All the writers on stage

The Unbound Book Festival is one of my favorite weekends in Columbia. Tales on the road by @sarahkendzior.bsky.social ir.bsky.social, @bjsoloy.bsky.social, @nancycrochiere.bsky.social, and @samuelkolawole.bsky.social led by
@caylinct.bsky.social.
.

February 2026 Ten stories picked by Kathryn Reese

This month's #Mondettes picked by
@kathrynreese.bsky.social

⚡Ten wonderful flash fictions
🔍Ten splashes of analysis as to why Kathryn made these brilliant picks
🪴Three fantastic prompts to get you writing

mondettes.substack.com/p/february-2...

Thank you for reading and sharing, Kathryn and Matt!

I was absolutely riveted by Red Bull's story and Greenberg's reporting. Just teetering on the edge of my (metaphorical) seat the entire time. (My non-metaphorical seat was entirely occupied by me and my dog.) So much human spirit/guts/mettle in defiance of so much human cruelty.

"I have come home. The sea says, The longer you stay away, the less you belong. I say, Is that true? And the sea says, Look at Kansas. So I drive a little while and look."

I love all 3 of these pieces by my pal @caylinct.bsky.social for @wigleaf.bsky.social

wigleaf.com

Thanks for sharing pal!

new new: THREE MICROS, by Caylin Capra-Thomas: wigleaf.com

Une Femme by Shala Erlich | Body language.

Thank you to @dintywmoore.bsky.social and Team Walrus for creating the conditions for this to emerge and to @hattiefletcher.bsky.social and the Short Reads team for giving it a home.
‪@shala-24.bsky.social‬) via @short-reads.org.

www.short-reads.org/une-femme/

This one resonated with me, from French class to being with my dad and stepmom instead of my mom that first time. Thanks for writing!

I just read this in my inbox (slow to get around to them sometimes) and I really enjoyed it-- the last line hits hard

Quote that reads: "I am looking for the sense of being somewhere I can never go. I’m looking for California again." Byline reads: "Caylin Capra-Thomas, 'On (the) Sublime'"

In a new @longreads essay, @caylinct.bsky.social‬ writes about Sublime's late frontman Bradley Nowell, poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, addiction, and limits: longreads.com/2025/05/22/s...

On (the) Sublime - Longreads When we reach for our limits, what is it that we ultimately grasp?

"I lived in Massachusetts, inland—not even really coastal, let alone West Coast. My town was small, my neighborhood the woods. I didn’t go to many parties. Not the kind Sublime sang about, anyway." — @caylinCT.bsky.social‬

On (the) Sublime - Longreads When we reach for our limits, what is it that we ultimately grasp?

“Do you remember being 16 and loving a song? Of course you do. It felt like that. It felt like everything.”

This @longreads.com essay on Sublime and addiction and seeking what you’ll never reach and the shitty parts of Massachusetts hit home for me in all the right ways. Damn.

Leah!!! (Stretches arms through computer and across space) Thank you. These kind words mean so very much to me.

Thank you for this, and for the copyedit, Cheri!

So thrilled to have this brain baby out today! Many thanks to Brendan Fitzgerald (editorial), Julie Schwietert-Collazo (fact checking), Cheri Lucas Rowlands (copyediting), and Longreads (general CNF dreamboatery) at large for helping me bring it into the world.

Thank you for reading!

FOR MY 20-YEAR-OLD SISTER ON MY 30TH BIRTHDAY Nobody knows what they’re doing, Maddie. Sometimes I can see, as if from above, the wave of each fresh generation gathering, drawing more of itself into itself and looming, perilous and untenable, above the lower water. The collective breath of newborns responsible for the atmospheric shift. Freaky shit. The morning shows call it sweater weather. I call it death knell with elbow patches. Best case scenario, I say,

how do you think the world will end? It’s near two a.m. and you’re walking uphill in Worcester in a silver dress, shivering like the moon must shiver in her lockstep tidal darkness. Know me, sister. I bequeath you the decade between us. It was useless and warm, like a house party. Like a house party, I spent it in the kitchen, counter-top-perched, glittering so lightly no one noticed my gravity. I felt like I knew something then. It was mostly a feeling. Best case scenario? you say. Dinosaurs return for a feeding. —Caylin Capra-Thomas

“I bequeath you the decade between us. It was / useless and warm, like a house party. // Like a house party, I spent it in the kitchen, / counter-top-perched, glittering so lightly / no one noticed my gravity.” — @caylinct.bsky.social, “For My 20-Year-Old Sister on My 30th Birthday”

CASSIOPEIA Meanwhile, a stranger’s grandma spoons cold butterscotch pudding to her lips beside your own grandma. They prefer custard but won’t complain to the nurses. Revolutions happen elsewhere. The once beloved’s face becomes unfamiliar, the moustache greasier, and it is the least you could have hoped for, but it doesn’t satisfy. Your brother is doing well because you have adjusted your definition of “well.” He wakes sober in a house Of sober men. They eat dry toast, and he drives to the tiny Cape Cod airport to wave his arms around and drag cigarettes, the weight of himself, and duffel bags filled with souvenir driftwood and bathing suits along the tarmac all day. The Vineyard people offer pinched smiles to his dropped R’s and the desire to feel another, very particular way plays beneath each moment like Muzak. He resists. How noble,

to resist. How unlike the gods. Meanwhile, the mortals are fasting. Your sister listens to the same screech on repeat and walks along the White River, seeing only the stones beneath the low, clear water, surprised by its sting when she kneels and leans to press her face against their shine. She has not cut her thighs in weeks. And you go on not calling your brother or grandmother, crying each time you fold clothes. Elsewhere, sickness spreading is one way bodies communicate. Your mother sends a card with some money in it, says her husband is dying so slowly he seems fine. You make the same corn salad for a different set of dinner guests, put on Nebraska one more time. Meanwhile, the constellations. Cassiopeia hanging upside down from her throne and you on Earth just gawking, wondering what kind of person you are, and if you’d be the one to open up your arms when she’s no longer able to hold on. —Caylin Capra-Thomas

“Your brother is doing well because you have adjusted/your definition of ‘well.’ He wakes sober in a house//Of sober men. They eat dry toast, and he drives to the tiny/Cape Cod airport to wave his arms around and drag//cigarettes” — @caylinct.bsky.social,
“Cassiopeia” @newenglandreview.bsky.social