The Thirteenth Month
For all intents and purposes, let’s set the record clear that I wasn’t intentionally trying to break anyone’s heart.
The Reader’s Paradise: Review of The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
Morgenstern’s work is a novel for the book lovers and the story fanatics. It is the reader’s paradise, filled with reading nooks, secret libraries, mysterious books, and attractive storytellers.
Through Twists and Timelines: Review of The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
Stuart Turton’s debut novel, The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, is a book filled with surprises.
Breaking the Canon: Interview with K-Ming Chang, Sudden Fiction Guest Judge & Author of Bestiary
Something about flash fiction and short fiction is just so ripe with experimentation and with breaking boundaries and for kind of completely turning on its head what a story can look like.
Announcements
Past Announcements
2021 Sudden Fiction Contest Open!
Our annual Sudden Fiction Contest is now open for 2021. Send us your best and weirdest.
Artists & Writers Now Paid in Future Issues
For the first time in our journal’s history, we are now able to pay all creatives featured in our journal.
Book Reviews
Stars and Starts: Review of Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers
The book spins a vibrating tension between silken, lyrical imagery, and anxiety-inducing plot.
“He is Sawdust in the Wind”: Review of The Lumberjack’s Dove by GennaRose Nethercott
The Lumberjack’s story is attractive because it offers readers some folkloric mysticism in the time of quarantine.
Learning to Love Yourself: Review of Someone Who Will Love You In All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg
These stories provide incisive and cutting looks into being alone in the world and grieving lost relationships.
Commentaries
Bury Your Gays (Literally): How The Haunting of Bly Manor Uses and Subverts the Trope
Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Bly Manor, the anthology series follow-up to the popular The Haunting of Hill House, may have all the makings for a classic ghost story, but don’t be mistaken—it’s actually a love story.
A Paean to Otherness: How Shirley Jackson Makes the Supernatural a Safe Haven
I saw myself and my sister in Merricat and Constance – two sisters from a deeply troubled family, survivors of traumatic experiences who rely on each other to make it through the day.
The Gender Binary of Directors and Editors: A Retrospective Look into The Twilight Saga
Crisp, icy air fills our lungs, whispering, pulling us inward into the fauna-choked landscape of Forks, Washington. Residing inside this quaint town, someone of equal brilliance: perfectly tousled hair, cold skin, brooding saunter, piercing eyes, and a slightly outdated fashion sense. Sound familiar? We’ve stepped into the glorious world of Twilight filled with fantastical vampires, bloody violence, and of course, romance.
Related Reading
Fiction
His Scaly Self
Gradually, he grew accustomed to his alternate form, to the point that he could forget about it for hours at a time.
More Stories
To Bask
A woman on the middle floor of the old Florida condo opens a sliding-glass door…
Trespassing
Whenever they drove past in the car on the way to the next town over, all he saw was a bare expanse of crumbling gray stones stretching out like a long-emptied riverbed behind the warped fencing with all its warnings.
The Jumper and the Gaijin
Nora learns “gaijin” when she hears the teenagers say it. She’s not heard an adult use it, and when it’s said in her proximity the eikaiwa manager turns stern and scolds the student. So while she knows that it means “outsider,” it must mean something else, something a little shameful, the kind of word said only at home.
To Be Generous
When Amy whispered in Russ’s ear that what he wanted her to do would cost him fifty bucks, she meant it to be sexy.
The Young Mayor of Villa Sorgo
With a clogged throat and quivering bowels he’d watched the river of muscle flow beneath his balcony, the white-clad men in their blood-red neckties tumbling through the streets, vaulting over the barriers in their frantic attempts to escape the horns of the onrushing beasts.
Perfume and Cigarettes
Mrs. Marion heard Ronnie’s car turn into the driveway, and then shortly afterward the top of its hood slid into view out the kitchen window, breaking her concentration. A sour rush of annoyance spurted into her face like a grease explosion.
In the Name of the Son
His mind raced over a series of firsts. The first time he used a men’s room; the first time a man took him for another man; the first time a woman did, and the first time one flirted with him; the first time he introduced himself with his new male name.
Spectators
The world raced by in the opposite direction, a dazzling blur of sun-kissed blues and greens and browns. The sound was an ever-crashing wave. The driver’s eyes darted back and forth between the road and the rearview mirror. “Tell me something,” he said. “You have children?”
Interviews
An interview with Meagan Johanson, author of “Spent” and Sudden Fiction winner
“Spent” came like this—from a feeling, the remorse of only having one life to spend. Even if we hold love in armfuls—real love, true love, good love—there will always be a life you can’t be living, a timeline you’ve left behind.
Interview with Michael Caleb Tasker
In the most recent issue of The Kenyon Review, international editor John Kinsella says that “there’s a drive, an enthusiasm, and a shout-out in Australian writing at present that demands it be heard.” Writer Michael Caleb Tasker has lived in Australia for fifteen years and, though not a native of the continent (a problematic phrase itself), he is, I believe, proof of Kinsella’s claim.
Personal Essays
My Unseen World
The Unseen World grapples with this abstract notion: if memories are the fundamental building blocks to a coherent identity, when one loses these memories or memories are distorted —who does this person become? Who are they in relation to you?
How Reading Has Helped Me in the Age of COVID-19
“I….have been able to use reading as both a reprieve from reality, as well as an educational tool to become a more productive version of my isolated self.”
Writing in Ten Easy Steps
Step 1: Once you are roused from slumber by thoughts of the monumental task at hand, brew some coffee. If you don’t drink coffee, thoughtfully bob a bag of tea into a cup of microwaved water. Optional: Add alcohol to taste.
Visuals
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