Friday Five: ‘Hang Time’ author Brendan Gillen

‘… what really interests me in sports, and in life in general, really, is the in-between moments.’

Brendan Gillen’s short story collection, Hang Time, came out in December 2025.

As the Winter Olympics get into full swing, it’s as good a time as any to share this interview with Brendan Gillen, whose collection of short stories, Hang Time. The wide world of sports–from Little League and golf to college basketball, monster truck rallies, and more–serves as a backdrop for many of these yarns, but as author John Brandon notes in his blurb, “there’s LSD in the Gatorade.” Because the stories in this collection, published in December 2025, are about much more than sports. They reveal what Brendan calls “the in-between moments” that turn relatable, everyday experiences into surreal yet believable and very enjoyable tales of love, life, and heartbreak.

Based in Brooklyn, New York, Brendan’s work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions, and appears in Electric Lit, Write or Die, Sundog, the Florida Review, Wigleaf, X-R-A-Y, and elsewhere. He is also the author of a novel, Static, which came out in 2024, and an award-winning creative director who has developed, written, and created content for a broad range of brands, including ESPN, NASCAR, and Anheuser-Busch.

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New flash non-fiction: ‘Livin’ la Vida Pocha’

Some thoughts about cultural identity and assimilation into the Great American Melting Pot

For years, I’ve had a fascination with my Mexican-American heritage and how little I am connected to it–how there is little more to that heritage now than the surname, Careaga. Some thirty years ago, when I first learned there was a term for people like me, pocho, or pocha in the feminine (see more about the terms below), I started writing short pieces, mostly non-fiction or maybe autofiction, about coming to terms with this lost identity and claiming this pocho identity. “Livin’ la Vida Pocha,” published in Issue 4 of the outstanding literary magazine In Short: A Journal of Flash Nonfiction, is the first of these pieces I’ve had published. I’m working on others, so stay tuned.

My attempt with this piece is to express my mixed feelings about my cultural identity and assimilation into the Great American Melting Pot in a direct, deeply personal style. I hope you like it. Many thanks to In Short founder and editor-in-chief Steph Liberatore for her support of this piece and for her edits, which improved the piece greatly.

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