I started, buying as much butter as we could afford. I’d just gotten paid so that was a lot of butter, more butter than the closest store had on its shelves. The look on the girl’s face when I parked ...

Open Call for Best Small Fictions 2027 The 2027 issue of Best Small Fictions will be a 1.5-year issue representing the best flash fiction published in 2025 and the first half of 2026.  This is an open...

This event takes place Sunday, 9/27/2026 at 2 pm PST/5 pm ET.

This event takes place Sunday, 9/27/2026 at 2 pm PST/5 pm ET.

“I am looking for a reason to fall in love with a story and send an acceptance.”

I noticed it first on Monday morning, wide awake at 4 a.m., right there in black and white on my phone app. 25 Across: Avian metaphor for a romantic couple (9 letters); 30 Across: Two of a kind (4 let...

COVER ART BY TREVOR CUNNINGTON   FICTION AND TREEBEARD SAID, “I MUST DO SOMETHING, I SUPPOSE” BY ERIN VACHON MELODY HAD TO WEAR THE WINGS BY MICHAEL PERSHAN BORDER ROAD BY LISA BEECH HARTZ WAT…

by Michael Czyzniejewski...I felt compelled to sit, peck at the keys, so many of them missing, yet just enough, the exact keys that I needed still there: Despite me never playing before, not a note, I...

This category is for Moon City Review. Authors are limited to one essay (1,001-8,000 words) or three flash creative nonfiction per submission—please submit all in one document. Simultaneous submission...

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. I used to dream I was one of them, on a window le...

He spoke an ancient language out of Siberia. Full of wide low skies and rolling grasslands, shawled men with staffs, and ponies grazing over distances. This is one of those stories where people magica...

Nearing the border, Celal peeks out of the hole. He’s sitting fetus-like in the back of the truck. A swirl of cool air seeps in and dissipates the steam creeping on his glasses like ivy. He can hear a...

While I took down the strings of green and red lights I’d looped around our young maple tree before Christmas, my wife Christine followed the boy who lived next door up and down the sidewalk as he rod...

by Emily Rinkema...The Mongols don’t notice me right away. I’m wearing sweatpants, wool socks, and a Dogs are My People hoodie, which I haven’t taken off since I checked in two days ago, alone.

by Kim Magowan WAITING TO CROSS THE STREET, Linda watches a man drive through the intersection, and for a fraction of a second thinks he is Gary. His shock of graying hair, the crane-like way he hu…

Emily RinkemaRusty was in no condition to be taxidermied, but it was too late.