"The Best Microfiction anthology series provides recognition for outstanding literary stories of 400 words or fewer. Co-edited by award-winning microfiction writer/editor Meg Pokrass, and Flannery O'Connor Prize-winning author Gary Fincke, and acclaimed author/editor Michael Martone serving as final judge."--Provided by publisher
Fiction. Short Stories. Edited by Meg Pokrass and Gary Fincke with guest editor Amber Sparks. THE BEST MICROFICTION anthology series provides recognition for outstanding literary stories of 400 words or fewer. Co-edited by award-winning microfiction writer/editor Meg Pokrass; and Flannery O'Connor Prize-winning author Gary Fincke; the anthology features Amber Sparks serving as final judge; and one hundred and five of the world's best very short short stories.
The Best Microfiction anthology series provides recognition for outstanding literary stories of 400 words or fewer. Co-edited by award-winning microfiction writer/editor Meg Pokrass, and Flannery O'Connor Prize-winning author Gary Fincke, the anthology features Tania Hershman serving as final judge,
The fourteen spellbinding stories in Michelle Ross's second collection invite readers into the shadows of social-media perfectionism and the relentless cult of motherhood. A recovering alcoholic navigates the social landscape of a toddler playdate; a mother of two camps out in a van to secure her son's spot at a prestigious kindergarten; a young girl forces her friends to play an elaborate, unwinnable game. With unflinching honesty and vivid, lyric prose, Ross explores the familial ties that bind us together-or, sometimes, tear us apart.
At night, the trees whispered. Told ghost stories, their leaves trembling. Remembered the fallen. Joked. Dry laughter rustled the dark. What happens when a writer wants to tell a hundred stories but doesn’t have the time to write a hundred books? They write the seeds of those stories and cast them to the wind... A Small Fiction presents a collection of illustrated micro-fiction, all told in 140 characters or fewer. From the humorous to the bleak, the dystopian to the dog-filled, there’s a story for every occasion, and an occasion for every story.
Ten years ago, Jerome Stern, director of the writing program at Florida State, initiated the World's Best Short Short Story Contest. Stories were to be about 250 words long; first prize was a check and a crate of oranges. Two to three thousand stories began to show up annually in Tallahassee, and National Public Radio regularly broadcast the winner. But, more important, the Micro form turned out to be contagious; stories of this "lack of length" now dot the literary magazines. The time seemed right, then, for this anthology, presenting a decade of contest winners and selected finalists. In addition, Stern commissioned Micros, persuading a roster of writers to accept the challenge of completing a story in one page. Jesse Lee Kercheval has a new spin on the sinking of the Titanic; Virgil Suarez sets his sights on the notorious Singapore caning; George Garrett conjures up a wondrous screen treatment pitch; and Antonya Nelson invites us into an eerie landscape. Verve and nerve and astonishing variety are here, with some wild denouements. How short can a Micro be, you wonder. Look up Amy Hempel's contribution, and you'll see.
O. Westin's micro science fiction is set in an extra-terrestrial future, capturing scenes of interstellar life - transgalactic communication attempts between aliens and humans, philosophizing robots, Siri's emotions, and plenty of comic relief across the space-time continuum. The over 350 very short stories tackle all the Big Questions: How do you establish contact with aliens without offending them? Will artificial intelligences one day demand election rights? And which species would aliens decide to contact on Planet Earth? "Some of the best depth and potential built into the space of a single tweet." MEG, Chair of the BristolCon SF Convention "I've been writing microfics on postcards and my appreciation for the Sheer Compressed Wonder you create has only increased. (Which isn't to say I ever thought it was *easy*.)" Jeanette Ng, award-nominated SF novelist "Like a circus tent, @MicroSFF stories are much bigger on the inside than they appear on the outside." Gunnstein R'Lyeh
Book #4 of the Cupid’s Fall series is a contemporary reimagining of the Cupid and Psyche myth that will leave you breathless to the very last page. The God of Love is a mess. Heartbroken and unmoored after losing Pan to his Right Love, Cupid knows the only cure is the next all-consuming love the gods will inflict on him. When Aphrodite refuses to hasten Cupid’s next torment, he resorts to a very human approach to relieving his misery – therapy. His online sessions seem to be working until Dr. Mariposa Rey mysteriously cuts him off. Sensing she needs his help, Cupid sets out on a cross-country adventure to Lake Tahoe, where his heart will be inflamed for one last Worthy. What Cupid doesn’t know is that this fourth test will be his one and only chance at Right Love. With the ancient myth of Cupid and Psyche as his guide, Cupid attempts the impossible – a happily eternally after with his reluctant soul mate.
The characters in Eternal Night at the Nature Museum take refuge in strange, repurposed spaces. A middle-aged addict emcees at demolition derby, which transforms into a hostel—then a cult. An elderly folk-artist builds mailbox reproductions of her dream homes. A church congregates in an abandoned Hardee's. Octogenarians escape their nursing home. Unsupervised children sell knives to the neighborhood. In twenty vivid, rowdy, buoyant stories, Tyler Barton assembles a collection of places to crash, if only for the night.