Interviews
Sara Hills On Her Recent Work and “Staying Weird”

Sara Hills is the author of The Evolution of Birds (Ad Hoc Fiction, 2021), winner of the 2022 Saboteur Award for best short story collection. Her stories have won or placed in the Quiet Man Dave flash nonfiction prize, the Retreat West quarterly prize, National Flash Fiction Day’s micro competition, Bath Flash Fiction Award, and The Welkin Prize. Sara is the judge for the 2023 New Flash Fiction Prize.

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The Hook by Kayann Short

I catch the Skip at the last bus stop on the route, the one right next to the homeless shelter. Usually, I see folks riding from this stop for a few weeks before they move on.

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Snow Globe by Yael Veitz

I am visiting my grandfather at the nursing home. All night, I must swallow my rage.  I swallow my rage at the nurses who are rude to me, at the broken healthcare system. I swallow my rage at him.

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A Living Ghost by Megan Colgan

Yellow jackets swarm out of an old tire. Stinging me and my brother on every exposed part of our small bodies. My mother hits them with some Raid.

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The Flammable Fabric of a Flash by Melissa Ostrom

The earliest ones aren’t yours. You steal them from whoever raised you. Remnants rescued from the garbage: your mother’s perfume bottle, a lipstick worn flat, the paper-towel cardboard you use to trumpet your arrivals.

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The Last Time by Kim Magowan

The last time I had sex with my husband was when I brought an African Violet to his new apartment. Right in the middle we heard the dings of incoming texts; then the doorbell rang.

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Grief Sandwiches by Lucas Flatt and Travis Flatt

I’m in the elevator with the angel.
“I’m hungry,” I say.
“You can eat peanut butter again.”
My mother hated the smell of peanut butter. As kids, my brother and I got it all over everything. Mom said it smelled to her like dogshit.

Mom’s new boyfriend is a liver fluke by Cole Beauchamp

He attached quickly (can I buy you a drink, let’s hook up, sure I’ll meet your kid), slid into our house unnoticed (toothbrush here, pair of socks there) and two months on, here we are, host and Fasiola Herpatica.

Prudence by Christy Stillwell

They put the shock collar on the boy and that was it for the nanny. First they put the collar on one another. They were professors in English and Philosophy, all of them smart people.

After by Claudia Monpere

and after and after and nothing changes, just the names of the children. This one drew birds wearing hats. That one had an orange juice popsicle for an imaginary friend.

Rosetta Post-its by Guy Biederman

Los Gatos Tienen Hambre, says the post-it on the fridge. Since when did the cats learn Spanish, since when did they learn to write? The same could be asked of you, says another post-it.