SmokeLong Quarterly

Thank you to everyone who participated in our competition this year. We started reading entries on February 10 and just finished reading (and rereading) our last ones last night–in the end, more than 2200 stories. We could not have done this without the hard work of 13 SmokeLong editors.

We are excited to share the following titles with you. This is the SmokeLong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction Longlist, and there is something amazing about every single one of these. From this list, we will choose our shortlist, which will be published on June 8. Blind judging is still underway, so if you see the title of your story on this list please do NOT identify it on social media as yours. Update 6/15/20: Author names have been added. 

*69 by Leonora Desar
All Your Fragile History by Jasmine Sawers
And Then She is a Witch by Ellen Rhudy
Babushka by Kristen Loesch
Cupola by Jiksun Cheung
Easter Sunday Man by Carolyn Oliver
Everywhere, All at Once by Emily Roth
Four Lies by Ashley Wilson Fellers
Good Work and Goodbye by Clancy Tripp
Homing Call by Claire Griffiths
How to Build a Bunker by L.M. Brown
How We Dance by Ashley Molnar
I Could Walk For Fuckin’ Miles by Kathyrn Atwood
I’m Not an Actress by Ashley Jeffalone
I would have written a story, except I had to hang out with richard brautigan by Angela Readman
Maneater by Regan Puckett
Montage Theory by Eileen Tomarchio
Mother by Anita Trimbur
Ninety by Shea Sweeney
Our Childling Season by Ellen Rhudy
Search Party by Rebecca Turkewitz
Six Days at the Ski Inn by Kyle Kruse
Something Like Happy by Emily Devane
Tether by Julie Cadman-Kim
The Art of Losing by Julie Cadman-Kim
The Fertility of Ash by Janna Miller
The High Blue Sky by Tomiko Breland
This is How You Give a Baby CPR by Kyra Baldwin
To the White Woman in the Safeway: by Katerina Ivanov
To Pieces by Abby Feden
Vernal Communion by Shawn Nocher
Waiting by Jemimah Wei
What is Ours by Meg Walters
What Lucy Said by Candice May
When We Left Earth, the Whales Came With Us by Hannah Cajandig-Taylor
Why I think of you every time I bruise by Madeline Anthes
Yellowhead by William Squirrell
Zero by Emily James

Congratulations to all the writers of the stories on this list. Even if your story doesn’t make it through to the shortlist, please know that we were blown away by your work, that we wish you lots of success with it, and that we are sure this gem will find its perfect home.

Christopher Allen
and the SLQ team