Andrew Careaga

Friday Five: favorite short fiction of 2025

There are so many great short stories being published these days that it’s hard to keep track of them all. So many deserve to be read and savored. Maybe you’ve read some of the five below that I’ve selected as my favorites of 2025. If not, I hope you’ll give each of them a read. And if you’ve read any of them, maybe give them another read.

All of these stories were published during the 2025 calendar year in online literary magazines and are publicly accessible at the time of this writing. I present them here unranked and in no particular order.

Library book sale haul

Eleven books for twelve dollars. Money well spent.

Last month, I went to the Rolla (Missouri) Public Library’s fall book sale and came home with a nice haul of reading materials. It was $12 well spent, and the money went to support our local library.

Here’s what I got, and what I hope to read over the holidays and beyond:

Friday Five: writer and Major 7th editor Kirsti MacKenzie

‘Innovating within structure is the great genius pop artists have in common.’

Content warning: interview contains language some readers may find offensive.

“There’s a specific kind of masochism in picking an industry built on rejection,” says Viv, one of the main characters in Kirsti MacKenzie‘s debut novel Better to Beg (Sweet Trash Press, November 2025). It sounds like something a writer might say as they hope against hope that their works will be picked up by literary magazines or agents in their quest for a bit of fame, if not fortune.

Kirsti MacKenzie

Viv and her partner in music, the British expat Hux, are also on a quest for fame. The two form the fictional indie band The Deserters, and they are riding the crest of underground popularity, thanks to music bloggers and file-sharing services. They embark on a cross-country rock’n’roll/road trip fueled by enough dope to make Hunter S. Thompson consider rehab. Learn more about the novel and Kirsti in this excellent interview on X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine.

A writer from northern Ontario, Kirsti also creates superb short fiction (see this page for four years’ worth of stories) and is the founder and editor of Major 7th Magazine, a literary mixtape composed of short pieces related to specific songs. Read on for more about that litmag, Kirsti’s debut novel, and her thoughts on writing.

New ‘Holiday Horror’ fiction: ‘To Grandmother’s House’

A rare (for me) bit of horror writing. Warning: This is not Hallmark Movie material.

Not long ago, in an effort to drag myself out of my writing rut, I decided to write some short stories to fit themed submission calls. One of those calls came from Spillwords. For their annual Haunted Holidays” feature, Spillwords‘ editors were seeking writings that “embrace the dark side of the winter holiday season, and all that’s lurking in the shadows of Christmas merriment.” So I wrote a short story specifically for this call. I was happy to learn earlier this week that the editors had accepted it, and it is featured on the litmag’s website today.

Content warning: If you’re more into sweet and sappy holiday fare, or Hallmark Movie holiday romances, you might want to give this one a pass. But if you crave a bit of psychological tension and yuletide horror, then by all mean, give “To Grandmother’s House” a read.

Image via Spillwords.

Friday Five: Z.H. Gill, editor of Burial Magazine

‘I want the fancies and the unclean to coexist at Burial because I like a lot of different kinds of writing.’

Content warning: strong language that some readers may find offensive.

On this, the day after Z.H. Gill‘s least favorite holiday (as he himself acknowledges), I am filled with gratitude to introduce you to Z.H., the founder and editor of a relatively new online literary journal, Burial Magazine.

Z.H. Gill

It’s been fewer than six months since Burial arrived on the literary scene like a thunderbolt hurled from Mount Olympus, erupting in a strange purple glow marked with white text of startling, brash, and often stunning, often unconventional prose and poetry. With its text-heavy, minimalist design and powerful writing, Burial is a distinctive niche in the world of online literary magazines.

When Z.H. isn’t working on Burial, Z.H. is working on his own writing and filmmaking. Based in East Hollywood, California, where he lives with Hans the Cat, Z.H.’s writing appears in X-R-A-Y, Minor Literature[s], Pithead Chapel, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and elsewhere.