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Anna Vangala Jones

@anniejowrites.bsky.social

author of TURMERIC & SUGAR (Thirty West). stories in Wigleaf, Short Story Long, Berkeley Fiction Review, HAD, Craft, Fractured, etc. annavangalajones.com

1879 Posts2968 Follower 856 Folgt

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · 2d ago

I’ve been joking forever about wanting the satisfying sounds of a typewriter so my husband just surprised me with this. even though it means he’ll be listening to me click clack in the office during his meetings. that’s love ♥️

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · 4d ago

love this time of year when I pass several large skeletons on my morning walk & smile in greeting like I’m seeing old friends

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I have a new story “Tomatoes and Oil Paintings” in @fracturedlit.bsky.social. grateful to any of you who read this one + @tommydeanwriter.bsky.social for giving it a home 🍅 🎨 fracturedlit.com/tomatoes-and...

Tomatoes and Oil Paintings
by Anna Vangala Jones
Fractured Lit
Excerpt of story: “The woman waters the plants in her garden before she leaves for her morning walk. The man sits at his easel, painting, before he leaves for his morning walk. Once outside, both glance at their watches and quicken their pace to avoid being late.”

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · 2mo ago

excited to be in @havehashad.com again with a tiny micro about a bar for ghosts. grateful to @aaronburch.bsky.social + any of you who read it 💀 🍻 👻 www.havehashad.com/hadposts/whe...

at the top is a drawing of skulls
Title: Where Everybody Knows How You Died
Author: Anna Vangala Jones
Text of story: I like to ghost watch as I nurse my scotch. It's funny, scotch made me cough and sputter when I was a person but the burn is nice now—the warmth makes you feel alive. The bar is crowded tonight. Hit & Run Victim is arm wrestling Bungee Jump Splat (he tried to be known as Thrill Seeker but we were all too hung up on the splat.) Choked on a Chicken Wing While Living Alone is sitting at the piano, hands hovering over the keys but not touching them. Leaned Too Far Over the Yellow Line to See if the L Train Was Coming & Fell Onto the Tracks at the Exact Wrong Moment is dancing by herself, swaying to the music Choked on a Chicken Wing isn't playing. Fell Asleep & Didn’t Wake Up asks me if he can bum a cig so I go join him for a smoke. He knows I'm Abducted, Buried in the Woods, & Never Found but is polite enough to pretend he thinks I'm Lung Cancer. He asks if I ever miss it. Life, I'm assuming. I don't answer. Me neither, he says. We cheers with our cigarettes and look up at the night sky as mist floats through the moonlight.

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · 4mo ago

I have a new microfiction about grief & beauty & destruction in Bending Genres. read my story “Dishes” + all of Issue 51 🍽️ 🎨 grateful to @rgvaughan.bsky.social & the @bendinggenres.bsky.social editors ♡ bendinggenres.com/dishes/

Journal: Bending Genres, Issue 51
Title of story: Dishes
Author: Anna Vangala Jones

Text of story: “Louisa, my coworker, keeps telling me about this studio where you decorate dishes before standing on the rooftop to fling them at the ground—she says it’s therapeutic. Better than actual therapy. You wouldn’t be the only widow there, she assures me, lots of widows. She explains it’s nice because you get the soothing, artistic activity first and then there is the destruction. The ability to shatter into oblivion the beauty you’ve just created. Before anyone else can take it from you or ruin it. It sounds strange but I’d try almost anything at this point. I insist on going alone. The ceramic pieces are premade. We spend the first visit painting them and then they get glazed and fired in the kiln. We return a week later to admire our finished products before heading up several flights of stairs to the roof and throwing them as hard as we can at the vacant lot below. There’s not a lot of socializing that happens. I paint my teacup periwinkle and white while I lie to the old woman next to me about my husband by pretending he’s at home and still alive. “Does he question why you come here?” she asks. “My kids don’t get it. It’s good for my anger but they don’t understand what I’m so angry about. Neither do I,” she admits, “but I know I am and this helps.” I don’t tell him I’m here, I say. I like being able to tell her some truth. The day the dishes are ready, we don’t speak a word to each other or anyone else. Just indulge in the violence together and alone. I don’t notice anyone else’s debris but my own. I only see tiny periwinkle and white fragments sparkling on the pavement like millions of stars in distant galaxies.”

Ben Loory @benloory.bsky.social · 5d ago

My story “The Book” was recently included in the new Library of America volume American Flash Fiction, and there will be an online event celebrating its release this Wednesday, October 7, from 3:00 – 4:00pm Pacific Time. We’ll be reading stories & talking talking: www.eventbrite.com/e/american-f...

American Flash Fiction: Brilliant Brevities & Miniature Masterpieces

Lynne Tillman, Venita Blackburn, Ben Loory, and David L. Ulin discuss this brief and incandescent form.

eventbrite.com

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · 6d ago

maybe part of why we struggle to finish our books is because it feels like letting go in a way & we’re not ready to send it out into the world (me making excuses)

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · 6d ago

well, here’s what’s gonna happen. you’re gonna open the document, stare at it, write nothing for a while. you might get distracted by your phone. start with a few words. soon you’ll realize you’ve got a whole page. then another and another. once you know that’s possible, it all gets easier

Mike Ehrmantraut in Better Call Saul sitting in a car saying “well, here’s what’s gonna happen.”

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · last mo.

so thrilled my story, “Unsent Love Letters (& Other Regrets)” has been nominated for the Best Small Fictions anthology with these other wonderful stories from @bulbregion.bsky.social. thank you @sarpsozdinler.bsky.social 📬 💌

The Bulb Region@bulbregion.bsky.social · last mo.

Please join us in celebrating our Best Small Fictions 2027 nominees! ⚡️ @kplumhoff.bsky.social @keersteemack.bsky.social @anniejowrites.bsky.social @mattleibel.bsky.social @davidwryan.bsky.social To be able to publish your work has truly been an honor!

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · 3mo ago

this is my first time ever being selected for the Wigleaf Top 50! so thrilled & delighted. thank you to @sudhab.bsky.social, Scott Garson + the @wigleaf.bsky.social team, @andrewporter01.bsky.social, @aaronburch.bsky.social, & @havehashad.com 💀 🪦 🤍

The Wigleaf Top 50 (Very) Short Fictions

Series Editor: Sudha Balagopal — "Writers produced an astonishing treasure trove of stories this year..."

Selecting Editor: Andrew Porter — "Occasions such as this always feel like a gift to me..."

Anna Vangala Jones story “Our second date was meant to be unconventional and unromantic” from HAD was selected

At the top of the page is a drawing of a pile of skulls. Underneath is the pub date: September 4, 2025. Then the title of the story and the name of the author: Our second date was meant to be unconventional and unromantic by Anna Vangala Jones.
Below that is the text of the story: “—we thought we were funny when we suggested meeting at the laundromat because we bonded on the first date about putting it off so long we'd almost reached the bathing suits as underwear stage. But when he called to cancel, I worried I should have held onto my mystique a bit longer and not revealed the lazy mess lurking beneath my put together surface yet. "It's not that," he said. "I have to go to a funeral." After I told him how sorry I was, he said, "Want to come?" I joked, "It's too soon but take me to the next one." I appreciated the earnest vulnerability of his response that he could use the company so I said yes. My friends teased me that we'd only been on one date so maybe he was a serial killer and we would be going to my funeral. Weird how we cope with the possibility of being murdered every time we meet someone new by laughing about how hilarious it'll be if it happens, but it's preferable to being paralyzed by it. "He loves Bruce Springsteen, so he can't be that bad," I told them. The funeral was for his lifelong friend—they had first met at only five years old—so it was of course sad. We held hands as they lowered the casket. After everyone else left, we wandered the cemetery chatting about everything and nothing like we were at a coffee shop and he kissed me in front of a tombstone that read, "Beloved and remembered. Until we meet again." He ghosted me after that. When I listen to Bruce at the laundromat, I wonder why our first and last kiss happened amidst graves and death and almost write him to ask. But maybe it's better not to know.”

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · 5mo ago

I’m back in @bulbregion.bsky.social with “Unsent Love Letters (& Other Regrets)” ♡ grateful to @sarpsozdinler.bsky.social + all of you who read this story 💌 📬 bulbregion.com/Unsent-Love-...

Journal: The Bulb Region
Title: Unsent Love Letters (& Other Regrets)
Author: Anna Vangala Jones
Image: an open mailbox in black & white
Prose
Excerpt of the story: “When the mailboxes started appearing all over town—the ones in which you could send letters to your dead that they’d be able to receive and read—we all regarded it as something dangerous. Those who had dabbled in ouija boards and harmless playful witchcraft in childhood were somewhat less concerned while others saw the new magical objects as being placed there by the devil. First of all, none of us knew where they came from. But the label slapped across each of them was clear.

‘Letters for your dead?’”

a periwinkle background color
text & image in white
Prose
Title: Unsent Love Letters (& Other Regrets)
Author: Anna Vangala Jones
Image: open mailbox

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · last yr.

I have a new short story in the wonderful Terrazzo Editions today called “Maybe Mary” & I’d be thrilled if you give it a read. so grateful to amazing editor Gina Nutt. you can find her interview with me here too www.terrazzoeditions.com/terrazzomag/...

title: Maybe Mary
author: Anna Vangala Jones

a mosaic pattern in blue, tan, and purple

title: Maybe Mary
author: Anna Vangala Jones

a mosaic pattern in blue, tan, and purple

quote from story: “She says she doesn’t want to talk about the disappearance. Anything but that is fine.”

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · 2y ago

I have a new story in @havehashad.com today! my third one 💀 🏚️ ✨ grateful as always to editor @aaronburch.bsky.social for providing a wonderful home for my words + to all of you who read it ♡ www.havehashad.com/hadposts/the...

At the top of the page is a drawing of a pile of skulls. Underneath is today’s date: March 31, 2025. Then the title of the story and the name of the author: The Haunted House of Things Left Unsaid by Anna Vangala Jones.
Below that is the text of the opening lines of the story: “Everyone’s heard the rumors that when you die, they take you into a house you’ve never seen before—real dilapidated and creepy for added effect maybe—and in each room, they make you watch people from throughout the course of your life reading or listening to all the things you’ve wanted to say to them when you were alive but never did. Letters, emails, notes in books, burned CDs, text messages, silent moments”

Kathy Fish @kathyfish.bsky.social · last wk.

There are FORTY-TWO gorgeous flashes in Ghost Parachute's 10th anniversary issue and you should read them all. I'm about 3/4th of the way through. Very grateful to be included with my piece, "Archaeology," which I'd love for you to read while you're at it. 💙 ghostparachute.com/issue/octobe...

Artwork for my piece by Kaylan Stedman Friedman, showing two young girls in black and white, facing each other as if dancing on air, one holds a shovel. They are framed by two lilac bushes and these are colored in purple and green.

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · last wk.

when I say I’m writing what I probably mean is that I’m somewhere walking & admiring the sky

a woman standing in front of sunset sky over the ocean

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · last wk.

according to my notes app, I tried to type up some nonsense story ideas all about elevators at 4:11am?? truly don’t remember this or what I was thinking or trying to say so let’s pretend it would’ve been great

Jan Stinchcomb @janstinchcomb.bsky.social · 2w ago

ICYMI New story in trampset. Lots of good things in trampset.

trampset@trampset.bsky.social · 2w ago

"You’re one of the kids who live in two houses. After the rupture your parents become great storytellers, but they only want to talk about each other." @janstinchcomb.bsky.social's "Something That Happened When You Were a Child" www.trampset.org/post/somethi...

Elena Zhang @ezhang77.bsky.social · last wk.

Happy to have three haiku up in @havehashad.com today!

HAD@havehashad.com · last wk.

kicking off acceptances from Cletus Crow's haiku call today with three from @ezhang77.bsky.social ! www.havehashad.com/hadposts/thr...

September 30, 2026
Three Haiku
Elena Zhang

Opulent
Opulent
hunger for missing
teeth, tonight.

Frog and Toad Bot @frogandtoadbot.bsky.social · 2w ago

Toad sipped his tea. “Frog,” he asked, “are you making this up?” “Maybe yes and maybe no,” said Frog.

Amorak Huey @amorak.bsky.social · last wk.

So excited about my first PM Deal report! Also proud and grateful to have two poetry books forthcoming: Field of Want, Etruscan Press, Spring 2028 Definition of Elegy: New & Collected Prose Poems, Cornerstone Press, fall 2027

Publishers Marketplace
Deal Report
FIELD OF WANT
By Amorak Huey
Imprint: Etruscan Press
Cofounder of River River Books and professor at Bowling Green State University Amorak Huey's FIELD OF WANT, which explores distance, desire, and geography-in particular the fields of Ohio and the American Midwest-featuring the syntax of place, the light of the moon, the isolation of being alive, to Etruscan Press, for publication in April 2028.
Poetry
September 28, 2026

Screenshot of the first page of a book contract between Cornerstone Press and Amorak Huey for Definition of Elegy: New and Collected Prose Poems

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · 2w ago

this morning composing an ode to my coffee counts as writing

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · 11mo ago

I have a new story in Short Story Long! many thanks to @aaronburch.bsky.social, a wonderful editor who always makes my writing better, the incredible Zoë Petersen for her beautiful original art, & all of you who take the time to read this one ♡ ashortstorylong.substack.com/p/a-love-sto...

Title: “A Love Story Told in Nine Lives”
Author: Anna Vangala Jones
An illustration of a man walking past a cafe window. Inside the cafe a woman is sitting and drinking coffee at a table by the window and the man is looking at her as he walks.

Thirty West Publishing @thirtywestph.com · last mo.

@anniejowrites.bsky.social has a wonderful story in the THIRTY WEST BEST OF 10 YEARS VOL 01. Starting literally in the middle, “Echo” is a standout tale from Anna’s story book, TURMERIC & SUGAR: STORIES. Both are available now 🐘

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I have a new story “The Yellow Door” in @burialmagazine.bsky.social! so grateful to Zack for giving it a wonderful home & any of you who read this one 🪦 🌲 🚪 💛 burialmagazine.neocities.org/theyellowdoor

Title: The Yellow Door

Author: Anna Vangala Jones

Excerpt of story:

Seated around the table holding hands, we opened our eyes to look at Jyoti’s empty chair, disappointed that our seance had failed to bring her back. We were lost after her unexpected death, me especially. She’d been the voice of our little group. We were a body without a mouth. The next night we set up the ouija board, our fingers as light as a feather on the heart shaped planchette for communicating with the dead, begging Jyoti to guide us toward some kind of ghostly reunion. To our collective shock, it began to glide over the letters until it produced the helpful instruction, Go to our tree tomorrow morning.

We knew she meant the sycamore tree in the woods where we’d gather to smoke, drink, and talk for hours. We arrived, all on time for once, and found a yellow door waiting for us in the center of the trunk.

“We should not open that,” Betsy said.

“But she’s in there,” I said. “She told us to come.”

{white text on purple background}

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · 3mo ago

delighted to be back in Rejection Letters with my new story “The Funerals” — so grateful to @kevinmkearney.bsky.social for his thoughtful edits, D.T., & any of you who read it in @rejectionlit.bsky.social 🪦 ♡ rejection-letters.com/2026/07/07/t...

Title: The Funerals
Author: Anna Vangala Jones
Image: a narrow alleyway behind a bar with a lit up red neon sign. nearby is a large tree under a gloomy sky.
Excerpt from the story: “For years, they’d all taken bets on who would be next. I tried not to resent anyone who guessed me. ‘We’re sorry, Diya,’ they said as they collected their winnings. ‘Where do you want the funeral?’

It began with Jill. After her divorce was final, she sent us formal invitations that insisted we wear black dresses and heels. At the cemetery, she placed flowers at the base of a tree before saying a few words. She claimed she did it to be funny, but she seemed to take the proceedings pretty seriously. Around the midway point, we went from finding the whole thing annoying to cathartic, finally telling her all our unspoken truths about their doomed trajectory as high school sweethearts turned bitter divorcees. We’ve since paid our respects at a mini-golf place, where Sarah’s first date had gone horribly but she married him anyway, and an old abandoned building, home to the lousy apartment Kavita and her ex had once shared. The last one was a bonfire in which Melanie torched every memory and smiled at the leaping flames. The funerals help us mourn and celebrate these endings. The drinks let us temporarily forget. Merlot at a classy restaurant after Jill’s. Yuengling at a dive bar after Sarah’s. Soju at a karaoke lounge after Kavita’s. Root beer floats at a drive-in movie after Melanie’s.”

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · 3y ago

I have a new story in Short Story Long today! it’s about the mystery of people you come across often but can’t truly know. many thanks to wonderful editor @aaronburch.bsky.social, Zoë Petersen for the lovely art, & any of you who read it ♡

The Legend of the Convenience Store Cashier by Anna Vangala Jones

"He was beautiful but not in the way of a movie star or something. Beautiful in the regular person way. Beautiful to us."

ashortstorylong.substack.com

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · 2y ago

I have a new story up at @rejectionlit.bsky.social today! it’s about friendship breakups and the living ghosts that haunt us. so grateful to amazing editor @kevinmkearney.bsky.social & any of you who read it ♡ rejection-letters.com/2025/01/02/n...

Now it’s nothing but flowers (Anna Vangala Jones)

I know I’m her ghost. The one that lingers in the corners of her memory, waiting to strike—when some song by Bruce Springsteen plays, or when she drives by our old favorite diner, or when it rains …

rejection-letters.com

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · 2y ago

hi bluesky! I wrote Turmeric & Sugar—a book about love, loneliness, obsession, ghosts, the surreal + the real, & longing. @tananarivedue.bsky.social calls it “an impressive debut by a writer with a clear vision into the human heart.” @thirtywestph.bsky.social www.thirtywestph.com/shop/turmeri...

A book sits on a bench surrounded by flowers and leaves. The book title is Turmeric & Sugar: Stories and the author is Anna Vangala Jones. The original cover design shows maroon curtains drawn to reveal a window overlooking an elephant and an ocean with choppy waves. The elephant is blue like the sky full of white wispy clouds. The artist is Carolyn Brandt.

Elena Zhang @ezhang77.bsky.social · 2w ago

The mid-autumn festival is this week, so it’s the perfect time to get a copy of my mini-chapbook, full of tiny poems inspired by Chinese folklore www.tinywrenlit.com/product-page...

Cover of chapbook The Moon, My Heart
poems by Elena Zhang, the cover is the moon with pink blossoms in the foreground

The Moon, My Heart
In this story, Chang'e opens her mouth and I eat the egg inside.
Yolk sun in white moon.
I finally understand what Teresa Teng meant when she sang the moon represents my heart.
She meant immortal mothers and birthday gifts, and the starlit waning of time.

Jan Stinchcomb @janstinchcomb.bsky.social · 2w ago

I'm delighted to be in @trampset.bsky.social with so many writers I admire. Kick off your Harvest Moon weekend with this issue.

trampset@trampset.bsky.social · 2w ago