SmokeLong Quarterly

Each year, SmokeLong asks the flash community and beyond to send us your best micros, whether previously published or unpublished, fiction or CNF or anything in the gray zone between. Maybe you published a micro ten years ago that disappeared into the shadows of a defunct online journal, or it appeared in a print journal. Or maybe you’ve written something brand new. It doesn’t matter. Each year, you’ll have the opportunity of giving that gem a new setting.

This year we received 1,170 micros. Two judges read each entry or group of entries. If at least one of those judges voted MAYBE, a third judge was assigned. If that judge voted MAYBE, all senior editors were assigned. Our tastes are eclectic, which is code for We rarely all agree on anything (which is so important). Our seventeen judges, a diverse group of writers and editors well acquainted with the form of micro fiction, come from four continents.

Thank you to everyone who entered this competition. Please don’t be discouraged if your work did not make it to the long list. We hope your micros find their home. And if your entry was previously published, congratulations! We are always happy to hear that work is rewarded with publication.

We have no set number for the long list. We just happened to find 42 micros this time that we thought possessed some magic, that did something we thought was innovative, that had heart.

The SmokeLong Grand Micro Contest Long List

-, -,___________________
After Sunlight in a Cafeteria by Edward Hopper
Artifacts
asking for our uncle’s blood to red
Becoming Your Mother
Birth Control is For Sluts
Eulogy of Henry Rowley, 1961-2024 (Notes)
Extra
Flow
For a Widow
For Both of them are Mine
Going to be Like Miss Marple
Good Fences
Help Me Out Here
Hidden Matters
Honey
I See Miracles
I See You
In War, Daughters Bury Their Fathers
Intake
Into the pit
Little Darling
Nocturne
Obit
Only You Can Prevent Wildfires
Our Girls
Save Us, Olivia Benson
Socks
Strangers
strangers breathe air into you
Summer, 1976
Tattoos
The Browder Net
The Claw Machine
The Shell
the sky didn’t slip inside
Tomorrow Never Came
Tuesday
violence inside us
We Need to Talk About the Home Scars
Wisdom of Solomon
Yancy

Congratulations to everyone on this list! Please feel free to share your success on social media, but please do not identify your work. Anonymous judging is ongoing. 

Christopher and the SmokeLong team