Forget growing the child or birthing the child or feeding the child. A parent's true power is the way we can locate, deep within our souls, the same enthusiastic inflection on the 97,013,873rd read-through of a board book as the 97,013,872nd

Truly stunned to have won the Copper Nickel Editors' Prize in Prose. It was already such an honor to be published—this feels a bit like a dream! THANK YOU to Teague Bohlen, Wayne Miller, and everyone at Copper Nickel! What an incredible experience. copper-nickel.org/from-the-ash...

when my third grader is with his friends and they run out of stuff to talk about, one of them will announce "AWKWARD SILENCE" and then they all just sit there basking in it

Thrilled to be in @pitheadchapel.bsky.social this month! I wanted to write a story that trick-mirrors itself from beginning to end and caves in on itself in the middle—something sort of V-shaped. pitheadchapel.com/two-celias-c...

Two Celias Cross Paths

Melissa Bowers   1. When the Cheerios spill all over the sidewalk, Celia thinks of being pregnant, how less than a year ago she wouldn’t have been able to bend down to pick them up. She’s only…

pitheadchapel.com

From the moment I started subbing short fiction, Copper Nickel has been at the very top of my Wildly Unattainable Dream Journal list. This came in the mail today. I treasure it so much. And that cool, cleverly blended story on the back cover with a line from each piece🥹

Still stumbling my way through the sky so hopefully someone sees this, but I’m excited to tiptoe back into the flash world! Big thanks to NMW for selecting this as a winner of their “Fear” award, and to @tommydeanwriter.bsky.social for the inspiring prompt. newmillenniumwritings.org/what-lies-in...

What Lies in Sapient Lake | Melissa Bowers

NMW Fear Award Melissa Bowers of Gilroy, California for “What Lies in Sapient Lake”

newmillenniumwritings.org

LOVE the idea of starting fresh. Love that the first word I typed in this place is love. Also very overwhelmed by the idea of starting fresh and sometimes when I am overwhelmed I delete things.