I. The rain doesn’t smell the same here, and neither do I. Warm, resinous, alive: piñons and junipers, greasewood and ponderosa, the ghost bloom of Apache plume snagged on old barbed wire, claret cup cactus blooming scarlet against broken stone—plants whose names I had to borrow from strangers. These smells have no words in my body; they arrive like teeth or tides or prayers from other shores. Sun encapsulated in tree limbs like fruit. A whip crackle of thunder behind...
I was awoken by a bad rendition of this very Carpenters song. It had been playing on the intercom of the airplane while I was trying to sleep through the redeye, L.A.X. to LaGuardia, which I had been taking in order to see my family in Flushing. My mother had sprained her ankle on a downspout on Parsons Boulevard and incurred two thousand dollars of hospital debt. O, mother. My father had said something politically incorrect at the banh mi...
In this one, I’m at a border crossing. Over here they speak a language outsiders are forbidden to learn. That side’s famous for buttermilk. As contested boundaries go this place ain’t much. No fences or searchlights or dogs. Just a rectangular room, bad carpet, metal detectors and conveyor belts. A strip of duct tape down the middle of the floor with a pair of guards on either side. They chat only to each other, in their respective languages. Every few...
On the third night of looting after the election, I’m holed up with Grandma Beryl in assisted living because emergency services are at max capacity. I need to make sure she doesn’t take a tumble, choke on a biscuit, dislocate another limb—die. Nowhere in the post-stroke guidance does it say anything about not watching horror films. Especially one where, in the opening scene, a zombie child gorges on the brains of a mallard duck. “This ok?” I ask her. But,...
The fat man could move. Given he were a fat shite you’d a not picked him for pace, but he had jets like. He leapt the back fence, a big timber job, like a pregnant gazelle. A fucken mystery of the wild. And then me, I got a big splinter in me hand tryna swing me leg over the fucken thing. ‘Where’d he fuckin go?’ yells Macca from the back door of the fat guy’s house. ‘He done leapt the...
SmokeLong Quarterly has been dedicated to publishing the best flash narratives since 2003.
June 2025
I have so much to tell you. First of all, Happy Pride. SmokeLong is thrilled to announce The SmokeLong Quarterly Trans Writer Fellowship (spring 2026) in cooperation with SAFTA. The deadline to apply for this fellowship/residency is September 1st, 2025. Find out more HERE but read my letter first! It’s short! You can find the… Continue reading New Front (continue reading)
The SmokeLong Grand Micro Contest
The SmokeLong Grand Micro Contest (The Mikey) is now an annual competition celebrating and compensating the best micro fiction and nonfiction online.
The grand prize winner of The Mikey is automatically nominated for Best Small Fictions and any other prize we deem appropriate. In addition, we will pay the grand prize winner $1000. Second place: $500. Third place $300. Finalists: $100. All finalists and placers will be published in the December ’25 issue of SmokeLong.
Previously published as well as previously unpublished work will be considered.
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Now in the shop
From the elements of flash, to a deep-dive into concepts that underpin the flash narrative, to a disruptive new approach to editing the flash narrative, the publisher and editor-in-chief of SmokeLong shares his insights in three webinars. In Elements of Flash you’ll learn why flash is not just a word count and why the flash… Continue reading SmokeLong Flash Masterclass — Webinar Three-Pack
Sara Hills is the author of The Evolution of Birds (Ad Hoc Fiction, 2021), winner of the 2022 Saboteur Award for best story collection. Her flash-length stories have been taught internationally in schools and workshops as well as widely published in anthologies and journals, including The Best Small Fictions, SmokeLong Quarterly, Bath Flash Fiction Award, Fractured Lit, Cease Cows, Flash Frog, New Flash Fiction Review, Fictive Dream, and elsewhere. Originally from the Sonoran Desert, Sara lives in Warwickshire, UK. Find her online at sarahillswrites.com.
