Stories

Three years after his release.  Beth pregnant, crying for a fix.  Half-dead.  And the gun in his waistband whispering: I got this.

Peter Schwartz reads so much he can’t help but write.

She lay as still as she was able, making a game of it, trying not to wake him. He would only put his arm around her in his sleep.

Michelle Ristuccia’s writing blog can be found at wakingdreamsblog.blogspot.com

Creaking boards, something quiet moving in the dark. I snap the lights on and there stands my dead sister. Thank God. I thought we had mice.

William Wood lives in an old farmhouse in the Blue Ridge Mountains with an understanding family. He often writes instead of sleeping.

He circled the pack, stayed downwind, out of sight. To no avail. They smelled his fear. “What’s your name, Mister?” the preschooler asked.

Ed Pahule (@Shadow_Ferret) is an aspiring novelist currently hidden away from his own children so he can get some writing done.

I giggle when he taps my knee. Pure reflex. So tall. So blond. So cute. My giggle spills into laugh. Then cough. And a red-faced physician.

J.S. Graustein exists in California but lives in her English dreams. Pop by for tea anytime and tell her a story.

He flew nonstop against the sun, but no matter how far or how long he went, the days still progressed and his daughter was still dead.

Robert Swartwood (@RobertSwartwood) is the editor of Hint Fiction (W.W. Norton, 2010).

It’s strange to dream of you once more. I am submerged, already wet, in a dishpan of daily demands. You ask for a plate and I throw it.

Ann Marie Gamble (@amgamble) prefers a two-egg omelette.

They caught him doping and voted to strip his Olympic gold. His last words, radioed from over the Marianas Trench: “Try it now.”

Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual flash fiction competition.

I found mom’s porn stash in the oven, half-baked in a casserole dish. “No big deal,” she said. “I don’t plan on cooking anymore anyway.”

Neil de la Flor‘s 1st poetry collection, Almost Dorothy, will be published by Marsh Hawk Press in 2010.

“Look at this picture,” she says. “That’s not that long ago. Right before I met you.”

I look.

“I look different,” she says. “I look happy.”

Robb Todd has eight letters in his name, but just five different letters are in play, and a mere two syllables.