Soon I learn that Anthony the adorable mailman makes animals out of colorful beads, just for fun. I learn this during one of our front-porch chats, when he is dropping off my packages. This sounds like the start of a porno, but it’s not like that. He wants to give me something. A bead lizard. He promises to work on the lizard on his day off, whenever that might be. This is only a temporary route for him—he drives an...
and I see myself sitting at my desk typing in a document starting with and I see myself… and I think that I just got back from the gym so I’m sweaty and I still need to shower, I ought to shower soon, I think, and I see myself with the sun running down my face and I think I’m glad I put sunscreen on earlier, I’m glad I still wear sunscreen even after things ended with John, and I’m...
October Before I was brave enough to look you in the eye I sent you links to things I found online. Like this 2015 Tumblr post I think about all the time, where a high schooler goes into the art room at lunch to paint gouache orang-utans. They were reddish-brown with white eyes and open mouths, hands hidden or held up next to their ears. Put there by bristles overloaded with pigment and splotched onto poster paper, the auctioneer might...
Carrying me up Madison Avenue on her way to work, late late late, she is always late coming off her night shift at the hospital, she really shouldn’t have two jobs in her condition, but what’s a girl to do when her husband’s a drunk and their money's running out because he can’t hold down a job and gambles whatever Granny sends them? She loves to work, and she doesn’t even mind me sloshing around her waist as she dodges...
Though the candles our mom always kept lit in the living room had him all wrong. Jesus was brown. Jesus could eat fifteen tortillas when hungry, and ten when not as hungry. Jesus mowed lawns, trimmed hedges, planted hydrangeas and tulips in the large backyards of the rich folk out in West (White) Omaha. Jesus hadn’t seen his mom in over two decades. Jesus had a thick pornstache and a rug of black hair on his chest to match. Jesus’...
SmokeLong Quarterly has been dedicated to publishing the best flash narratives since 2003.
March 2023
I have so much to tell you. First, AWP-slash-SLQKaraokeFest was great fun. I’m always excited to meet our contributors, make new friends, and give away some cash to the winner of our book fair micro competition. This year Jacob Ahana-Laba won for his rhythmically wild romp of a micro. Watch out for this guy. Before… Continue reading New Front (continue reading)
A SmokeLong Summer 2023!
From June 5 to August 27 2023, SmokeLong is going to host the superworkshop, A SmokeLong Summer for the second year. We want to spend the summer with you, the flash community. Our asynchronous workshops take place on a devoted website where you can create a profile, interact with the flash community, and take part in group discussions on craft, but A SmokeLong Summer is much more.
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Megan Pillow is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop in fiction and holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Kentucky. She is project manager for Roxane Gay and co-editor of The Audacity (Dr. Gay's newsletter). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in, among other places, in Electric Literature, SmokeLong Quarterly, The Believer, Guernica, and Gay Magazine. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky with her two children.
Now in the shop
The SmokeLong Quarterly mentorship is for writers of the flash narrative as well as flash-adjacent writers looking to take the next step in their writing by establishing goals, deepening their understanding of the revision process, and learning how to be their own best editor. This offer includes two months of SmokeLong Fitness! Our mentorship is… Continue reading The SmokeLong Mentorship
Caroline Wampole is a writer, artist, musician, and performer who lives in Western Massachusetts. In a previous life she was the bass player and singer for the rock-funk band Big Soul, which had a platinum record in France. She has also been an art teacher, improv theater director, and expat painter in Paris. She is currently writing a memoir about how playing in a rock band led her to her true home of art.
