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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Good people of the world, we present our Best small fictions 2027 nominees templeinacity.com/nominations/

Best small fictions

Pam Avoledo, The world’s largest rubber band ball

Matthew Jakubowski, Alight, Astray

Kelly Murashige, The Prize

Beth Sherman, Angel

Alison Wassell, A safe space

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Congratulations to all our Best of the Net nominees. templeinacity.com/nominations/

Solape Adetutu Adeyemi, They told us to go but did not say where. Makoko demolition, https://templeinacity.com/poetry-by-solape-adetutu-adeyemi/

Yuan Changming, 12 heart metaphors, A chinglish poem in collocations, https://templeinacity.com/two-poems-by-yuan-changming/

Darren C. Demaree 5/28/25, https://templeinacity.com/poetry-by-darren-c-demaree/

Ezra Gatlin, rose-colored glasses, https://templeinacity.com/poetry-ezra-gatlin/

Toni della Fata, Baby are you a believer, https://templeinacity.com/poetry-toni-della-fata/

Kathryn Reese, Stim, https://templeinacity.com/poetry-kathryn-reese-3/

Fiction:
Kelly Murashige, Driving Faith https://templeinacity.com/fiction-by-kelly-murashige/

Emily Rinkema, Lou https://templeinacity.com/fiction-emily-rinkema/

Creative nonfiction:
Linda M. Bayley, One Mississippi https://templeinacity.com/flash-fiction-by-linda-m-bayley/

Karen Baumgart, And now, for the final act, watch him choose the circus, https://templeinacity.com/creative-nonfiction-by-karen-baumgart/

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

CNF by Detje Marcel, steeped in childhood longing templeinacity.com/creative-non...

Trying to dodge Bart, our black lab, who is always out of control and jumping all over me. When I give a quiet yell to tell him to go away my mom scolds me and says that he loves me and that's why he keeps jumping. She tells me that he never jumps on her when she takes him on walks and I wonder when she has ever
taken him on a walk. He doesn't have a leash or even a collar.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

A little ouffff of a poem by @shonmapp.bsky.social We find ourselves rereading it again and again. templeinacity.com/poetry-by-sh...

you've become
a verb-
as in lying
or fleeing
or hurting.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

A memory by Angela Thorne templeinacity.com/poem-by-ange...

in a Monet-painted sky
& the birds couldn't fly

as high
as

til my shoe caught
& my palms landed

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

This Angela Thorne poem. The power and rhe juxtaposition. The cool comparison about what some people can write about and what some others have to. The simmering rage and sadness. templeinacity.com/poetry-by-an...

then i look up at my own reflection
through bulletproof glass
a metallic disk inset
for speaking
while my child speaks
in another room
to a detective taking notes

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

These tender, beautiful paper dolls, oh my @melissacuisine.bsky.social templeinacity.com/flash-fictio...

They say hello to the paper faces they met the year before and avoid the ones who tore off pieces of their hearts and sprinkled bits in midwestern
streets instead of gathering them into pockets for safekeeping like they promised to do.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

For all you who rip off wrapping instead of unpeeling it or don’t have wrapping to get at the gift faster, fine, here’s the list.

Solape Adetutu Adeyemi / Hugh Behm-Steinberg / Yuan Changming / Jay Chesters / Andrew A. Chibi / Lori Cramer
/ Anselm Eme / Zary Fekete / Travis Flatt / Madison Golding / Kyla Houbolt / Christine Gallagher Kearney / Cuyler
Meade / Kelly Murashige / Gloria Ogo / Nora Rawn / Esther Sadoff / Beth Sherman / T.L. Tom|janovic / N.H. Van der Haar / Jenny Wong / Huina Zheng

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

A little poem of hopeful defiance by A.A. Loria, the latest in our ongoing always growing Joy edition. templeinacity.com/poetry-by-a-...

I will grow old,
Because if I die young this poem will be a tragedy,
And I demand a happy ending.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Our joy issue continues to grow with two new pieces this week and more coming throughout April. Always open for submissions, looking for many forms of joy. Be the moment of respite in someone day, or dig into the issue and find your moment of comfort and joy templeinacity.com/category/joy...

Quiet monochrome shot of trees shot from underneath, a slice of white sky and raindrops like faint flowers.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

There’s such warmth and humanity in anything Kendra Cardin writes. Just a beautiful explorer of humanity, this time in the shape of one-hit wonder Sam still playing The Song. Still playing his heart. templeinacity.com/flash-fictio...

Dark haired kohl-eyed one hit wonder Sam.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

In the meantime look! Right here! Issue 3 is here and busting with incredible writing. This was a thrill to publish, full of soft corners and sharp edges, hairpin turns and gentle landings. With some of your favourite writers (right?) and at least one debut author. templeinacity.com/category/imp...

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

May we introduce with pleasure our Best Small Fiction 2026 nominees. templeinacity.com/temple-in-a-... @emilyrinkema.bsky.social @mondickson.bsky.social

Ivan de Monbrison, Marseille, August 2nd 2025
Monica Dickson, How to make a living coffin
Emily Rinkema, Lou
Rachel Rodman, He Always Lied, I Always Told the Truth. And Then We Fell in Hate
Vijayalakshmi Sridhar, I heard you became a father again

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

Quick, read something that isn’t completley dispiriting but full of what humanity can be. templeinacity.com/category/imp...

Winter willow tree image against a cloudy sky.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 26/12/2025

Run out of things to talk about? All talked out and in need of recuperation? Struggling with holiday stuff and looking for thoughtful diversion? Not celebrating any holiday? Grieving? Anxious? Happy? Feeling grateful? No matter your situation, this is for you. templeinacity.com/category/imp...

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 26/12/2025

Our Joy issue has grown again. Three new poems and stories since the solstice. Always open for subs and always there for you. templeinacity.com/category/joy...

A joyful painting, acrylic on canvas, bright yellow backdrop with pressed dahlias and flung paint in blue and green and more.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 26/12/2025

A lovely little joy for you to sink into from Huina Zheng. About family, and magic even in the hard places. This is one you want to lean back and read. Shut the world out for a few minutes. Take a rest into someone else’s story. templeinacity.com/fiction-huin...

She also brought home bags of plastic petals, stamens, and leaves. She showed us how to glue petals around a stamen, how to wrap green tape around wire to make a stem, and how to attach the leaves in just the right spot. But we complained about the sharp smell of glue and how plastic flowers lacked the scent of real ones.
"Use your imagination," my mother said. "We're conjuring blossoms." She told us we were magicians capable of creating beautiful, fragrant flower fairies, though she opened a window and set the fan facing outward for fresh air.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

If you haven’t looked in for while there’s new joy in this. Five new micros or poems since first published and still growing. templeinacity.com/category/joy...

Abstract painting with a yellow background, pressed dahlias and splashes of colour, one that looks kind of like a snail travelling outside its shell. Very happy. Daring snail. Whee.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

What’s happened to Grandma! @joannatheiss.com with a meaningful, whimsical tale. templeinacity.com/flash-fictio...

You're on top of the world until you're not, until you totter past your granddaughter's room and hear her asking a Magic 8 Ball if Grandma will ever come back. Outlook not so good. Until her little friends visit and
your goosey excretions stain the trains of their taffeta dresses. Until you
remember that geese aren't made for company.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

A beautiful story of grief, connection and release by @hilary55.bsky.social templeinacity.com/flash-fictio...

'It's not a peace offering,' she adds, in case God gets the wrong idea. I’ve not forgiven you for taking him.'

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

A different kind of love story by @chriscottom.bsky.social templeinacity.com/flash-fictio...

Through the night, she talks of whips she surrendered for baskets she never saw, how kids never collected her catkins, how her broad-rounded crown never sheltered a courting couple. She admits she's sad not to
have lived in a meadow 'or just near a stream

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Tension and release in this @callasmith.bsky.social story. templeinacity.com/fiction-call...

In the darkness, I didn't have to worry about how close I would come to
crossing the lines that were engraved on my body and burned into my skin.
Boundaries were blurry in the confusion
of the shadows
that
haunted all the places I passed through like a ghost. The bold letters of the signs I passed told me I was beautiful, or that I should let the animal out. Every time, while I was lost in the beauty of the stars and the throbbing music and the sparkling bars, I thought I could even believe them.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

The gentleness in this Lanie Brice story. A beautiful little ache. templeinacity.com/fiction-lani...

"You're the best man I've ever dated,' say, bringing my mug to my lips.
He takes the compliment impassively, staring into my eyes, probing around for the other shoe. We know each other well enough for him to find it before the words congeal on my lips.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

A little ghosty but what’s more haunting, the presence or the life dissolving in on itself? Tender and, well, haunting by @christinaltudor.bsky.social templeinacity.com/fiction-chri...

During your last Christmas in this room, your oldest daughter pulled a set of keys from your hand. You don't drive anymore, remember? She asked.
And you blinked into the white space in your brain, found a buzzing instead of clarity. I gave up my own life to raise you, you said, unsure of where the rage came from, wondered if was always inside you.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

We mean: templeinacity.com/two-poems-am...

Tell her they grabbed her and ran
and her mother said go
and you raced to follow, to ask, to protect
but they didn't explain and she didn't cry
then they said she needed help to breathe
to be
that maybe she wouldn't learn,
wouldn’t walk

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

We mean: templeinacity.com/two-poems-am...

My grandmother notebook
always kept
overflown with wonderings whether anyone cares
on
about
things
left
unheard, misundershared
unsaid,
always writing, often feeling less than understood

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Ezra Gatlin poem here, you don’t want to miss it. templeinacity.com/poetry-ezra-...

sometimes, i think about dying
in a place where my sins backlight my regrets
i am the poltergeist

sleep
seamripping crushed velvet in my
i am the dancing santa

on the dashboards of a suicide heist
rum
drunk off cherry wine and cyanide

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

Two beautiful poems by Juanita Rey. Who has not felt these first few lines? templeinacity.com/2-poems-juan...

IT'S ALL IN HERE
He doesn't get my poetry.
To him it's just words and more words,
sprinkled randomly on the page.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

Also a weekend shoutout to our Pushcart, BOTN wnd Best microfiction nominations. More nominations coming soon. Full list (so far) in the link. templeinacity.com/temple-in-a-...

Best microfiction
Elizabeth Rosen, Endeavor
Slawka G. Scarso, And then she told Jack off
Sumitra Singam, You-and-Kate in a field, loving me
Vijayalakshmi Sridhar, I heard you became a father again
Huina Zheng, The pin inside my body

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Remember our joy pop-up? It’s going to keep popping. We’re permanently opening subs for flashes of joy (well, as permanent as anything, which is not very but you get the idea). If we love it and it’s joyful we’ll add it to the issue. Like a little library of joy. templeinacity.com/explore-the-...

TiaC Timely and JOY, always open
If it's great and urgent now we'll publish it under TliaC Timely without waiting for a curated issue. And if it's joyful, send it our way. It may find itself in the ongoing JOY issue.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Our nominees for the 2026 best microfictions anthology are here. The link is to all our nominations so far, with more to come so keep watching. Congratulations to all including today’s tiny gems. templeinacity.com/category/nom...

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

Nominations nominations nominations with a corrected typo because we are having a very mercury retrograde day just like cloudflare With apologies. templeinacity.com/temple-in-a-...

Best of the net 2025

Sumitra Singam, Bird swallowers

Rachel Rodman, He Always Lied, I Always Told the Truth. And Then We Fell in Hate

Kathryn Reese, Post-vespers

Pushcart Prize 2025

Cole Beauchamp, If Only

Emily Rinkema, Lou

June Gemmell, The Homecoming

Kendra Cardin, A change in the recipe

S.A. Greene, Brian Wilson is dead and why can't I stop crying?

Dominic Walsh, Slice of life, in Absentia

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

For those who can’t bear to click on links, welcome to a sneak preview of our JOY special popup edition contributors. This little slice will be out soon which in our speak is between hours and days. But you’ll be the first to know, we promise. templeinacity.com/joy/

Some of the work here is just a few words. Or just the right words.
Sometimes
nonsense words or
nonsense use of words. Words to make you smile or laugh or feel, for a moment, the warmth of a friendly sun, the touch of a loving breeze, the touch of another being, human or animal, equally in the dark, equally looking for strength to keep going. That moment can fuel the next moment, and the next. It doesn't need anything else. It just is.
Please let this issue wash over you. Let it give you some relief amid the burdens of being alive, with all that trying. Don't ask it to be anything but what it is, then give yourself that same kindness.
We hope you find joy, here and everywhere you can.

Contributors
Karen Baumgart, Denise Bayes, Jessica
Coles,
Kristin
Houlihan,
Patrick
Johanneson, Rachel Abbey McCafferty, Kathryn Reese, Slawka G. Scarso, Sumitra Singam, Karen Walker

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

With a brand new category. templeinacity.com/submit-writi...

Mix and match: Creatives, we see you. Why stick to one form when you have three? Send up to 3 pieces of any mix of micro, flash, poetry or art. One poem and two flash? Sure. Two poems and one micro? Why not. Fly free. Same word counts apply (up to 1,000, no minimum). Submit in
one .doc or doc file, art as 1000-1500 pixels wide files

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

This you? templeinacity.com/submit-writi...

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

Lil update just for you. We’ve added a new submissions category for the multi-creatives out there. Mix and match, up to 3 pieces of ANY poetry, flash, micro or art. We don’t want to be stuck in a box. Why should you be? templeinacity.com/submit-writi...

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

Anyone feeling lost, thinking nothing can change for the better, a little reminder by Kendra Cardin that it can. A change in the recipe, flash fiction. templeinacity.com/flash-fictio...

Wishes can come true. Beautiful flower seedling not yet scattered to the wind but getting ready to burst out and find welcome soil.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

When is a perfect time to read a poem? Now. Right now. Don’t miss the moment or these two by Yuan Changming. templeinacity.com/two-poems-yu...

Unlike your legendary Alexander the Great
None of us has come to conquer; nor
are we
To be conquered (even by God), let alone any
Human
artifacts
including science
or
behaviours,
And tech blockades & tariffs. Rather, as Confucius
Has taught us, we always avoid talking of strange
Phenomena,
disorder or sprits
feats of strength,
Whereas we do worship our
Ancestors, especially those not
accepting defeat

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

Bonkers fun with loads of heart by @travisflatt.bsky.social We dare you not to smile. templeinacity.com/fiction-trav...

In the elementary school's lobby-White Plains is K-6th—we parents mill about congratulating one another and one another's children. I find my Ex and say "What the fuck was that?" a little too loud.
"Right?" she says.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

The build in this little Kendra Cardin story. The love, the menace, the care, the indrawn and let out breath. templeinacity.com/flash-fictio...

Maddie's birthday was one of the few predictably sunny days of the year, along with Thanksgiving and Christmas. Free from the eggshells she and her mom were so used to
walking on around the house. As the smoke from the burning candles curlicued above her cake, Maddie would hope that this year, yes, this year, her wish would come true.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

‘As a strategy, this swelled and broke like an egg.’

His wife, Eleanor, enjoyed a different pathway into the light:
Influenced by an influencer, she went out each dawning before
Anything
else. Barely dressed,
barefoot or flip-flopping along,
Ellie followed the notion of forcing undesired action into being,
Doing that which she didn't want to do to skill her mind into
Facing the unknown; specifically, the rest of the unraveling day.
As a strategy, this swelled and broke like an egg.

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

Also this ‘fair-weather grin’ sends us. Such a delicate touch to add a whole realm of understanding to the narrative.

Text snippet from story. ‘Eyes squeezed tight, she'd sit at the dining room table, holding her breath, anxiously waiting for her parents to finish singing Happy Birthday. Mom smiling soft and reassuring. Dad wearing his fair-weather grin.’

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Temple in a city @templeinacity.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

A little taste of this deliciousness by Toni Della Fata templeinacity.com/poetry-toni-...

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