Friday Five Writers – Andrew Careaga

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.

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 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.

Friday Five: Ukrainian writer and ‘Sunday Morning’ creator Iryna Somkina

‘The single most valuable asset you possess is your own unique view and your unrepeatable experience’

As I was preparing to send a draft of this post to this week’s featured writer/editor, Iryna Somkina, Iryna herself was enduring the horrors of the latest drone and missile attacks by Russia on the Ukrainian capitol of Kyiv, where Iryna now lives and–somehow, in the midst of everything–writes some incredible creative nonfiction in English as well as a bit of poetry. “Honestly, my life has been so intense and packed with reality that there’s absolutely no point in even trying to write fiction,” she writes.

Originally from Donbas, which has been a focal point in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she is also preparing to launch a new literary magazine, Sunday Morning, which will make its official debut Sunday, July 26. She also serves as fiction editor for Michigan City Review of Books.

I have such great respect for Iryna’s commitment to writing even in the midst of a horrific and senseless war, and even greater respect for her decision to create a new forum on which writers may publish their work.

Read on to learn more about Iryna’s writing, her new lit mag, and how she generates ideas for her writing.

Friday Five: ‘Saints of the Asphalt’ author and ‘Bad Intentions’ editor Michael Downing

‘I’m interested in what happens when people find themselves at a crossroads and have to make difficult choices’

BREAKING: Bad Intentions is now available for pre-order. Be the first on your block to purchase it! A portion of proceeds will support Philadelphia-based nonprofit Philabundance.

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When I found out last December that Literary Garage was looking for crime stories for an anthology of crime stories inspired by the legendary musical master Warren Zevon, my heart sank like a stone. Because, even though I’m a longtime Zevon fan, I assumed poor, poor pitiful me would have no chance in landing a spot in that book, since I hadn’t written any sort of crime/noir fiction since a Perry Mason story I wrote, probably on a Big Chief tablet, in third grade. Even so, I gave it a shot, and now, as I’ve mentioned here before, my Zevon-inspired crime story is one of fifteen to make it into this anthology.

Through this process, I’ve gotten to know more about the guy put in charge of selecting the stories for this anthology (called Bad Intentions), Michael Downing. Originally from New Jersey (land of Springsteen, as Michael will proudly tell you) and now living in Georgia, Michael is an accomplished writer himself. His latest book, Saints of the Asphalt, published last year, is available online and at select bookstores. (Here’s an excerpt.) Over the past twenty years Michael has written plays, published several books, and has had short stories published in numerous literary publications. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times, and his fiction appears in several anthologies, including Under the Thumb: Stories of Police Oppression (ed. S.A. Cosby), On Fire and Under Water: A Climate Change Anthology (ed. Curtis Ippolito), and Six Sentences Volumes II & III (ed. Rob McEvily).

A literacy advocate, Michael also is the founder and former creative director of StoryTellers, a community-based literacy organization in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and Rome, Georgia, dedicated to helping underserved teens and young adults develop confidence through creative writing and self-expression.

He now lives northeast of Atlanta with his wife Helen, but remains unmistakably New Jersey—attitude, edginess, and Springsteen songs (just not Bon Jovi). Read on to learn about his writing, his work with Bad Intentions, his literary advocacy, and his thoughts about the music of Warren Zevon.

Friday Five: ‘Scumbag Summer’ author Jillian Luft

‘One of my goals, when writing, is to bring music to the page.’

Here we are, on the verge of official summer, which begins with Sunday’s solstice. If you’re still scrambling to put together a summer reading list, I recommend you consider adding Florida writer Jillian Luft‘s debut novel Scumbag Summer to your list.

Published in 2024 by House of Vlad Press, the novel is set in 2003 Orlando. The protagonist, a recent liberal arts graduate from a public college in Florida, heads to “O-Town” to secure an entry-level clerical job. She soon falls for her flirtatious, painkiller-addicted boss and slides into a summertime affair that is complicated by all kinds of family issues on both sides. Rather than attempt to summarize this novel myself and inadvertently publish spoilers, I refer you to Jennifer Ostopovich’s excellent review from last August and offer this blurb from the Bookshop.org book description:

From bowling alleys to barrooms, malls to matinees, through the dull refuse of suburbia with new and unforgettable meaning, this book is a love letter to a fleeting season of illicit love, rampant addiction, buried grief and inevitable heartbreak-a whiskey-soaked, deep-fried, classic rock-scored mega-chain ode to Florida, youth, and the swan song of the human heart.

Jillian’s other writing includes short fiction and nonfiction in literary magazines like Hobart, Booth, X-R-A-Y, The Forge Literary Magazine, and many others. She writes in raw but beautiful language about illness and death, mothers and daughters, pop culture and Florida, bodies and desire–topics that “typically arise from deep-seated obsessions or something that’s piqued my curiosity.” (For a sample of her recent work, I recommend “Dottie After Dark,” an exquisite nonfiction piece that reads like a short story.) She is also the founder of Sweet Trash Press, a publishing imprint of House of Vlad, and is working on a memoir about caregiving for her terminally ill mother as a preteen. Read on to learn about her debut novel, her other writing, and her definition of scumbag.