Flash fiction link

My twin granddaughters, 5 months old now (but adjusted to 3 since they were born prematurely), is the most attentive audience I have ever had.  They are staring at me with starry-eyed admiration and even forget to blink I have already exhausted my considerable arsenal of Russian poetry I know by heart, the English-language stories…

Rejection: Thank you for allowing us to carefully consider “XYZ.” Unfortunately, we have to pass at this time. We wish you the best in placing this piece elsewhere. Reply: Thank you for your careful consideration of my story at 3:54 AM on Sunday morning, the time known for the pick of the human attention.

Rejections. An editor’s perspective Some editors say that is not worth it to give personal rejections. Of course if you reply to a submission with the words like “your ending needs work,” that would open a rat’s nest of arguments and maybe give the writer false expectations. But that’s how one editor replied to me:…

The role of a literary magazine editor is to improve the world by publishing better stories and poetry and not by punishing writers for their wrongs through blacklisting.

Love is all you need, a short movie. This story is multi-dimensional; bullying is only one layer. As for the main theme, it could be read in two different ways: either as a metaphor for the oppression of the gay people,  or, to turn the movie on its head, perhaps, as a cautious tale about…

Whatever doesn’t kill us, make our doctors richer. He was married twice, both times unhappily. The first wife left, the second stayed. When all the rats left the sinking ship, it stopped sinking. I didn’t want to hurt you. I just lucked out.