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SmokeLong Quarterly

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Letter from the Editor (49)

Story by Tara Laskowski September 21, 2015

Art by Karrah Kobus

There are still a few weeks left to submit to the 2016 Kathy Fish Fellowship. You are eligible if you are over 18, haven’t been published by SmokeLong before, and don’t have a chapbook or a book-length work published or under contract to be published. There’s a $500 prize on the line, thanks to our generous Kickstarter campaign contributors last year.

Find out more about what we’re looking for on the KFF page, or check out our interview with former Kathy Fish fellows.

And if you really want to know what we’re looking for in submissions, this fall’s issue is a good indicator. I particularly love the micro fiction Chad Simpson sent us about Pac-Man’s epiphany. There’s the whimsical look at first love in “The Moon Is a Wasteland.” Or James Kennedy’s stark glimpse at a one-night stand between a hospital nurse and a professional clown. You’ll probably fall a little in love with Garrett Ashley’s man with a broomstick for a hand, and you’ll probably be spooked senseless by Amy Sayre Baptista’s roaming stranger in “Bait.” And many other stories for your enjoyment, so get to it!

As always, thank you for reading. Enjoy your fall.

Best,

Tara Laskowski

Editor, SmokeLong Quarterly

About the Author

Tara Laskowski

Tara Laskowski has been editor at SmokeLong Quarterly since 2010. Her short story collection Bystanders was hailed by Jennifer Egan as “a bold, riveting mash-up of Hitchcockian suspense and campfire-tale chills.” She is also the author of Modern Manners For Your Inner Demons, tales of dark etiquette. Her fiction has been published in the Norton anthology Flash Fiction International, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Mid-American Review, and numerous other journals, magazines, and anthologies. Tara lives and works in a suburb of Washington, D.C.

About the Artist

Karrah Kobus is a conceptual portrait artist and wedding photographer from Minneapolis, MN. Karrah stumbled upon the magic of photography while studying for an anthropology course—she came across a photo created by Rosie Hardy and knew immediately that she was meant to be a photographer also. With her budding career taking her across America and to Mexico and Canada, it has been an adventurous two years for Karrah. She’s driven across the country to meet perfect strangers and bathe in waterfalls after covering herself in mud. She’s spent countless nights, mornings and afternoons running around aimlessly and just because she had her camera; everything was, and always will be, okay. Sometimes she feels like photographers have uncovered a special secret. A crazy, amazing, and beautiful secret. The key to truly living. And all she wants is to be alive.

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