Melissa Ostrom

Your Monday Mocha & the latest issue of Inkwell. Excited to have a piece in this beautiful magazine. Good morning, friends.🐶🤎🍁

Heads up, friends: The final workshop in the current 3-in-90 series: Moods, Memories, & Mishaps is THIS Saturday, October 31st 1:00-2:30 p.m. Eastern. Still time to sign up and join us! 🎃 www.artofflashfiction.com/threein90

Our story of the week is Goose by Mackenzie Marovich.

Oh, the last line of this gem.❤️!

ICYMI we're open for #submissions of contemporary #shortstories and #flashfiction #callforsubmissions #submissionsopen. Please click on the link below for our guidelines. We're looking forward to reading your words... fictivedream.com/submission-g...

Here in the falling season, we revel. So do the spiritfolk. They're friendly, too, they just drift right up and chatter away! They say, "What's got your gander, my good wight?" "Gone Lawn 67!" we say. "Well, I'll be! Can we join you?" they ask. And of course we say, Yes. gonelawn.net/journal/issu...

Congratulations, @abbymanzella.bsky.social!🩵📚🎉

There's something fitting about ending SIDE B with @nathanpettigrew.bsky.social 's “Milton”. It brings the series full circle to what Zevon did so well: finding the absurdity, dark humor & danger in people whose worlds are coming apart. michaeldowning3.substack.com/p/side-b-27e...

New jar in tornado sky & sour apple 🩵🩶🍏 #pottery

Happy to have three prose poems in @newworldwriting.bsky.social today! newworldwriting.net/elena-zhang-...

What a great panel at the ASU conference with @stephanieaustin.bsky.social, @danadiehl.bsky.social and @pahoehoe.bsky.social!

Congratulations, @jesterholm.bsky.social!📚💙🎉

Thrilled to appear in the wonderful @matchbooklitmag.bsky.social with this hermit crab written in a @sfreligh.bsky.social class. Thank you so much, Brian Mihok & team. And Sarah, thank you for the inspiration!

I've been told by the social media powers that be that it's #GenderfluidVisibilityWeek. So watch me liquify. In print!

'A glorious collection of intimate connections with nature. Beautifully phrased, takes you to pleasantly unexpected places. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It fizzles, crackles with abundant and vivid life. A Must Read.' Review by @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social Available from:

Dangling, a story collection from @maurayzmore.bsky.social This is my copy, get your own via: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...

Your Monday Mocha.🤎🐶

'Autumn Tapestries' by contemporary US painter Erin Hanson #WomensArt

found this writer online, got my library to order her book, now i get to read it. it really is that easy to support writers and costs nothing

For various reasons, I'm pivoting away from my teaching work in 2027 so my upcoming Go With The Flow course will be the last chance to write with me for a while. Who'd like to come & explore anchors, bridges, stitches & threads with me in November? www.mattkendrick.co.uk/wbtl-go-with...

"Jimmy. Fucking. Bang." is back in town, guys, one night only. Let's go! But you better be braced because this will be a night you won't forget for a long, long time. Read Myna Chang's story here:

Submissions are OPEN for poetry, prose (fiction & nonfiction), and art! We pay a small honorarium for accepted work. For more details on what we're looking for and how to send it our way, please visit the link in our bio.

I've been hearing from writers that the 4-hour Hermit Crab Flash Fiction Workshop sessions are amazingly productive and intense, but they're a bit long. So I'm offering for the first time a short version: A 2-hour workshop! Sunday, November 8 1-3pm (ET) $50 Join us! substack.com/@cherylpappa...

Don’t forget to send us your stories! Deadline October 31

Larry Levis 💙 Happy #smallpoemsunday! @tomsnarsky.bsky.social

Really liking my new tornado sky glaze paired with stormy blue. Here’s the combination on a recently fired set of soup bowls and plates. #pottery🩵💚💙🩶

Excited to announce that my new chapbook, BRING ME HOME A SLOTH, is going to be published in mid-November by @alienbuddhapress.bsky.social. Stay tuned . . .

“Weeks after my therapist died, I went to his grave and dug up his body, hoping it could tell me what was wrong with me…” - Go read “Lucky” by Bryane Alfonso! www.matchbooklitmag.com/mb/alfonso/l...

My new book of poems, UNCLE TIME, is out today! It's a collection of linked surreal prose poems loosely inspired by my upbringing in Nowhere, Indiana I'm quite proud of this weird little book www.gasherpress.com/product-page...

Excellent news, @shomedasgupta.bsky.social! And thank you for this!🥰💙🎉

Why love what you will lose? There is nothing else to love. --Louise Glück

✨Let the countdown begin!✨ Only 4 WEEKS to go until ‘Light Chemical Sea’ is released into the wild on November 10, 2026 with the wonderful Bull City Press! ✨Stay tuned for a few behind the scenes glimpses as we get closer to the launch date!

“and feels the love it contains” This sweeping beauty by @catherineobrien.bsky.social.💙

"Nobody talks about the strength it takes to give up. " This month marks 29 years since my mother recognized she couldn't take care of me and surrendered me to foster care. The story, from the archives at @muthamagazine.bsky.social www.muthamagazine.com/2021/04/the-...

Just west of Lake Charles, false dawn glows so bright it all-but swallows the glare of Interstate lights. I speed through miles of chemical refineries, their amber bulbs twinkling from distillation columns, as gas flares billow in jagged, violet banners. Welcome to the South: the glass half empty

Join me for some spooky writing fun on Halloween Eve 🦇⚡️ we'll be talking about how horror contributes to every genre & how to capitalize on each deliciously bloody drop of it in your stories

Your sleepy Monday Mocha.🤎🐶

“I’ve never felt so alive!” Oh, this wonderful flash by @kathyfish.bsky.social! 🔥⚡️

How Cold the Morning, How Heavy the Waltz was the first story I wrote after my son died. It’s in my flash collection Songs from the Blimp Ruins, published by Silverbacked Punk. Here's a clip of me reading the story: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8swh... The book is available here: shorturl.at/0rZqb

for as long as i've been alive, republicans have ran the same playbook: a few weeks before voting begins, they roll out completely fabricated smear campaigns. these things are always coordinated, so the talking points take over the news. the party is never electorally punished for their dishonesty.

We have a fun, slightly macabre, beautifully haunting issue coming Oct. 30 w/ new work from Zhu Xiao Di @praxmar.bsky.social Adam McOmber @egspeckman.bsky.social Dale Bridges @adamfinney.bsky.social @jennymliu.bsky.social @brettstuckel.com @baileyloveless.com @ezhang77.bsky.social & Bob Hicok.

Firing teapots this week. Here’s a sassy set in sour apple and pink shadow. #pottery 🍏☕️💗💛🩵

I have a new micro about DYING in the latest @identitytheory.bsky.social. Thanks to @vicnogaywrites.bsky.social for selecting this, and to you for reading it! It's very short.

Our art submissions are OPEN. 🎨 Want to know what we're looking for? ✏️ Art steeped in memory & awareness. ✏️ Art that eats donuts & watches cartoons on Saturday mornings. ✏️ Art that reminds us of our humanity.

Last call for this slot in my 10/18 Hermit Crab Flash Fiction workshop!