The Short List lost 11 wonderful publications in March and April They will be missed, but are now included among our dearly departed:
Tiferet Journal
Dryland
microverses
Runcible Spoon
Transfigured Lit
Winnow Literary Magazine
Zephyr Review
Indecent
Peculiar Mormyrid
Fewer Than 500
The SissyFuss
This is a flash fiction about a medical procedure in the near future. It is best summed up with a line uttered by the main character: “Why on God’s green Earth would anyone develop a cancer treatment like this, that only worked if the patient was conscious?” Published by Dark Horses Magazine in an anthology available on Amazon.
Check my author’s page for other great anthologies featuring my work.
This story is about a professional assassin with an unusual way of doing business. And he’s doing business with someone equally peculiar. Published by the aptly-titled journal Half Hour To Kill.
image rendered with DALL-E by author
50-word stories are known as Dribbles, those with 100 are called Drabbles. The Dribble Drabble Review publishes them both and in Issue VII is my 50-worder about a very sad garage sale.
Published on Twitter by Cuento Magazine.
One year ago, my 50-word story appeared in 50 Give Or Take.
by DL Shirey
One-two-three-four-five-six, blow. One-two-three-four-five-six, blow. The same rhythm every time. Each rasp of her emery board makes me grip the steering wheel tighter.
At arms length she studies her work, spots a flaw and attacks the inexactitude in cadence. She splays five fingers, nods and begins the other hand.
One-two-three-four-five-six, blow.
END
I guess this qualifies as microfiction. Or is it?
Happy Birthday, Chad.
What does volunteering for the greater good look like in a tech-mech world? In the near future, X-O could be a possibility. The question is: how near is near?
Published in the October issue of Altered Reality Magazine.
If you like writing 50-word stories, one of the best potential publishing venues is Blink-Ink. Over the years they’ve accepted a few of my stories. This one was submitted for their Country Roads issue, but did not make the cut.
The three-mile walk to Jacob’s Hole was like a hotplate, but a swim was my reward.
The trip back would be miserable except when Mom and her pickup truck ambled up the parallel ruts of the dusty road.
“It’s fried boy for dinner,” Mom said when she saw my sunburn.
The protagonist in this story feels overwhelmed. He uses a trick taught by his psychiatrist: 5-4-3-2-1. It’s the only way he knows to stop obsessing. This is a 100-word story published in Grimdark from Black Hare Press. As you might expect, all the stories in this anthology are grim and dark.
DL Shirey 