SmokeLong Quarterly

I have so much to tell you. This year has been a busy one so far. I’m not sure if you’re feeling it too? At SmokeLong we’ve just wrapped up our fifth incarnation of A SmokeLong Summer. Started in 2022, A SmokeLong Summer is always an intense time of writing for around 200-300 writers. This year was no different. Our focus this summer was celebrating the global flash community, collaborative writing, and of course drafting thousands of flash narratives together. We were also thrilled to have Amy Hempel in the house with special surprise guest Chuck Palahniuk. If you missed this event and would like to view the recording, you can do this by donating at least $20 to Every Last One, an NYC-based dog rescue organization; then let us know and we’ll send you the link to the event. We already raised $700 for Every Last One, but we’d love to keep the love coming for Amy Hempel’s chosen charitable organization.

The SmokeLong Quarterly Fellowship for Trans Writers, in cooperation with SAFTA, is open for the 2027 residency. If you are a trans writer living in or close to East Tennessee, you can apply HERE. The deadline for this is February 1, 2027.

This brings me to Issue 93. As usual, we’ve collected a group of narratives that sling us every which way. We hope you’ll read, listen to, and ponder these twelve pieces of art. As with all good flash, they will stay with you. For this issue, between May 16th and August 15th, we read almost four thousand submissions. This would never be possible without the dedication of our nineteen submissions editors and six senior editors. We also had the assistance of our circuit trainers from SmokeLong Fitness, who read the queue for a month paired with our submissions editors; and we had two creative writing classes who discussed submissions with such passion and respect. I say this every quarter, but it really does take a village. I’m especially grateful for the help Helen Rye gives with the art each quarter. The cover art, “Unquenched,” is by Victoria Ojo.

This year has also brought the headache of AI-generated stories and AI-assisted plagiarism. We were unfortunately caught off guard once (that we know of) earlier this year. We immediately removed the story and apologized to the author. The relationships in the story were changed, the metaphors were different, but the structure and even a couple of lines were unchanged. The exact same type of plagiarism happened a couple of months later using a story published in SmokeLong. Because we know these attacks are going to happen more frequently, we’ve now purchased an expensive plagiarism/AI detection software. These services are of course problematic. Literary prose often results in a false positive for AI, and we’re not fond of witch hunts. But what are we to do? Author names are already circulating; villagers are already taking up pitchforks. A few days ago, I actually got an email from an AI Agent asking if we consider work written—full disclosure—by an AI agent. Full disclosure: we do not. Also full disclosure: we don’t want to read anything created with the help of AI. We want to read your words. As we navigate this new situation, I’m sure we’ll make mistakes.

I don’t know what the solution is, but I know we’ll be discussing AI well into 2027 if not longer. And speaking of 2027, I hope we’ll see you at AWP. We’ll have a table at the book fair, and we’re also planning a mega-event with multiple flash and flash-adjacent journals called Flashpalooza, a reading/karaoke party for the flash community. Stay tuned for more details. Lots of them.

It’s sign-up time to start SmokeLong Fitness in October. We’d love to write with you! But even if you’re not able to join our year-round community workshop, you can write with us for 0 dollars by signing up for Promptember (Oct 11-Nov 2).

Christopher