×

SmokeLong Quarterly

Share This f l Translate this page

“The Nature Issue”—A Letter from the Editor

Story by Tara Laskowski September 19, 2016

First off, just a reminder that we’ve extended the deadline for the 2017 Kathy Fish Fellowship applications. You can submit through September 30, 2016, so if you’re eligible I encourage you to send us your work. Check out the requirements and award terms here. We are excited to read your submission!

Issue 53 marks the kick-off of our Global Flash series. Christopher Allen discovered a wonderful German flash, Aufgaben: ein Triptychon, by Rupprecht Mayer. We are looking for flash fiction in other languages, and translators to help us translate these stories. If you are interested, please email us at editors@smokelong.com.

As we welcome fall, nature plays heavily in Issue 53. Two stories—”One Degree of Safety” and “The Dead Are Not Hungry”—feature bees as a central image. In “The Nest,” a tree inside a house might be the final destruction of a couple’s relationship. The fragility of eggs plays a major role in “Egg Baby.” And sights and sounds and emotions abound in the beautifully done “The Farmers’ Market.”

You’ll find those stories and much more in our latest issue. We hope, as always, that you enjoy. Thank you for your support of SmokeLong Quarterly.

Best,

Tara Laskowski
Editor, SmokeLong Quarterly

About the Author

Tara Laskowski

Tara Laskowski has been editor at SmokeLong Quarterly since 2010. Her short story collection Bystanders was hailed by Jennifer Egan as “a bold, riveting mash-up of Hitchcockian suspense and campfire-tale chills.” She is also the author of Modern Manners For Your Inner Demons, tales of dark etiquette. Her fiction has been published in the Norton anthology Flash Fiction International, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Mid-American Review, and numerous other journals, magazines, and anthologies. Tara lives and works in a suburb of Washington, D.C.

ornament

Support SmokeLong Quarterly

Your donation helps writers, editors, reviewers, workshop leaders, and artists get paid for their work. If you’re enjoying what you read here, please consider donating to SmokeLong Quarterly today. We also give a portion of what we earn to the organizations on our "We Support" page.

The SmokeLong Grand Micro Contest

Deadline November 15th!

The SmokeLong Grand Micro Contest (The Mikey) is now an annual competition celebrating and compensating the best micro fiction and nonfiction online.

The grand prize winner of The Mikey is automatically nominated for Best Small Fictions and any other prize we deem appropriate. In addition, we will pay the grand prize winner $1000. Second place: $500. Third place $300. Finalists: $100. All finalists and placers will be published in the December ’25 issue of SmokeLong.

Previously published as well as previously unpublished work will be considered.