Proof of Concept

Back in 2018, I did a monthly flash fiction draw. Three draws from a deck of cards to get a writing prompt of: genre, setting, and object. 1,000 words, and a flash fiction story in the chosen genre, set in the chosen setting, including the chosen object. Well, this year, Cait Gordon picked up the …

Short Stories 366:1 — “Chocolate Milkshake Number 314” by Caroline M. Yoachim

This may be a terrible idea, but a quite a few years ago, back when I have a Livejournal, I decided to blog once a day about a short story. It was called Short Stories 365, and I managed the feat. For a whole year, once a day, a review of a short fiction piece. …

Sunday Shorts—Binaries by S.B. Divya

This flash fiction piece from People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction has a super-clever narrative conceit: it rolls out over a binary progression of years of the main character's life. She's 1. Then she's 2. Then she's 4. Then she's 8, 16, 32... You get it. That it progresses beyond the 64-128 is where the …

Sunday Shorts—Breathe Deep, Breathe Free by Jennifer Marie Brissett

One of the flash fiction stories in People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction, this one struck hard and quick. The narrative unfolds around an ecological disaster of some sort (it's not entirely clear how it began, but the end result is a "coating" on everything outside, and the creep of the toxin into the air …

Sunday Shorts—An Offertory to Our Drowned Gods by Teresa Naval

The first of the flash fiction pieces in People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction, this piece by Teresa Naval did a brilliant little job of characterization and world-building all in one, which is pretty damn sharp for a flash fic. Told partly in flash-back, and partly in the present, this is a world flooded and …

Sunday Shorts—The Lamb Chops, by Stephen Cox

I think I've mentioned a few times now as a whole Queers Destroy Science Fiction (the audiobook) was fantastic—but also often a massive downer.  It took me longer than most anthologies to listen to because of that point. It wasn't a quality thing, just that I was listening to it in the middle of winter, …