Tag: 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.

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

Friday Five: Orange Rose editor Amber Budd

‘Literary magazines exist to uplift the work of other writers, and that’s always been my main priority.’

In less than a year, Amber Budd has built something incredible for the online literary world with The Orange Rose Literary Magazine. Since launching The Orange Rose last July, she has published five issues, each one of which is filled with a broad range of writing–short stories, nonfiction, flash and micro fiction, and poetry from writers well known, lesser known, and unknown–as well as visual art and photography. (Note to writers: Amber’s call for prose submissions for Issue 6 ends May 31, so get busy! [Orange Rose has already hit its cap for poetry submissions.) I’ve had three short stories appear in Amber’s magazine (in issues 2, 4, and 5, which was a pet-themed issue in honor of Amber’s recently departed orange cat, Biscotti). I also received one kindly worded rejection email from her.

Amber is a Missouri-based writer (as am I) who, at age 24, juggles her editor-in-chief work with her pursuit of an MFA in writing, which she began last fall. She holds an AFA and BA in Creative Writing and previously served as editor for Arrow Rock Literary Journal and as a reader for Fractured Lit. Her short fiction and poetry have been published in multiple magazines and journals, and she is currently writing her first novel that will eventually serve as her master’s thesis. Though her chronic illnesses limit her day-to-day capabilities, she uses her free time, according to her bio, “to replay the same two video games for the millionth time, crochet while binge-watching her current TV obsession, and squeeze in D&D sessions with her friends.”

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