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Reposted by Steve Saroff

Fictive Dream @fictivedream.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

"This morning before dawn, I was woken by a pounding on my back door." Leaving Is a Start by Steve S. Saroff #shortstory #readingcommunity. Please follow the link below and enjoy fictivedream.com/2026/10/11/l...

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Published today, Oct 11th, in the wonderful, UK-based, literary journal @fictivedream.bsky.social "THIS MORNING BEFORE DAWN, I was woken by a pounding on my back door. I got out of bed and went to see who it could be.…

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Reposted by Steve Saroff

MoonLit Getaway @mgliterary.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

"I was wild then, not wanted at home or at school, and I had surprised and disappointed everyone by coming home." Read "Success" by Steve Saroff here: moonlitgetaway.com/new-fiction/... #WritingCommunity #LitMag #ShortStory #ShortFiction #Readers

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

This story was never intended to be published. I wrote it as a character and origin study of the protagonist for a novel. But "Success" has been published several times, most recently in the good Canadian literary journal, Moonlit Getaway. This is the most personal work I have ever risked sharing.

This story was never intended to be published. I wrote it as one of several character and origin studies of the protagonist for a novel. But "Success" has been published and reprinted several times, most recently in the good Canadian literary journal, Moonlit Getaway.

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Snowed in by smoke and heat, August arrives. Forced inside, there is some solace in books. I find myself re-reading what impressed me when I was a child; back when novels, by the sound of their words, brought worlds to me.

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

In a world with more writers than readers, brevity is everything. “Flash” is a battleground, and “Micro Fiction” is the new ultimate. This 124-word story was also my 9th piece of fiction accepted this past year. Link in bio.

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

In the @sanantonioreview. A short memoir of mine about learning to play music when some said you were too old to start. Link in bio.

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Don’t be impressed by what impresses. Instead, pay attention to what will never be again.

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Several readers have asked if I have a Substack. Now I do. Link in bio. If you use Substack, I’d be glad to have you among the first subscribers.

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

It depends on the direction. Are we looking at where we came from or where we are going? The answer to “Is the glass half full or half empty?” depends on who drank the first half. - Steve S. Saroff

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

My stories have characters who drink too much; People I have known, too many are gone... These days, a rare martini gets contemplated...

$My stories have characters who drink too much; People I have known, too many are gone... These days, a rare martini gets contemplated... From Paper Targets: I had returned to the Dubliner and to the same room where I had first started learning fractals. I bought a bottle of Jameson from the bar off the lobby and went up to the room. I sat by the window at the same desk. Outside were the lights of Butte. The place where copper for all the wires had come from. Edison and Westinghouse on the East coast had figured out the physics and the business of electricity. But the metal for their needs had to be dug from this hill. And the laborers who died by the thousands had come from across the world, from wars and famine. Then their bones were dug out of the poisoned, racist dirt, scrubbed clean, and taken away. And now, the lucky bones were stored in heirloom boxes in top-story apartments and condos of the richest cities around the world. I drank from the bottle. I was drinking too much... - from Paper Targets by Steve S. Saroff$

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

The curse of memory is that the facts alone don’t add up. Most stories are short a few marbles. It’s why history takes the easy side of the wrong loud, while truth waits in the quiet.

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

What happened to the opals, the azurite, and the jewelry made from haunted gold? Now the rocks left outside wait to be thrown through windows, while your lost ring still dreams of a hand to hold.

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Currently in ‘Rejection Letters.’ I had been thinking about rejection. The kind that comes when the world drifts away from what you hoped it would be, and the rejection that comes with losing friends. When we lose a friend, one of us has, in some way, rejected the other. The final rejection is death

Currently in the cool lit journal ‘Rejection Letters’... I had been thinking about rejection. The kind that comes when the world drifts away from what you hoped it would be, and the rejection that comes with losing friends. When we lose a friend, one of us has, in some way, rejected the other. The final rejection is death.

So, I’ve been thinking about the friends I’ve lost and had begun writing a little about each of them. Along the way, I stumbled across a literary journal called Rejection Letters. So I sent them this piece about my lost friend, John Bruce Shoemaker.

They didn’t reject it. This became the fifth work of mine published in the past nine months — out of nine submissions.
(link in bio)

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Sunrise while the moon was setting. How many more times will I wake to see the ending of a winter? Count it like cadence, each beat a season, a measure becomes a year, and memories flow the tide of our dreams, rising and setting, in beautiful, forever, four-four time.

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

I woke up wondering if you had woken up wondering. Like being in restaurants. How often were our orders the same? Me, I gravitate towards simple. Toast, with all the butter melted in, regardless of how the specials look. Wherever I am, I try to be content, remembering how the mistakes were made.

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

From what I hear from my readers, traditional storytelling — plot, characters, as well as rhythm of words — still matters. Nine of my short stories were submitted to literary journals in 2025; 5 were accepted, and 5 were published in 2025. More are forthcoming this year. Thank you, Dear Readers.

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

When I see old photos of myself, I think of subways, seeing strangers through the moving windows. Looking for the briefest moment, thinking, “Who was that?” Then wondering what might have been.

When I see old photos of myself, I think of passing subway trains, and seeing strangers through the moving windows. Maybe looking at each other for the briefest moment, thinking, “Who was that?” Then wondering what might have been. But as we hurtle forward, we’re left with the reflection of ourselves, on our way out of the tunnel, and towards light, which must shadow the past.
- steve s. saroff

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

In those nights of the witch, during times of chaos, I would coax myself to sleep by thinking of what could have been. The best were memories captured without trying. Like one from a spring day when you and I watched a flock of waxwings, after their winter awa…. — Steve S. Saroff

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

A story of mine out today on a cool Lit Journal: Bull Lit / MrBullBull

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Reposted by Steve Saroff

MarjeeC @marjeec.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

Beautiful new story 🪸

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

1 There was a day when I woke up and knew I was leaving. The absurd grit had gotten behind my collar and down into the works. The sky was perpetually dirty, like an industrial twilight of broken promises. People whom I had tried to love and befriend had become strange and cruel…

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

2 …Nothing was right. Even the coffee was bad. So I left. Highways became roads that became trails. Along the way there were emerald lakes and silence. Like this place I chanced upon. I thought about calling to say that there were no more questions, …

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

3 …but I had lost your number and I wasn’t even sure I could still pronounce your name. When I tried to remember I realized that what I needed most was to forget. So I did. And then the coffee and everything else started to become delicious again. - Steve Saroff

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

1 It was a time when life had fallen apart. Thieves had taken everything I had tried to give them. My pockets were filled with crumpled love letters and your dried tears. The future was suddenly the past. So I drove to the desert and took turns that led to fewer choices.

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

.2 Ninety miles from pavement, on a washed out dirt road west of Winnemucca, the alternator on the truck died. I got out and sat on the ground and looked around and tried to cry. But since no one was coming there was no choice other than to laugh, get up, and try to fix things.

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

.3 As I sorted through the rusty box of tools looking for hard implements of hope, the soft broken parts started to mend. And I finally got to find out that where I had been going, was a safe, strong place inside of me that all the map makers had overlooked. - steve saroff

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Steve Saroff @stevesaroff.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

Link in bio. Mandela van Eeden and I have been close friends for more than a decade. Flute goes well with the music of the didgeridoo. A new, long track that dropped today. All the streamers have it. I hope you listen, perhaps breathe deeply and slowly, and think of nothing. - steve saroff

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