SmokeLong Quarterly publishes flash fiction up to 1000 words.
The SLQ aesthetic remains an ever-changing, ever-elusive set of principles, but it most likely has to do with these kinds of things:
- language that surprises
- narratives that strive toward something other than a final punch line or twist
- pieces that add up to something, oftentimes (but not necessarily always) meaning or emotional resonance
- honest work that feels as if it has far more purpose than a writer wanting to write a story
We have a special place in our hearts, more often than not, for narratives we haven’t seen before. For the more familiar stories—such as relationship break-ups, bar scenarios, terminal illnesses—we tend to need something original and urgent in the writer’s presentation.
Click here for submission guidelines.
Sonoma County author and writing teacher Stephanie Freele has been published in SLQ: Breathing Oysters
Have you, or someone you know, been published in Smokelong? Let me know, and I’ll post on my Facebook Writing Page.
Submit, so we can add your name to the list!
Stephanie Freele
Kathy Myers
Now I’m sorry I quit smoking. Writing brief fiction that can be read in the time it takes to finish a cigarette (the premise of Smokelong flash fiction) appeals to me. If I did take up smoking again I imagine it would be sitting at a sidewalk cafe on the left bank in Paris. I would be wearing a long skirt, a loose jacket of some fine but ancient material. It would have a coffee stain on the lapel. Between sips of black tar expresso I would adjust my beret over my rat’s nest grey hair and pull deeply from the brown Galois wedged between my stained fingers, and with each exhale curse the tourists sauntering down the boulevard. “Fucking Americans” I would say in French as my precious pug poops at my feet.
Ahhh smoking! I miss it so.
mcullen Post author
Great visuals. I can see this pugnacious mademoiselle exclaiming, “Mon Dieu,” a cloud of smoke settled above her beret, waving her free hand at the tourists as if she could bat them away.