"“Why do we have to make the six-hour drive when they hate us?”" Food, family, & grief, gorgeously folded in to this new #flashfiction from @lkardos.bsky.social | www.doesithavepockets.com/fiction/laur...
Lauren Kardos
@lkardos.bsky.social
dc via apollo, pa | she/her | words @ Best Microfiction, Bending Genres, Lost Balloon, Milk Candy Review, Flash Fiction Online, Cold Signal, hex literary & more | http://www.laurenkardos.co/
loved the @sealeychallenge.bsky.social last year, but 2026 demands a steadier pace. trying for a poetry collection every 2-3 days in August. will create a thread for all the greatness I read here throughout the month
It'd mean everything to me if you preorder my book. But definitely pick up some other Malarkey titles. They're all amazing reads 💙💙💙
Malarkey@malarkeybooks.bsky.social · 4d agoWill’s book comes out in April and it is beautiful. As it’s our first book of strictly flash fiction we are offering a flash sale. Code AFTERLASTCALL gets 50% off anything in our store today only (8/1/26). Great day to preorder Will’s book but the code will also work on all of our other titles!
one of those auspicious double publication weeks. grateful to @doesithavepockets.bsky.social for giving this one a home 🫶🏻 www.doesithavepockets.com/fiction/laur...
Lauren Kardos — Does It Have Pockets
Chruściki
doesithavepockets.com
first skull in a while 💀, big thanks to @havehashad.com for publishing my longing little micro
HAD@havehashad.com · 5d ago"That I’ll recognize you in the coffee shop after all these years, that you’ll see my long scraggly mop and pierced nose as the bell chimes over the door knowing it’s me, and you’ll stand from the loveseat and open your arms..." 🔥 👀 from Lauren Kardos https://www.havehashad.com/mcqgx
I'm not letting AI horseshit maneuver me into a defensive position with my writing. I write like I write. I love emdashes. I keep using emdashes. Whatever we write, AI will take and copy it -- all you can do is keep writing the best shit you can write in the form you want it to take, and fuck it.
Manisha Krishnan@manishakrishnan.bsky.social · last wk.Authors and journalists are doing more first-person (hello 2010s blogging) and embracing "mistakes" in writing to prove they're not chatbots. There's even an “anti-Grammarly" app that leaves in typos and signs off "sent from my iPhone" to create more authenticity: www.wired.com/story/more-t...
AI is making everyone's life more expensive, according to CNN. "Households must spend just over $375 more to purchase the same goods and services as they did this time last year due to AI’s inflationary impact,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, says. www.cnn.com/2026/07/28/e...
AI is making your life more expensive. Here’s how | CNN Business
AI is raising prices for Americans – and not just electricity bills.
cnn.com
All the Dead We Have Yet to Bury by @marioaliberto3.bsky.social transports you in place and time, each flash has you feeling like the characters are people you know. wished it was longer than a chap! out from @chestnutreview.bsky.social #smokelong #blurbchallenge
another recent fav flash collection: Everything’s Changing by @chelseastickle.bsky.social. love how each piece leans into the surreal to get at the complex messiness of human relationships. grab a copy from @thirtywestph.com #smokelong #blurbchallenge
another banger of a flash collection, Maybe This is What I Deserve by Tucker Leighty-Phillips pub’d by @splitlippress.com. bits of wonder woven with the everyday, each story offers this childlike sense of understanding something new and weird and glorious #smokelong #blurbchallenge
Hereafter by @sfreligh.bsky.social is a novella-in-flash that feels like a guiding light for the genre. a tiny book I read slowly because I didn’t want it to end, even if I cried at every other flash. head to @adhocfiction.bsky.social and get your tissues ready #smokelong #blurbchallenge
We hosted @sawers.bsky.social last month--copies still available here, too!
The Anchored World by @sawers.bsky.social is one of those collections that lingers years after reading. whether based fable or fairy tale, each flash comes with teeth. grab their collection from @rosemetalpress.bsky.social #smokelong #blurbchallenge
final one of the evening, Kristen Zory King’s Ladies Ladies Ladies from the kind folks at @stanchion.bsky.social is so, so good. each flash blends the uncanny and familiar, I feel like these ladies on the page are people I know #smokelong #blurbchallenge
the lovely @bayveen.bsky.social self-published her flash collection last year. loss, love, myth, and so much more, you can contact Bayveen directly for your copy of Life Blood, Ghost Breath #smokelong #blurbchallenge
I was lucky enough to hear @lumchanmfa.bsky.social read from her gorgeous collection Bitter Over Sweet at AWP, and truly every story is a fish bat to the heart. grab your copy from @sfwp.bsky.social #smokelong #blurbchallenge
ready your TBRs, my #smokelong #blurbchallenge recommendations are incoming tonight
tired: AC breaking at 9pm the week of a code red air quality heat wave wired: getting a 💀
“I want to ask my mother, though I do not, how she believes they took a photograph of Jesus, who was not alive at a time when photography was a going concern…” everything about this James Tadd Adcox in @thedodgemag.bsky.social thedodgemag.com/summer-2026-...
The Ascent - The Dodge Magazine
thedodgemag.com
“Your brother would stab the heart pancakes, and wouldn’t touch his “J,” silent resistance against Daddy’s silent bribe.” oof this @taracampbell.bsky.social flash went straight to the heart
Brett Pribble@brettpribble.bsky.social · last mo.Read "Crooked Wood" written by @taracampbell.bsky.social and illustrated by @kaystedmanfriedman.bsky.social. "Memories stack like a cord of crooked wood, shifty and full of spiders." tinyurl.com/y6azbj4a
The Luddites' actual argument was that automated looms meant expensive, skilled workers were being replaced with literal children, who were then getting maimed and killed, and maybe this is bad.
SlacktivistFred@slacktivistfred.bsky.social · 3w agoThe Luddites were “clinging to horses and carts” because it was the early 19th century and cars hadn’t been invented yet.
8. Formerly testicles 9. Pre-deer 10. Eternal non binary virgin muscle mommy born via ax-section out of a tiny fly imprisoned in a fuckboi’s skull (she’s not like other girls!) 11. Cannibal giant 12. Psychic shapeshifting part-time dude 13. Goth elevator operator 14. And Penny
Catherynne M. Valente@catvalente.bsky.social · 3w agoWhat’s a woman? We asked The Odyssey and you’ll never believe the answer…s! 1. Bird with a lady head 2. Shapeshifting witch 3. Baddie who came out of a bird egg 4. A whirlpool maybe 5. Tentacle monster who barks like a dog 6. More different shapeshifting witch 7. Weird horny island hermit
catching up on bookmarked stories and this spooky little @iamchrisscott.bsky.social one is excellent. “I know what this means, the slow winding down, but I’m not afraid of what comes after. I’m not afraid of that.”
ergot.@ergot.bsky.social · last mo."Most of the dreams Carla describes to me are about people from her life. Children and grandchildren...Her eternally upset mother. Old friends, dead friends." Today on ergot.: 'Carla Tells Me About Her Dreams' by Chris Scott @iamchrisscott.bsky.social www.ergot.press/authors/Chri...
📣 3 days left and we're $210 away from 9c/word! 📣 Our first stretch goal towards keeping our fiction rates the same is almost here! (That's also $5210 away from 10c/word! 👀)
Strange Horizons@strangehorizons.bsky.social · 3w agoThe Strange Horizons Fund Drive ends in 4 days! Increasing 2027 fiction rates to 9c/word is just $1520 away! You can still fund a poem, review or short story directly or secure one of our Fund Drive patches. If you've already donated, please share widely! Link ⬇️ www.backerkit.com/c/projects/s...
This one by @cwtellstales.bsky.social (sorry that flash doesn't take up as much road trip time!) lost-balloon.com/2026/07/08/u...
Uhura Among the Stars by Claudia Wair
Charlotte babysat her three young cousins after school until their parents got home from work. She was only 16, but to the children, she was a grown-up. She made them play quietly while she did her…
lost-balloon.com
on a roadtrip with my mother and if you know my writing you know I need some reading material right now. any stories you’ve loved lately? drop them in the comments, I have another 3 hours to get through 🥴
As an academic, I have decided to pre-empt AI taking my job, so I am going to take ITS job! I am going to start hallucinating, lying to my students, and drinking 700,000 litres of water
a gorgeous one from @chelseastickle.bsky.social “If I gathered all the fireflies into my palm, would they look like a rock glittering in the sun? Like that fool’s gold I found panning last summer. It wasn’t real gold, but I felt like I won anyway.”
Chelsea Stickle@chelseastickle.bsky.social · 3w agoToday I've got a new flash in @reckonreview.bsky.social about disappearing fireflies and family. Thank you to the editors for publishing it. This story saw many drafts over the years, but I'm glad this is the one out there. reckonreview.com/life-cycle-o...
