Last night I couldn’t sleep so I allowed myself to imagine getting everything I’ve ever wanted. And then even more-what else what else what else. Instead of lack, I ended up w a bounty of ideas.

Watching two pinecones cling to their tree from my bed. Tightly wound still, not ready to drop. But the wind is shaking the branches back and forth in gusts like a drunken person stumbling. Hang on!

Encouraging words & peek behind the curtain

Encouraging words & peek behind the curtain

Hunkered down at Dad’s until the tornadoes blew over. Now the clouds are stretched dark & low over the fields w the sun peeking between from a bright pink layer above.

I need a shirt that says It Was Nice to See You, I’m Going to Go Home Now and Attribute the Intimate Details of Your Life to One of my Fictional Characters

I wish this gift wasn’t so perfect

I have a longer story that I like but it needs something. I think my main guy is too nice. I think he needs to toughen up. I think, in fact, he needs to get punched in the face.

Went to the noodle place in the VFW. They were playing The Head and the Heart & I sat stunned. Why? asked my son & I heard myself say sometimes an era starts & you don't know it's starting & then it ends & you don't see it ending so when you're reminded of it that's when you realize it happened 👵

Every year around this time, I remember grace. I remember I can forgive & still distance myself from pple for my own good. I remember how that makes me feel big & open instead of tight & closed. How recognizing the limitations of pple who have wronged me as I mind my own business feels weightless.

A new cookbook is a book of dreams. A collection of step by step guides to the next person you’ll be. A person who makes fettuccine alfredo without cream. Who whips up cold hoisin & ginger noodles. A person who understands umami and gnocchi and spaetzle.

Jumbo wall thermometer & plastic rain gauge pushing me two steps closer to my analog farm life dream 🎄🎁 👩‍🌾

I have ordered myself 4 books written by some of YOU & none of them will be here by tomorrow morning but boy do I know what to get myself

forgot to hit "publish" on this yesterday. wrapping up the year on Short Story, Long with some lists — some more best & fave stories of the century (so far) this week, and some of our fave story collections of 2025 next week. check out some of these faves! add some of your own in the comments!

Dreamt they AI hologrammed a dead person in my family & on Christmas morning there they were in their regular spot on the couch & I froze & they were all excited & I started to cry & then they ran around saying Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off.

“When he hears you crying under the blankets in your own tent, you’ll hear his feet just outside your tent flap. But he won’t bother you.” There is so much in this tiny story-in & between the words. A complicated moment captured perfectly by @nbrogdonwrites.bsky.social in @jmwwjournal.bsky.social

Snapping pics in alleys to draw them later is kind of cheating but I always have people with me who don’t want to spend one hour watching me sketch old walls. When I’m old & retired and my child is grown, look for me here.

Saw a nuthatch (smooth, fancy), a pileated woodpecker (gigantic), and multiple barns with half their boards blown away. Things look so different when you decide you’re on vacation.

Finished The Sun Also Rises in front of a giant fire in an old lodge after a day spotting eagles and deer like the literary gods intended

Grateful to @jmwwlitjournal for the Best Microfictions nomination! Thank you! Link to the story: jmwwblog.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/f...

Flash, CNF, and fiction editors! Register to join us ✨

Only us and the woodpeckers out here this morning

My stepdad, who has been gone for 20 years, numbered all our gifts. He gave us each a column on his yellow legal pad with the key & when we wanted to open one of our gifts on Christmas morning, he put down his coffee, picked up the legal pad, felt around for his readers & said Well let me see…

I've had a great time selecting some pieces to mark the solstice and year's end at @necessaryfiction.com, and am grateful to the writers who shared their work. Here is the first gathering of lights, with three more to follow in the days ahead.

If you dream that your therapist is in love with you but you don't even have a therapist to ask what that means, what does that mean?

There is so much stuff this time of year & I don’t really have to do any of it & sometimes I think why do I? Maybe I just won’t & then my son looks up as I come in from the store & he’s got a sparkle in his eye & he looks so excited & he says “Did u get the Christmas ham, Mom?”

Copying notes for two stories into one document so they will bleed into each other and become one story

I don’t believe in angels but this one ✨

This is such an honor! Thank you, @epistemiclit.bsky.social 🙏💛

Feels like -4. Feels like Friday. Feels like bees in my chest.

Make sure I'm writing from the inside & then thinking abt publication and not the other way around.

Gave a man on the corner a five dollar bill. The only remaining snow is in patches. Tomorrow, they say, black ice.

One more day until winter break and I am swimming thru molasses. Webbing between my fingers. Getting in my ears.

It's ladybug season inside the walls of my old house and I don't have the heart for the massacre this year. So 500 new polka-dotted roommates.

I saw no owls on the way to work today, but I knew they were there.

Congrats to JMWW’s nominees for Best Microfictions! Follow the links to read all these incredible stories ✨

Subway by the highway is closing. The moon is a fingernail you would find on your bathroom floor. I never noticed until this morning how carefully they plow the cemetery.

Besides the obvious truth that we should all be doing something else with our time, this interview addresses whose story is whose & who has the right to tell it, which I wonder abt all the time.

There is good in the world There is good in the world There is good in the world There is good in the world

Welcome Newest Associate Flash Fiction Editor, Robert Warf Introducing Our New Associate Flash Fiction Editor, Robert Warf!

The shadow of the sugar maple out back is long across the new snow like someone painted it there in dark blue. I think it’s too cold for the birds. There will always be something else I should be doing.

Our early bird discounts close today. 1 entry £7.50. 2 entries £12.00. Buy now via PayPal. Save receipt & send stories up to 300 words by 1st Feb. £1460 in prizes. Results out end of Feb. Anthology. Bathflashfictionaward.com

What if the clouds cleared and the sky was full of stars tonight above all this

This year I wrote stories I've been sitting on for years, stories I didn't know I had in me & even 2 essays. The publishing gods were kind. This might be my favorite. Without all of u, I wouldn't even know where to send stories or how to write them. Thank you 🙏 newworldwriting.net/fancy-thomps...

Me too, small child. Me too.

Sat in bed last evening reading & when I got up to brush my teeth, I saw in the mirror my face was scratched. Huh, I thought, but then lying there I remembered that ghosts scratch people & I COULD NOT SLEEP.

Dive into Issue 38 Gooseberry Pie with Wonderful work by @lucindakempe.bsky.social @madelineanthes.bsky.social @chriscottom.bsky.social @sagreene1.bsky.social @michellewilson.bsky.social @megancannella.bsky.social @kiklodge.bsky.social Cover photo by Guy Biederman gooseberry-pie.com/issue-38/

Absolute magic that you can open a book & be in someone’s head who is long dead.

First grader staring at my desk: Why do you have soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many post-it notes?

I think I wrote a story I love too much to throw into the fiery gauntlet of submission. Feels irresponsible to send it. Bad parenting.