I always looked forward to it at funerals. Ambrosia. Usually green or red jello that had been pulverized and mixed with cool whip then studded with mini marshmallows and halved grapes. Halving grapes, that’s something to do. And it was always served in a fluted cut glass punchbowl and brought by some distant cousin with a very Finnish last name and a charming family story that I can’t remember now – perhaps she was older than her aunt? I think...
She calls herself by it when she thinks her resolve is slipping. Like when she struggles with a stubborn jar of pickles or when she studies the dead girl’s forensic report. “Get it together,” she grimaces as she points her gun into the dark. She breaches the basement lair, muttering her last name through clenched teeth. * In spite of her line of work, her preferred role-playing fantasy is “home invasion.” Her boyfriend breaks in through the front door while...
I can speak to the monster but my parents cannot. All day, they ask me what the monster is saying, and I tell them. There is no monster where they come from, so when we see his truck rolling by, when we smell the bottles rattling in the bed before we hear them, my parents lean towards each other like plants craning towards the sunniest window–towards the thing they need most to stay living. The monster speaks through me to...
The woman shuffled a few feet behind her toddler in the park down the street from the hospital. Only one parent was allowed in the NICU at a time, and no kids. She trudged along, blood soaking the pad between her legs, yellowish milk leaking from her breasts every time she thought of her new baby. The toddler had a small toy, a battery-operated plush hamster named Hello. Hello was an especially annoying toy that repeated everything you said, or...
Sarah draws little moustaches on her headshots on the flyers announcing her latest poetry reading. Sometimes the department finds them, takes them down, prints off more, and hangs them. Then Sarah draws little moustaches again. Or sometimes ears or horns. In her building and in all the others around campus, into which the department cannot see. On the second floor of the fine art building she has drawn breasts that sag so low they had to be put on the...
SmokeLong Quarterly has been dedicated to publishing the best flash narratives since 2003.
June 2024
I have so much to tell you. I spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about why a journal hosts a competition at all–or conversely why everything isn’t a competition. I might never decide how I feel. The conversation, though, is an important one to have. I’d love to do an AWP panel on competitions:… Continue reading New Front (continue reading)
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This fall, join SmokeLong for the workshop series “From Free-Write to Final Draft” and energize your writing process. This workshop series includes “High Intensity Interval Training for Flash Writers” with Ingrid Jendrzejewski, “Draft Done! Now What?” with Sara Lippmann, and “Polishing for Publication” with Christopher Allen. Dates and Details HERE. All webinar/workshops are recorded for… Continue reading From Free-Write to Final Draft — A SmokeLong Workshop Series
Jo Withers writes short fiction and poetry for children and adults from her home in South Australia. Her work has won prizes at The Caterpillar, SmokeLong, Bath Flash Fiction Award, Reflex Press, Molotov Cocktail and Fractured Lit and has featured in Best Microfiction 2020 and Wigleaf Top 50 2021. Her first novella-in-flash, Marilyn’s Ghost, based on the death scene of Marilyn Monroe will be published by AdHoc Fiction in 2024.
