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Pat Foran

@pdforan.bsky.social

writer, editor, axolotl with a pretty good throwing arm Out now: Songs from the Blimp Ruins, a flash collection. Published by Silverbacked Punk: https://qgyjj4z.s.gy/sTuEPy Signed copies available (message me). https://neutralspaces.co/patforan/

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Thad DeVassie@thaddevassie.bsky.social · 3d ago

Opened the book mail today & went straight to the piece I was telling my wife about. I wanted her to read it. No, I wanted to read it to her, the way I heard @pdforan.bsky.social read it not long ago. So I did. And I cried the same way I did when Pat read it to us. This is a beautiful collection.

Cover of Pat Foran's book "Songs from the Blimp Ruins" containing 60 flash pieces that runs the gamut of emotions. My copy included this postcard that is sticking out of the book of a movie poster containing Sophia Loren.
Pat Foran@pdforan.bsky.social · 2w ago

"The ‘it’s Gary’ wave, quickly supplanted by ‘of course it’s not Gary.’ What Joan Didion calls, in the book on Linda’s nightstand, ‘magical thinking.’" "*A good engineer*, she’d thought; not other nouns." @kimmagowan.bsky.social in @fictivedream.bsky.social fictivedream.com/2026/07/17/o...

On Her Way to the Corner Store To Buy Another Bottle of Wine

by Kim Magowan WAITING TO CROSS THE STREET, Linda watches a man drive through the intersection, and for a fraction of a second thinks he is Gary. His shock of graying hair, the crane-like way he hu…

fictivedream.com

Pat Foran@pdforan.bsky.social · 2w ago

"There were so many ways to not have made it, some of them beyond measure." @suzyeynon.bsky.social in Sinking City sinkingcity.as.miami.edu/fall-behind/

Fall Behind – sinking city

I sit on a splintered wooden bench next to J on our yearly trip, overlooking the sand of the Oregon coast. All the wood in the town is always damp even in summer, and this bench will leave a mark on our pants when we get up. The bench is at a recline, one that requires trust before sitting. The bench itself is slowly leaning into the loose ground over time, so I am forced back into perspective, my stomach rounded in front of me. I wonder if I look pregnant with my middle-aged belly. I struggle now physically to traverse the beach in a way I didn’t years prior. Hips painful, tingling so I’m no longer able to bend haphazardly as I did on prior trips, to palm a flat pebble deposited at my feet by the sea, or take a photo of a bundle of daisies washed ashore in the aftermath of a celebration or a funeral. How many homecomings and goodbyes on this beach. First plunges, baptisms, and endings. Earlier in the trip, we came upon a theater down in the sand, rows made from rocks and driftwood with a clear front for the stage. For a wedding, maybe. A performance. In three months, I’ll have met the doctor’s condescending requirement for menopause. I think I’m menopausal, I told her. What makes you think that? Think? Feel. Talk to me when it’s been a year since my last period, she had said. I waddle. Cradling nothing. Years ago, I watched from a nearby hotel window on this same beach as an elk nudged a calf down the inland stream, which feeds the ocean on one end and the town on the other. Two figures behind the pack. The beach had been empty save for the elk, the hanging clump of Western gulls and brown pelicans, and a wisp of dawn fog. I noticed as they ambled that the calf had an injured leg, limping. It’d never make it, never keep up, but still the—I’m assuming—mother tried. A young lover and I once danced in the concrete flumes of water runoff north of Phoenix, in the desert off the freeway. The desert a free space, unregulated. The flumes, a man-made stream in parallel to the concrete stacks of I-17. I stumbled, drunk, and we were helped from the water by a friend who pulled each of us out in turn, an arm to yank us from the isolated swell of water, almost enough in which to drown. Now, I see the danger, though I didn’t then. I had laughed, the situation funny to me, to drown in inches of water in what looked like a water slide, not unlike the ambling structure we flung ourselves down in the Phoenix summers at the water park. Tunnels on stilts. There were so many ways to not have made it, some of them beyond measure. Now I’m looking on, from a distance, so far back from the water’s edge that I can step backward into the parking lot. Feel with my heel the line where the sand turns to asphalt. What became of that elk calf—did she grow old?

sinkingcity.as.miami.edu

Sumitra Singam@pleomorphic2.bsky.social · 4w ago

One lovely person has already preordered my NiF from @nomad-sw18.bsky.social! @claudineliterary.bsky.social were kind enough to review it: www.claudineliterary.com/motherkarma Get yourself a copy at @flashficfestuk.bsky.social at the special low of £8!

Screenshot of Claudine’s reviews page with a picture of the front cover of my NiF Mother Karma (yellow background, black line drawing of mother holding baby) with the caption “Family drama with big epic poetry vibes”
Sumitra Singam@pleomorphic2.bsky.social · last mo.

@flashficfestuk.bsky.social I won’t be there, but my NiF will, thanks to bestie @nomad-sw18.bsky.social (keep your fingers crossed that the postage works!) there are some signed copies, first in best dressed, so let Cole know if you want a copy! Some people have read it and don’t mind it 🧡🧡

Pat Foran@pdforan.bsky.social · last mo.

We (@alkratz.bsky.social and Silverback Punk Press) hope you can join us on Wednesday, July 22, at 7 p.m. central! We’ll also be celebrating the letter Q (silent), the word "is" (iridescent) and the pop sensation The Amazing Vacuum Cleaner Battalion (prescient). Message for link!

Invitation to a virtual book release party with a cover image of the book, titled Songs from the Blimp Ruins. Message @pdforan.bsky.social for a link to attend the event, to be held Wednesday, July 22 at 7. p.m. cst.
Pat Foran@pdforan.bsky.social · 4w ago

“'When you’ve been alive as long as I have, you realize that there really isn’t much more to life after a certain point, so you’ve got to create that forward momentum on your own.’” bloodlines & branches & man-eating trees & @dango-ramen.bsky.social in Cutleaf cutleafjournal.com/content/bare...

Bare Branches - Cutleaf Journal

When I was thirteen, Pam, a family friend’s daughter, told me she was a “bare branches” child, meaning the bloodline would die with her. A dead end. Pam

cutleafjournal.com

Pat Foran@pdforan.bsky.social · 4w ago

"7. Grief is a (closed) system. Explain the animal instinct to pet the darkness." How to Measure a Dog’s Loneliness Across Time ~ assignment by @chrissystegmanpoet.bsky.social in @offbeatlit.bsky.social thedisappointedhousewife.com/2026/07/08/h...

How to Measure a Dog’s Loneliness Across Time ~ assignment by Chrissy Stegman

Chrissy Stegman is from Baltimore, Maryland. Her work has recently appeared in or is forthcoming in The Iowa Review, MER, Michigan Quarterly Review, ONE ART, Rattle, River Heron Revie…

thedisappointedhousewife.com

Pat Foran@pdforan.bsky.social · 4w ago

"... but she seemed to take the proceedings pretty seriously." "If we once loved and once were loved, the marriage ending doesn’t erase that anymore than death would have. But when I'm gone ..." @anniejowrites.bsky.social in @rejectionlit.bsky.social rejection-letters.com/2026/07/07/t...

The Funerals (Anna Vangala Jones)

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?”…

rejection-letters.com