We are proud to share a wide range of stories in this issue, and also an impressive depth. Several touch on alienation and the act of moving on. More than a few deal with death in their own unique ways. We even have an alienated ghost in the story “The Eleventh Floor Ghost,” by our Kathy Fish Fellow runner-up, Megan Giddings. And there are a lot of interesting objects and creatures to be found here: pickles, yellowjackets, chicken, champagne, pirates and monkeys! We are so grateful to all our guest editors who put in hours to discover some of the wonderful stories we publish.
And a big thanks to our tireless editorial staff. The idea of moving on or changing resonates with the editorial staff, several of whom are undergoing big changes in their lives now: a brand new job (Tara), expecting a baby (Josh), a move from Orlando to Brooklyn (Ashley), and an upcoming novel release in December (Gay’s What Came Before from Every Day Novels).
Our youngest author in this Quarterly is seventeen-year-old Bindu Bansinath, who wrote “Fishtank.” And on the subject of young authors, we’ve also been privileged to read and publish a new series at SmokeLong called Fridge Flash, stories by some very young writers/illustrators (ages 12 and under.) Check out our blog to see the work of these up-and-coming artists and writers.
As always, thanks for supporting us, for reading us, and for generally being terrific human beings. Happy reading!
Nancy Stebbins
Senior Editor, SmokeLong Quarterly
September 23, 2013
A SmokeLong Summer 24!