Jacqueline Doyle

Jacqueline Doyle

@jacqdoyle.bsky.social

Author of The Lunatics' Ball (Mad Creek Books, forthcoming), American Literature 101: Stories (Cornerstone Press, forthcoming), and The Missing Girl (Black Lawrence Press). Wigleaf Top 50. 9 Notables, Best American Essays, Editor, CRAFT Lit Journal.

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Jacqueline Doyle
@jacqdoyle.bsky.social

AMAZING NEWS!!! So excited to announce that my hybrid essay collection THE LUNATICS’ BALL is the runner-up for the Gournay Prize and will be published in the 21st Century Essay series by Mad Creek Books (the literary imprint of Ohio University Press) in 2027. My dream publisher!

Jacqueline Doyle reposted

Sudha Balagopal
@sudhab.bsky.social

Than you so much @sfwp.bsky.social ❤️I can’t wait to have my book out in the world 🙏

SFWP@sfwp.bsky.social

Winner of the 2025 Literary Awards Program, @sudhab.bsky.social's forthcoming collection FAMILY MATTERS weaves a vivid tapestry of lives caught between the pull of the past and the uncertainty of the future within India and the diaspora.

Jacqueline Doyle
@jacqdoyle.bsky.social

Love the voice in this week's "Short Reads" essay by Joanna Byrd.

Short Reads@index.short-reads.org.ap.brid.gy

by Joanna Byrd | Feeling sorry for a snake.

short-reads.orgTenderheartMama worried most about water moccasins. And sure enough, a cottonmouth camouflaged in muddy water’ll kill a kid quick as a hiccup. We learned that before we learned our letters, growing up in Alabama. But the woods we played in were home to more than one kind of pit viper. It puzzled me then that copperheads didn’t keep her up at night, and I still don’t understand, if I’m honest. Water moccasins kept to the creek, while other snakes, under cover of abandoned outdoor toys and faithfully tended gardens, slithered right up to the house. But I reckon if you raise your children in a landscape full of serpents, you decide where to draw the line with your worries. So, we never ran out the kitchen door without the ritual call and response: she’d shout at our backs, “Stay outta the creek!” We’d holler the chorus, “Yes, ma’am!” The week of my seventh birthday, Little Paul’s daddy, Big Paul, killed a snake in the creek. He did it where the water ran through our yard, though. Not theirs. Righteous anger gripped my throat and drove my own fingernails into my defenseless palms. After he’d done it, he’d forced her slack mouth open with a stick and left her there like a grim monument in the shallow water. Her black skin shone polished-stone-smooth and peculiar, resting on the creek bed. I didn’t want to see in her mouth, but it was bright white, clear down her throat, like a light that drew the eye. That was the point of the stick, after all. Cottonmouth. Big Paul wanted us to see. It’s how Alabama children learn. By afternoon, every kid in the neighborhood had come to gawk and jeer. It was only an hour after he’d left her there that Little Paul brought the mob. He was the oldest and biggest, and too much like his daddy. He led the march carrying a long, straight stick of his own. When they got down the hill and gathered on the red clay bank, he stabbed through the creek’s surface, aiming for her, but the mud was soft and she yielded, gently bumping away from the point of his weapon. Frustrated, and fueled by the crowd he’d brought with him, Little Paul used the stick instead to hook her and pull her out of the creek. The boys laughed and cheered while her body dangled, then it slid off the stick and the water mercifully took her back. Little Paul noticed me then, which never worked in my favor. Noticed I wasn’t laughing. I was standing too much apart. In a neighborhood brimming with kids, I was younger than the next youngest by two years, and by some statistical injustice, the only girl. When our eyes met, I bit the inside of my cheek and stared through his eyes to the back of his head. “What’sa matter, little girl?” he hissed. “You feelin’ sorry for that snake?” Little Paul walked closer, and I turned myself to stone, like maybe the snake had done when Big Paul’s boots towered over her. Eyes fixed, teeth grinding harder into my soft cheek, salt and metal seeping into my mouth. The other boys were busy throwing rocks at the snake, so it was just us two. Little Paul so close now his chest nearly touched my chin. His sweaty heat registered even through the summer afternoon, deepening the red of my sunburned cheeks. He raked the stick, wet from the creek and the snake, across my face. “Tenderheart,” he sneered, and turned away. The other boys followed him up the hill, finally left me alone with her. I stayed on the bank for hours and days. I listened for shrieks from the front yard; magnolia pods landing like hand grenades and a certain sort of shouting meant the boys were busy playing war. Only then was it safe to sing to her. Church songs mostly, since that’s what I knew. I could lay honeysuckles on the surface of the water, too, as long as no one saw me do it. They’d float downstream without raising suspicion. She never floated downstream, though. Not like the flowers anyway. She rested on the bottom, where the water barely moved. Her obsidian shine slipped away by the hour. Her skin grew ghostly and rose in a kind of cloud until I couldn’t see her in it anymore. Until she became the creek itself. * * * **Joanna Byrd** is an emerging writer who was born and raised in Alabama. Her life’s work so far includes operating a center for artists with developmental disabilities, serving as program officer at a charitable foundation, and running the morning shift at a 7-Eleven on Route 66 in Albuquerque. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her wife, nearly grown children, and ever-changing cast of cats and dogs and foster kittens. This essay first appeared in Buckman Journal #13 (2024). * * * ****Help keep**** _****Short Reads****_****going.**** Become a supporting subscriber or make a one-time donation. Share this essay on: Facebook | LinkedIn | Bluesky __Short Reads__ is 🏡 edited by Hattie Fletcher; 🌳🌳🌳 fact-checked and proofread by Chad Vogler; and 🐍 designed by Anna Hall. This issue was 🎶 delivered to our 3,015 subscribers by Stephen Knezovich. ### **From the archive** Sep 10, 2025 “Rhythm” by Isaac Yuen | Beyond thought. Sep 11, 2024 “Kindness and Sorrow” by Laurie Easter | Making contact. Sep 13, 2023 “‘I Had This in My Office & Thought You Should Have a Photo of the God Mobile’” by B. J. Hollars | Lessons from a writing teacher. Explore the entire Short Reads archive. * * *

Jacqueline Doyle reposted

Mizuki Yamamoto
@mizuki-yama.bsky.social

Replying to @mizuki-yama.bsky.social

Okay, I'm a little bit biased because I *love* road-trips but this one from @sabrinahicks.bsky.social is so relatable and incredibly alive. Now I'm going to have "Peaches" stuck in my head for the rest of the day. @smokelong.bsky.social #ArchiveChallenge www.cleavermagazine.com/when-we-knew...

cleavermagazine.comSabrina Hicks: WHEN WE KNEW HOW TO GET LOSTSabrina Hicks lives in Arizona with her family. Her work has appeared in Five South Journal, Flash Frog, Pidgeonholes, Trampset, and more.

Jacqueline Doyle reposted

SmokeLong Quarterly
@smokelong.bsky.social

Around 30 participants from A SmokeLong Summer 26 are taking a deep dive into around 30 flash journals (one each). To read this impressive list of flash, all you need to do is search for #archivechallenge

Jacqueline Doyle
@jacqdoyle.bsky.social

Today's traffic jam driving to the coast turned out to be the 10th Annual World Dog Surfing Championships. Who knew?

AFP News Agency@en.afp.com

Canines compete in the World Dog Surfing Championships in Pacifica, California, on August 1, 2026. The event helps local charities raise money by sponsoring a contestant or a team, with a portion of the proceeds going to dog, environmental, and surfing nonprofit organizations.

Jacqueline Doyle reposted

Sarah Freligh
@sfreligh.bsky.social

I'm in a 100-word stories state of mind. Thank you @brettpribble.bsky.social for accepting this one for Ghost Parachute.

Brett Pribble@brettpribble.bsky.social

Read "Jumpers" written by @sfreligh.bsky.social and illustrated by @brooksiesbooks.bsky.social. "I’ve tried for years to forget them, tried not to imagine how it was to step away from those fingers of fire into the cool air of a September morning." tinyurl.com/yrx38wuy

tinyurl.comJumpers — Ghost ParachuteI’ve tried for years to forget them, tried not to imagine how it was to step away from those fingers of fire into the cool air of a September morning. I used to dream I was one of them, on a window le...

Jacqueline Doyle reposted

Trio House Press
@triohousepress.org

Congratulations to the honorable mentions, Jamie Brickhouse & Stephen Haines, and the winner of the 2026 Aurora Polaris Award in Creative Nonfiction, Amber Wong! 💛💜💛💜

Jacqueline Doyle
@jacqdoyle.bsky.social

Thanks @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social for publishing my tiny 6-sentence micro! Great issue!

Gooseberry Pie Lit Magazine@gooseberrypielit.bsky.social

Read today’s issue @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social with work by @jacqdoyle.bsky.social Jinjia Grace Hu Lynn Kozwolski @benstarr.bsky.social Fortune Cookie @andreamarcusa.bsky.social @judydarley.bsky.social @semurphy.bsky.social Kathleen Latham Nasta Martyn gooseberry-pie.com/issue-44/

gooseberry-pie.comIssue 44 - Gooseberry Pie Lit MagazineWhy Not? by Jacqueline Doyle Midsummer Reverie by Jinjia Grace Hu Out of the Blue by Lynn Kozlowski The Robin by Ben Starr Butcher Babe by Fortune Cookie Bait by Andrea Marcusa Three Strangers on a Co...

Jacqueline Doyle reposted

The Bulb Region
@bulbregion.bsky.social

“We pass through each other in the rooms and on the staircases. […] I discover a room filled with beds and ornate furniture, scattered and illogical.” The amazing Kathy Fish (@kathyfish.bsky.social) returns to The Bulb Region with a kaleidoscopic, mazelike experience. 🔗 ↓

Jacqueline Doyle
@jacqdoyle.bsky.social

Love this brilliant essay by @jilltalbot.bsky.social in this week's Short Reads (@index.short-reads.org.ap.brid.gy).

Short Reads@index.short-reads.org.ap.brid.gy

by Jill Talbot | A body in motion ...

short-reads.orgOn Going (Back)Some beer-soaked dance floor in a bar outside Boulder. I’m twenty-eight or twenty-nine, wild inside a pocket of bodies and an I’ve-gone-away mind, lifting a sweaty bottle of two-buck beer above my head like a lantern. He’s watching from the crowd’s edge. Since he moved in months ago, I devise ways to disentangle, disappear. Distance has become a habit. Night after night, I sit on the end of a faded futon while he sleeps in the next room. I drink until the wine takes me down the back roads of bad choices, where I retrace missed exits, check my rearview for deleted messages and unanswered knocks on the door of my last apartment in Lubbock. In the dark, I stare at the snow-burdened trees outside our windows. Glass after glass after glass. One Saturday afternoon, I slip away to the patio of a pub, where I sip Chardonnay and listen to the skitter of leaves (brisk wind). He pulls up a chair. I pull a book from my bag. I have a history of this: _leave me be_. ~~~ It’s been years, almost twenty, and I remember how he and I moved in the dark—his chest against my back, the way I asked him to do it. The way my cries rang as loud as our neighbors’ wall phone upstairs. The way our neighbors shyly smirked at us most mornings. Those mornings he lumbered up the steps and ducked out the door on his way to work in those Carhartts, that beard. I’m thinking of this because a few nights ago, I fell into bed with a bearded stranger who wore Carhartts. That cotton gold like a lantern. It takes so little to take me back. It’s like that moment in Sarah Manguso’s _The Guardians_ : “I know it isn’t him, but when I see someone who resembles him I stare, take in as much information as possible.” So how much could I take in when I took him inside me? I can’t be the only one who sometimes moves in the dark with memory. I can’t remember my way around any city I’ve left behind. So much gone. I have a history of going, of going back, of thinking _go away,_ _go away,_ _go away_. Right now I’m sitting in the booth of a faded bar along a highway on my way back to Texas. I’m staring out a dusty window (wobbly table, sweaty bottle). Greyhound bus, UPS double-trailer, white construction truck, car, car, blue pickup, SUV, cement truck, semi, semi, semi. On the other side of the highway, trees bend in the spring wind. * * * **Jill Talbot** is the author of _The Last Year: Essays_ , based on her 2019–20 Paris Review Daily column. She’s also the author of _The Way We Weren’t: A Memoir_ and _Loaded: Women and Addiction_ , a collection of personal essays. Her writing has appeared in journals such as _Agni_ , _Brevity_ , _Gulf Coast_ , _Hotel Amerika_ , _LitMag_ , and _Southwest Review_ , and has been recognized seven times in The Best American Essays series. She has been a featured writer for Aquinas College’s Contemporary Writers Series, University of San Francisco’s Emerging Writers Festival, and The Literary Arts Institute at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, among others. Learn more at jilltalbot.net and on Instagram @jill.l.talbot. This essay first appeared in Brevity #62 (2019). * * * ****Help keep**** _****Short Reads****_****going.**** Become a supporting subscriber or make a one-time donation. Share this essay on: Facebook | LinkedIn | Bluesky __Short Reads__ is 🍻 edited by Hattie Fletcher; 📖 fact-checked and proofread by Chad Vogler; and 💭 designed by Anna Hall. This issue was 🛻 delivered to our 2,767 subscribers by Stephen Knezovich. ### **From the archive** May 28, 2025 “Crushed” by Wendy Fontaine | Young love, young heartbreak. May 29, 2024 “Pantoum for 1979” by Brenda Miller | Two steps forward, one step back. May 31, 2023 “Library with Hyacinth, Girl, and Guns” by Sue William Silverman | A still life. Explore the entire Short Reads archive. * * *

Jacqueline Doyle reposted

PEN America
@penamerica.bsky.social

Mental health disorders were the 6th-most common topic featured in banned books during the last academic year — a devastating statistic. Here are 24 banned books to consider this #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth https://bookshop.org/lists/mental-health-awareness-month-a-banned-books-reading-list

bookshop.orgMental Health Awareness Month: A Banned Books Reading ListIn the last academic year, mental health disorders were the sixth-most common topic featured in banned books, comprising 29% of literature censored in public schools.

Jacqueline Doyle reposted

Patricia Q. Bidar
@patriciaqbidar.bsky.social

A thrilla! and a truly inspiring time with the readers! Also @amymarques.bsky.social @lynnmundell.bsky.social @swethaamit.bsky.social @jacqdoyle.bsky.social Steve Gutierrez, Matthias Horntrich. Plus (not pictured) @ericscottryon.bsky.social and @melissacuisine.bsky.social!

Claudia Monpere@claudiamonpere.bsky.social

SmokeLong on the Road-West Coast! Amazing time hosting @christopherallen.bsky.social at Santa Clara University for a terrific reading from him (& @dawnsteffler.bsky.social& @kimmagowan.bsky.social) I read, too,& we had plenty of elevator fun with other Bay Area flash writers before dinner.

Jacqueline Doyle
@jacqdoyle.bsky.social

"The $2bn (£1.5bn) a week that Donald Trump was spending on his reckless war in Iran could have funded saving more than 87 million lives, the head of the UN’s humanitarian agency, Tom Fletcher, said on Monday." www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

theguardian.comUS spending on ‘reckless’ Iran war could have saved 87m lives, says UNHead of UN’s humanitarian agency frustrated that $2bn weekly cost of conflict comes amid big cuts to aid budgets