Category: flash fiction

Friday Five: ‘Mythic Picnic’ editor Nathan Pettigrew

‘I’ve spent most of my life writing stories in memo pads, notebooks, and endless Word docs.’

There are a lot of reasons a lot of users have abandoned Twitter (aka X) over the past few years. But one reason for staying connected to that platform–hellscape that it is–is to read some great micro fiction published by a literary magazine you can only find there.

I’m talking about Mythic Picnic, the Twitter/X micro-fiction magazine created by  Mark Finnemore and now managed by author and editor Nathan Pettigrew (@NathanBorn2010 on Twitter, which is his primary online address). For the Picnic, Nathan is looking for the brief stories (up to 350 words, including the title and writer’s bio) in a wide variety of fiction. MythicPicnic is also a paying market, which is a rare occurrence these days.

Natham Pettigrew with his beloved dog Brody, who recently passed.

A native of Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, Nathan now calls Florida home and when he isn’t writing crime fiction or editing his literary magazine, he works in the healthcare sector. His stories have appeared in Rock and a Hard Place, Thuglit, Bristol Noir, and Switchblade, along with some anthologies, including the phenomenal Bad Intentions: Crime Fiction Inspired by Warren Zevon, which came out July 7 and which I’ve flogged mercilessly on this blog and elsewhere. This fall, his collection of short stories, Tales from Terrebonne, will be published by Rock and a Hard Place Press.

Read on to learn more about Nathan’s writing, his forthcoming story collection, Mythic Picnic, and more.

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New story in a new lit mag

My flash fiction piece, “Pancho Villa’s Revenge,” is the first story to grace the new literary magazine ‘Sunday Morning’

Yesterday saw the launch of a new literary magazine, Sunday Morning, which is edited by Iryna Somkina. As Iryna explained in a recent Friday Five on this site, this publication is intended to publish short pieces of fiction or poetry every Sunday morning–some “slice-of-life, domestic prose” short enough to be enjoyed over coffee, tea, or your Sunday morning drink of choice. So I was extremely happy when she chose my flash fiction piece, “Pancho Villa’s Revenge,” as the story to launch this new project.

The story is a slice-of-life tale of two brothers discussing family lore over glasses of whiskey. There may be a slice of real life infused into this story, like a zesty lemon peel twisted into a drink. I hope you’ll give it a read–even though it’s Monday now–and also hope you’ll keep track of Sunday Morning. I expect great things from this project in the Sundays to come.

Friday Five: author and ‘Mucky Mondays’ maestro Shawn Scott Smith

‘Community has always been a thing for me, and I saw a chance to give back to some of the writers I admired.’ 

Ever had a case of the Mondays? Of course you have. But thanks to Shawn Scott Smith, a writer, editor, and pinball aficionado from North Carolina, you can get your week off to a better start by reading a poem or flash fiction piece selected and curated by Shawn via his online literary presence, Mucky Mondays.

Shawn Scott Smith

Shawn launched the project earlier this year, and it didn’t take long for him to fill his calendar for 2026. (I’m one of the lucky mucks to be included in Scott’s publication this year. Check out “Scenes from a Chinese Restaurant,” which Scott kindly nominated for a Best of the Net award.) He will solicit submissions for the 2027 lineup beginning in November.

An accomplished writer in his own right, Shawn’s first collection of poetry and short stories, Telemetry: Poems and Shorts 2014-2017, was published in 2018. His newest book, Atomic Number, contains 117 poems, each one titled after an element of the periodic table. (Check out a couple of poems from the collection.) He’s also been published in a bunch of literary magazines, including Alien Buddha, BULL, Burial Magazine, Dodo Eraser, and Hawkeye.

Read on to learn more about Shawn’s writing journey, the origin of Mucky Mondays, his pinball obsession, and more.

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A four-point play

Three short stories and one short creative non-fiction piece published this week–and it’s only Thursday

The stars must be aligning for me this week, as I’ve had four pieces published.

It began with Tuesday’s publication of a short nonfiction piece called “Killing Machine” in The Itch Lit. This piece was inspired by a sign outside my town’s lone pawn shop and some of the shop’s stock in trade. A reader on Threads wrote, “That first paragraph was a masterclass of clever misdirection, hooked me from the first line.”

Then came three short stories today:

  1. “The Sixth Pallbearer,” a dark story published by a place that specializes in the darker stuff, DarkWinter Literary Magazine.
  2. “Driving Grandma to Bingo,” one of several micro-fiction pieces published today by the Twitter lit mag Mythic Picnic. Each author in this issue is also a contributor to the forthcoming anthology of Warren Zevon-inspired crime stories, Bad Intentions. “Driving Grandma to Bingo” is the fifth story in this issue. To find it, scroll down this post. But be sure to read some other great stories posted there while you’re at it.
  3. “An Earthquake in China,” a short story I started some 20 years ago or more that I’ve been tweaking and revising over the past couple of years. This was published by The Leafline Magazine. Leafline‘s editors called it “a powerful, quiet story about what happens when a leader loses touch with his people. Through simple conversations and the memorable story of the ‘“’feed box,’”’ the author shows how easily a good person can let an obsession ruin a community. It is a relatable look at how fear can drive people apart rather than bring them together.”

I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Photo by Abbas Zaidi on Pexels.com.

I’ll make this short: it’s National Flash Fiction Month

Can you write a short story a day this month?

It’s June 1, the start of a new month and, for writers wanting to hone their flash fiction craft, National Flash Fiction Month–an opportunity provided by the Flash Fiction Institute for writers to write a flash story (typically 1,000 words or fewer) each day this month. (I’m behind already.)

Here are sine details, via the Flash Fiction Institute’s announcement (linked above):

Interested? Sign up at the National Flash Fiction Substack. Or if you, like me, prefer no accountability, just follow along on the social media links posted above, you rebel.

Photo by Vlad Panov on Unsplash