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jamesmontgomery.bsky.social
Flash writer ✍️ | Latest: Fractured Lit, FlashFlood, Welkin Writing Prize | 📖 Best Small Fictions ‘25 | 💫 Welkin People’s Prize ‘25 | 🌟 HC Bath Flash Award ‘23 |🥇 Pokrass Prize ‘23 | 🥈 Micro Madness ‘24 | He/Him 🌈 www.jamesmontgomerywrites.com
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‘He decides to move away to an old farmhouse that doesn’t exist on any known map.’ Each time I read that final line, it devastates me anew. @chrissystegmanpoet.bsky.social in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social 🌚 gooseberry-pie.com/the-moon-fil...

‘Guess what happened to me yesterday. I was at Safeway, and Kate Finnster actually backed her cart out of the pasta aisle because she saw me standing there…’ Ah, my heart. @dawnsteffler.bsky.social in @jmwwjournal.bsky.social 🍞 jmwwblog.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/f...

Hostile Environments, a collection of dark flash fictions and short stories by the winner of @molotovlitzine.bsky.social @natflashfictionday.bsky.social @flash500.bsky.social and @bathflashaward.bsky.social novella-in-flash prize Pre-order here www.northodox.co.uk/product-page...

Thank you to everyone who has bought a copy of our new anthology ‘Monsoon’. Copies are available on Kindle and from our bookshop: www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/index.php/bo...

‘…a universe of viscera and stars, nurseries for new life.’ Beautiful new micro from @lumchanmfa.bsky.social at Maryland Literary Review (plus, anything featuring David Bowie automatically gets bonus points) ✨ www.marylandliteraryreview.com/blackstar/

‘…stories of fights and of jobs and of fires and of moments that bled through the T-shirt of most days. And I was a vessel for his out-of-step feelings. Willingly. We were a diesel puddle.’ Gosh, this burns. Jack Barrie in @splitlipthemag.bsky.social 🔥 splitlipthemag.com/flash/0625/j...

🚨 Cat-ran new lit mag on the scene! This is not a drill! 🚨 Love the sound of this. Edited by Claudine and @dehardy.bsky.social - one to keep your eyes on 👀

‘Inside the ace, there is a mechanical bird in a cage, turquoise, gold, and purple, head held up, beak open.’ That final image will stay with me some time. @claudiamonpere.bsky.social in @lostballoon.bsky.social 🦷

‘The physicist’s daughter lives an accelerated existence.’ Knew I was going to love this from the first line. @mariegethins.bsky.social in @natflashficdaynz.bsky.social ⚡️

"and paper, all crinkly like, for flames from them thrusters" Brilliant voice, dazzlng end. @jamesmontgomery.bsky.social @natflashfictionday.bsky.social flashfloodjournal.blogspot.com/2025/06/sebb...

‘Auntie June never rushes anything. She smokes slow. Peels potatoes slow. Stays kneeled a second longer than everyone else at Mass. Says things once and then never again.’ This @smokelong.bsky.social story from Sarah Chin, about seeing someone in a new light 📺 www.smokelong.com/stories/ms-p...

‘I’m now officially on the scoresheet, forever a footnote in the story of a legend. Forever someone.’ Such an evocative scene from Seth Gleckman in the new issue of @smokelong.bsky.social, and I love the questions it raises 🏀 www.smokelong.com/stories/savi...

‘The food is great if you like roots and celery, and I sure do!’ This story from Jeff Landon in @nffr.bsky.social, chosen by @chriscottom.bsky.social for this month’s #Mondettes from @mattkendrick.bsky.social, absolutely gutted me 🦍

‘Other days are abstract pictures, blurred swipes of life encased in 24-hour sketches.’ Just love how @jenwithwords.bsky.social captures the way those tiny details can have colossal impacts in @twinbirdreview.bsky.social. That last line is a knockout 🌌

"...and God knows I’m cack-handed, will probably mess it all up..." Ah, the ending is perfect! @jamesmontgomery.bsky.social in Flash Flood! @natflashfictionday.bsky.social

‘You kissed my hair and said, rain is rain is rain. I smiled, but it fell short inside my mouth.’ Beautifully lyrical writing from @mizukiyamagen.bsky.social in @smokelong.bsky.social; a meditation on weather and scents and connection 🌧️ www.smokelong.com/stories/betw...

‘I lounge by the infinity pool and ask for a drink that tastes of sky. It comes in a tall glass, deepest blue.’ Just love how this micro from @jackmmorris.bsky.social in @natflashfictionday.bsky.social ends 🍹

This month's #Mondettes picked by @chriscottom.bsky.social ⚡️Ten wonderful flash fictions 🔍Ten splashes of analysis as to why Chris made these brilliant picks 🪴Three fantastic prompts to get you writing mondettes.substack.com/p/june-2025

‘Grandma chews slowly, carefully. One chocolate to my four. Five. Six. I suck on a creamy center, and she shoots me a look that says, what else is eating you?’ A startling fugue of a story from @sarahillswrites.bsky.social in @smokelong.bsky.social. I need the Wes Anderson short, like, yesterday 🦆

Our fathers—both Holy and holier-than-thou—say it’s unnatural, say their boxes are wired wrong. We sit to these comments daily; as every day as pouring the last remains of dust from a cereal box. gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous @jamesmontgomery.bsky.social @fracturedlit.bsky.social

🦘 🥊 Kirsti MacKenzie continuing her streak of killer, voicey knockouts https://www.havehashad.com/uubv6

shoutout to all the HAD dads! today's square from Richie Zaborowske left me a little stunned when I read it as a submission, making me immediately reread it a couple more times, and it wowed me all over again rereading just now https://www.havehashad.com/ezrmx

“and God knows I’m cack-handed” A single monologue brings tiny revelations and hopes between the words. Always love work by @jamesmontgomery.bsky.social!

I love the voice in this quiet little gem from @jamesmontgomery.bsky.social and the way the ending suffuses everything that's gone before with light and heart...

For our readers in the UK and eastward (and night owls in the US), our special competition issue is live! The SmokeLong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction! www.smokelong.com/issue-eighty...