The clock is ticking! ⏰ Just 9 days to get those 100-300 words together & polished for the @freeflashfiction.bsky.social Competition Thirty-Three!

WBTL Live Workshops

**WIN A FREE PLACE** on one of the Welkin workshops!!

Quote post with "Welkin me up!" to put your name in the hat

5 names picked on Friday at noon BST

6 workshops to choose from. Sessions recorded if you can't make it live:

www.mattkendrick.co.uk/live-workshops

Pushbike Prize for Flash Fiction

A new flash prize and I'm judging!

Crannóg Magazine is delighted to announce the inaugural Pushbike Prize for Flash Fiction judged by Nuala O'Connor.

€1500 in prizes

Subs open May 1st to 21st.

www.wordsonthestreet.com/pod.html?fbc...

Vintage Pan Am poster to illustrate my first Substack post.

I started a Substack blog and mailing list! I hope you'll check it out and sign up for free!

Found you, Niamh and following

Congratulations, Fiona! This is such excellent news! 🙌🏻

Judge’s report for 2026 novella-in-flash award. We had over eighty entries since July when the ninth yearly novella in flash award opened. Thank you to everyone who trusted their work to the competition. Many congratulations to the three winners…

I'm delighted that my first ever novella-in-flash Beautiful for You about the life of Princess Diana has been highly commended in the Bath Novella-in-Flash Award! Many thanks to judge Jude Higgins, and congratulations to all the other winners.
www.bathflashfictionaward.com/2026/02/judg...

Flash Fiction

£1,000 first prize.
Up to 250 words. No minimum.
Selected writers published in our anthology.
Open to writers worldwide.

What can you say in 250 words?

Enter now → bridportprize.org.uk

#BridportPrize #FlashFiction #WritingCompetition #WritersCommunity #AmWriting

Aspirin by Nin Andrews The day I ate two bottles of St. Joseph's baby aspirin, my mother was out of town. My father had fallen asleep, watching football in the den. I climbed up on the sink in my par-ents' bathroom where the mirrors reflected back and forth, back and forth. I could see myself again and again to infinity. There were so many of me present, I called out Hello! to every one. No one answered. But when I ate the orange-flavored tablets, so did they. Orange, my favorite color. I ate slowly, singing and waving to the other girls. It was almost a party with so many of us present. I wanted to meet them all, break open the glass and set them free. When my father discovered me holding the empty aspirin bottles, he didn't scream or spank. Instead he picked me up and carried me outside to his dark Buick. He drove with me in his arms, leaning me back against his chest. It was the way he held me against him, his prickly chin pressing against my head that I remember best. I wanted to be held like that forever. Sometimes, looking at a photograph of my father, I still taste the bitter-sweet orange of children's aspirin. Then I think of the other girls, so many others I might have been, if he'd held them too.

"Aspirin"
Nin Andrews
#poetry #prosepoem

Congratulations, Bill!

Congratulations, Christopher!

Our site was down due to much-needed maintenance and a server upgrade. Apologies if you tried to visit us and could not get to the site. We are up and running. Thank you for your patience.

We are still on a submissions hiatus, but that could change soon. Check back here or on our site for updates.

How to Organize Safely in the Age of Surveillance From threat modeling to encrypted collaboration apps, we’ve collected experts’ tips and tools for safely and effectively building a group—even while being targeted and tracked by the powerful.

I don’t think I’ve ever had so many people writing to me to ask about encrypted/secure/private tools for comms, collaboration, and organizing. So @lhn.bsky.social and I talked to experts and assembled this: the Wired guide to organizing in an age of surveillance. www.wired.com/story/how-to...

Animals By Frank O'Hara Have you forgotten what we were like then when we were still first rate and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth it's no use worrying about Time but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves and turned some sharp corners the whole pasture looked like our meal we didn't need speedometers we could manage cocktails out of ice and water I wouldn't want to be faster or greener than now if you were with me O you were the best of all my days

"Animals"
Frank O'Hara
#poetry

Dell, serious question --- how do you keep it together when your job exposes you to so much bad news on a regular basis? Asking for a news consumer who's struggling.

A Girl and A Poem He promised to write me a poem Since then, every morning I say: Mother! I'll go to the news-stand. My mother does not know that every morning I steal a piece of my brothers' food And with it buy a newspaper, Hoping to find the promised poem there. It is now two months that I buy papers with food But the poem was never there. Only today he phoned, and when I asked he answered: That he wrote the poem long ago: That the poem was written the moment he promised it And that waiting for the poem, was the poem itself. And now I feel empty! Now I don't want to go to the news-stand. Mother! Why did he phone this morning, and stop the poет? Rashed Hussein Translated by Naseer Aruri and Edmund Ghareeb

"A Girl and A Poem"
Rashed Hussein
#poetry

Part of Eve's Discussion Marie Howe It was like the moment when a bird decides not to eat from your hand, and flies, just before it flies, the moment the rivers seem to still and stop because a storm is coming, but there is no storm, as when a hundred starlings lift and bank together before they wheel and drop, very much like the moment, driving on bad ice, when it occurs to you your car could spin, just before it slowly begins to spin, like the moment just before you forgot what it was you were about to say, it was like that, and after that, it was still like that, only all the time.

"Part of Eve's Discussion"
Marie Howe
#poetry

You have a window installed in your chest so I can see what you mean.

Peeping between ribs like blinds at your fist of a heart, pale- knuckled pounding.

Wants to be free, you say. But my guess is, your heart is knocking for better luck than me.

#vss365 (pale)
#ThingsToWriteAbout (window)

@dell.bsky.social circling back to this months later, did you end up settling on a particular extension?

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one's prejudgment simply need not be believed - in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical - and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 - 1945) "On Stupidity" - Letters and Papers from Prison

It would be worth your time to read more about this man and his too-short life, if you don't know anything about him.

Risking hyperbole, @wired.com and its journalists should be nominated for all the awards, along with @atrupar.com and @hcrichardson.bsky.social and probably others I've neglected to remember and acknowledge. Thank you all for your sustained courage, integrity, and commitment to the truth. 🙏🏻

The power of micro fiction.

Well done, David.

Sometimes It Happens Sometimes it happens that you are friends and then You are not friends. And friendship has passed. And whole days are lost and among them A fountain empties itself. And sometimes it happens that you are loved and then You are not loved, And love is past. And whole days are lost and among them A fountain empties itself into the grass. And sometimes you want to speak to her and then You do not want to speak, Then the opportunity has passed. Your dreams flare up, they suddenly vanish. And also it happens that there is nowhere to go and then There is somewhere to go, Then you have bypassed. And the years flare up and are gone, Quicker than a minute. So you have nothing. You wonder if these things matter and then As soon you begin to wonder if these things matter They cease to matter, And caring is past. And a fountain empties itself into the grass. Brian Patten

"Sometimes it Happens"
Brian Patten
#poetry

CHARLES RAFFERTY The Problem with Early Warnings People don't like to leave a party unless the house is actually on fire. Even then, if the flames are far enough away to be pretty, they'll finish their drink, take one more pass at the hors d'oeuvres. How things happen has always been unclear. Hurricanes begin in a place where no one lives. Agents of the government start to wear masks. Fascism is a word my neighbors won't use yet. They are following the law, they say, and the sirens are coming for someone else.

"The Problem with Early Warnings"
Charles Rafferty
#poetry

Registration is open for my WINTER 2026 online poetry workshop! Join a great group of poets as we inspire one another this winter! See my website christophercitro DOT com for more info & to register. #Poetry #Writing #WritersLife #WritingCommunity

Responsibility It is the responsibility of society to let the poet be a poet It is the responsibility of the poet to be a woman It is the responsibility of the poet to stand on street corners giving out poems and beautifully written leaflets also leaflets they can hardly bear to look at because of the screaming rhetoric It is the responsibility of the poet to be lazy to hang out and prophesy It is the responsibility of the poet not to pay war taxes It is the responsibility of the poet to go in and out of ivory towers and two-room apartments on Avenue C and buckwheat fields and army camps It is the responsibility of the male poet to be a woman It is the responsibility of the female poet to be a woman It is the poet’s responsibility to speak truth to power as the Quakers say It is the poet’s responsibility to learn the truth from the powerless It is the responsibility of the poet to say many times: there is no freedom without justice and this means economic justice and love justice It is the responsibility of the poet to sing this in all the original and traditional tunes of singing and telling poems It is the responsibility of the poet to listen to gossip and pass it on in the way storytellers decant the story of life There is no freedom without fear and bravery there is no freedom unless earth and air and water continue and children also continue It is the responsibility of the poet to be a woman to keep an eye on this world and cry out like Cassandra, but be listened to this time

"Responsibility"
Grace Paley
#poetry

Next year’s flowers are under all this snow.

"Riveted"
Robyn Sarah
#poetry