is Mama gone for always? and was it because I ask too many questions?" 😪 Congrats @cake-girl.bsky.social

So glad this tiny micro found a home in In Short: A Journal of Flash Nonfiction. And grateful for how it gave me a second chance to find the words I wasn’t brave enough to say in the moment 💗 inshortjournal.com/karen-baumga...

‘You’re talking about gastropods; not in your slow, this-won’t-hurt voice, but your discovery voice, your world’s-your-oyster voice’ - oof, this beautiful flash by @kiklodge.bsky.social is so incredibly sweet and sad 😔

New story in Ghost Parachute! Thanks @brettpribble.bsky.social & Brett J Barr for the beautiful illustration. And thanks to @nightparrot.bsky.social for the workshop this was born in, @smokelong.bsky.social fitness friends & my WA group for their eyes. It takes a village! 🩷🩷🩷

‘…across town near the park where the boy never plays football with his father, the man at the child-minding agency is munching on a Mars Bar and moaning to his imaginary girlfriend about the boy’s mother…’ this delicate flash by @mattkendrick.bsky.social builds its story with devastating clarity 🥺

So excited to see these two stunning micros win the People’s Prize! Congratulations @shiramusicant.bsky.social and @jamesmontgomery.bsky.social - such beautifully crafted pieces that invite the reader to linger over every image.

“I want to ask is Mama gone for always? and was it because I ask too many questions?” @cake-girl.bsky.social’s heartbreaker micro up at @welkinprize.bsky.social

“I want to ask is Mama gone for always and was it because I ask too many questions” broke my heart when I read it. Amazing piece!

Gosh. The voice in this piece is perfect and heartbreaking. “Don’t the letters smudge…” such a skillful way to throw the reader into this artfully crafted world. Amazing! Congratulations @cake-girl.bsky.social !

Gosh, I just love this one by @cake-girl.bsky.social ❤️

Congratulations on your second-place piece, @cake-girl.bsky.social ! This is wonderful, and shows that a little bit of italicization goes a long way! My favourite bit: "Why does God write on raindrops? and what crayon does he use?" Ah, the innocence of a child who still takes everything literally. 💔

not to brag but i’ve been a @cake-girl.bsky.social stan since the day i was born ✨ my mum is the coolest 🪼 also go read her exquisite micro !!

‘…the birds go on flapping like they do when something terrible is about to happen only there’s no window to slip out of like the man did the woman did they held hands they did…’ - this extraordinary micro by @sfreligh.bsky.social twists its way through a single, heart-wrenching sentence. Stunning!

"I want to ask why does God write on raindrops? and what crayon does he use?" Amazing voice in this 2nd place winner of @welkinprize.bsky.social by @cake-girl.bsky.social www.mattkendrick.co.uk/welkin-prize... Congratulations, Karen! 🎉

Don’t miss this beauty! @cake-girl.bsky.social @welkinprize.bsky.social ❤️❤️