My mother haunts my makeup bag. Always be ready, she’d chide as we dressed for mass, reapplying lipstick at red lights and through monsoon rains—once, as my father’s casket was lowered. Death is impatient, Đạt. He won’t wait for you to put your clothes on. I inherited her contempt for unpreparedness but none of her grace. Truth is, I see my father more in my reflection each day. At night I kneel before the vanity light to contour his features...
I. The rain doesn’t smell the same here, and neither do I. Warm, resinous, alive: piñons and junipers, greasewood and ponderosa, the ghost bloom of Apache plume snagged on old barbed wire, claret cup cactus blooming scarlet against broken stone—plants whose names I had to borrow from strangers. These smells have no words in my body; they arrive like teeth or tides or prayers from other shores. Sun encapsulated in tree limbs like fruit. A whip crackle of thunder behind...
Shannon sits cross-legged on the couch, picking at the hole in her sweatpants, watching the screen glow blue in the dark apartment as Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness loops its demo mode. She’s not playing, just listening to the upbeat, electronic music fill the silent room. She lost the boss battle with Mesmerelda and quit the game in a huff, sending her back to the title screen. Shannon watches the glowing red numbers on the VCR under the TV tick up...
It’s a cool, clear night in April, and I’m sitting on the asphalt beside a dozen other kids from the trailer park watching Larry Wooster, his lanky figure silhouetted—like that of a superhero flying across the sun—by the golden lights of his broken down truck, as he glide-dribbles around the chalk drawn court and practices turnaround jumpers and one-footed floaters and left-handed layups on a hoop with no net and no backboard. It’s hard to say what part of the...
But there is always my sister Morgana in this frame and others, names like Ted, Saverio. And animals, names like Boots, Baby Jesus, in the home, and Leo, Rex, and Cassie, in the barn or the confines of a canvas. Uncle Ted dropped me off at school and gave me a peck on the cheek. I didn’t wipe it away like I did my parents'. I was on the third floor and had a good view of the entrance to...
SmokeLong Quarterly has been dedicated to publishing the best flash narratives since 2003.
June 2025
I have so much to tell you. First of all, Happy Pride. SmokeLong is thrilled to announce The SmokeLong Quarterly Trans Writer Fellowship (spring 2026) in cooperation with SAFTA. The deadline to apply for this fellowship/residency is September 1st, 2025. Find out more HERE but read my letter first! It’s short! You can find the… Continue reading New Front (continue reading)
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Now in the shop
From the elements of flash, to a deep-dive into concepts that underpin the flash narrative, to a disruptive new approach to editing the flash narrative, the publisher and editor-in-chief of SmokeLong shares his insights in three webinars. In Elements of Flash you’ll learn why flash is not just a word count and why the flash… Continue reading SmokeLong Flash Masterclass — Webinar Three-Pack
Jesse Ackles lives in Michigan, if he lives anywhere. He writes fiction, prose poems, and the blog Without a Gun: withoutagun.ghost.io
