Absolutely thrilled to be nominated by @trampset for a story I love (and was written in an @DevaneEmily workshop) - and congratulations to the other nominees as well (what a list be part of!!) 🤩

The news is out! Congratulations to our Winners, Gill O'Halloran, @DublinWriter and @RelphJp. You can read their fabulous stories here. Thanks to everyone who entered, our wonderful readers and judge Marie Gethins. We raised £300 for @RefugeCharity thepropellingpencil.com/autu…

Happy news! Grief's Alphabet is one of @John_Clegg_37 of the @LRBbookshop's poetry books of the year! It's in great company alongside J.H. Prynne's Poems 2016-2024, Mimi Khalvati's Collected Poems, @CamilleRalphs_' After You Were, I Am, and Jamie McKendrick's Drypoint. 🥹😍🥰

Such A Long, Slow Fall Two stories by Megan Hanlon / @sugarpigblog #MythicPicnicTweetStory _______ Lessons from the Gravel _ The white two-wheeler was too big for me to sit atop while still toeing the road. But it was my seventh birthday, so I took flight anyway. Speeding down the hard-packed gravel, I became a rock star belting out hits, a princess fleeing the tower, an admired equestrian galloping on her sleek stallion. Between the neighbor's house and mine, almost home, my white-and-pink tire glanced off a fist-sized rock. The wheel cocked to the left, and my balance wobbled. I twisted the shining silver handlebars right, panicked and overcorrecting. Veering perilously close to the sticker-grass ditch, I yanked to the left again. The bike skidded – bumpbumpbump – and toppled. My head landed hard on a sharp, dusty rock. Its tip peeked inside my skin to see what I was made of. When I tried to sit up, I saw a deep scratch scarring the top tube of my new bike’s frame, a souvenir from the turned-backward front reflector. My hand reached for the pain on my head. Thin fingers came back red-streaked. Abandoning my gift, I ran for my mother while blood went running down my back. A small puncture, it needed only two stitches, but it bled like the future – spread out everywhere. It was my first lesson in the swiftness with which even small obstacles can bring one to a halt. _______ The Strength of Surrender Originally published in MUTHA Magazine _ I sit on a hard bench in the dappled sunlight. Fifty feet in front of me, my two children are climbing over and through the bright red playground equipment like ants swarming a hill. They are everywhere at once – clattering bridge, tall swirling slide, arching ladder. My son bounces down two descending platforms and stops dead at a three-foot-drop to the ground. He is eyeing the monkey bars that stretch out before him. Part hesitancy and part hope, he reaches his skinny arms toward the worn metal bar. He grabs it with both hands and steps off of the platform. Then, uncertainty. He’s too afraid to loosen one hand and reach for the next rung, or maybe he’s too small yet. There’s no way to go back. He hangs helplessly for a second, fearful of the drop to the rubber mulch below. Such a long, slow fall. What if it hurts? What if he’s called a coward? But his fingers are slipping; he can’t hold on much longer. I hold my breath as he closes his eyes and lets go. Nobody talks about the strength it takes to give up. As much fortitude is required to keep going in the face of extraordinary challenge, it takes even greater power to say "enough." To recognize that you have fought as long as you can with the only weapons you can reach – to realize when it is necessary to say "I choose to stop" – requires enormous courage and humbleness. This is the bravery shown by couples opting to abandon further fertility treatments, by women submitting to unplanned C-sections after hours of fruitless labor, by birth mothers placing their helpless newborn babies for adoption. It's the unimaginable humility and resolution my mother must have mustered when she knew she could no longer provide for me, and surrendered me to foster care. I left my mother's house the day before starting my senior year of high school. How I got to that point is a long, infuriating, and tragic story that starts with two capable parents and ends with years of chronic unemployment, a marital separation, a mental breakdown, and a bad deal. Poor decisions were made by all of the adults involved, and I was forced to wade through the collateral damage. Due to circumstances I had no say in, I was no longer safe in my own house – a gleaming white single-wide mobile home my mom had proudly purchased not two years before, when we were supposed to be making strides toward a more stable life. Those attempts failed, new threats emerged, and I had to leave. I packed what bags I owned and what boxes I could find, and moved in with a seemingly nice couple whom I knew from church. Their adult daughters had moved on, so they had empty bedrooms and empty arms. But their generosity came with stipulations that were difficult at best and unwelcoming at worst. It was a bed, but it was no place to land. Within a few months I knew the arrangement wasn't tenable. My high school guidance counselor caught wind of my situation, and we began discussing where I could go. With an erratic father, no family in the state, and only a couple friends, I had few good options. At the time I worked a fast food job after school. One October evening the church couple showed up unannounced, pressed the button on the ordering system, and asked for my house key. It was a drive-in joint; I could see their faces illuminated in sickly fluorescent light on the other side of a plate-glass window. "Sure," I answered their request, thinking they had misplaced one of their keys or maybe were going to be out late at different locations. "But I have to close tonight. How should I get in?" "Your stuff's at your mom's," the man told me over the intercom. "We hope everything works out for you." Dumbfounded, all I could mutter was, "Oh. Okay." I walked outside with my head swimming and my heart thudding, unhooked the key from my keyring, and offered it like a too-late apology. He lifted his hand in a half-hearted wave, the truck backed out, and they left my life. My mother's trailer – a symbol of our last hope – was in the midst of repossession. She still had a roof to sleep under, but electricity and water had been cut off weeks before. She had no heat in the rooms, no lights to do algebra homework by, no way to cook dinner. My mother also had no job, nor any hope of keeping one. The church couple knew, like my mother knew, that she couldn’t take care of me anymore. My mom had no choices left, nothing for her fingers to hold on to. She let go. Whether due to time or trauma, I don't remember many details of what happened in the following days. I know I landed in temporary, voluntary, emergency foster care in another town. I know my mother slept in her dark and chilly mobile home until the sheriff arrived carrying eviction papers, and I know a man in a semi cab towed the trailer away. The rest is just questions. Did my high school counselor call my mother one school day, starting the conversation with "I'm concerned about your daughter" and ending with "I am legally obligated to call protective services"? How hard did she cry after she hung up – was it stoic and resigned, staring out the window at the field next door as empty as she felt, or hysterical sobbing that left her eyes swollen and her throat raw? Did a case worker visit my mother's house, sit with her at the same oak breakfast table where I had eaten countless Pop Tarts and watch while she signed paperwork allowing strangers to take guardianship of me? Or did my mom have to summon the physical and emotional strength to walk into a courthouse like a suspect who already knew what her sentence was? How many weeks passed before she stopped feeling nauseous at the reality of what had happened, how many days did she escape into sleep and only wake for coffee and cigarettes? How deep was the pit where she kept her feelings of utter failure as a mother, whose most sacred duty was to protect her child? How wide and wild was her ocean of guilt? I never knew. I never moved home, though I called regularly and visited the places she tried to live. I left foster care the weekend of Mother's Day. Less than 10 years later, she died a hard death after a harsh life. In a park on the south side of town, sharing a bench with all of the responsibility and emotion that come with motherhood, I wonder what it was like for my mom then. And I am in sad awe of the strength it took for her to surrender. Between moments of joy and monotony and profound love, motherhood can be difficult and painful. I know this now. There are nights I felt certain I would break and die, but miraculously awoke the next morning with my children soundly asleep down the hall. I’ve drawn on my own undiscovered mettle to remove my son from a hostile classroom and walk my daughter through hospital halls late at night. Strength is a mother’s first name. My mother's strongest moment was when she admitted defeat. She carried that weight alongside boundless pride that I not only survived but managed to thrive despite my parents' mistakes and shortcomings. Perhaps it is only because she surrendered that I can sit here now, a mostly whole adult, watching my son call on his own courage and strength to let go. He lands hard but steady on both feet. Without sparing a glance at me, he takes off in a new direction. _______ Bio: Megan Hanlon is a podcast producer who sometimes writes and rides bicycles. Her words have appeared in Roi Faineant Press, MUTHA Magazine, Raw Lit, Variant Literature, Gordon Square Review, and other publications. Her blog, Sugar Pig, is known for relentlessly honest essays that are equal parts tragedy and comedy.

MPTSP V9 SUBMISSIONS are OPEN! Pays $50 for original unpublished work Previously published also welcome #MythicPicnicTweetStory Project volume 9 guidelines ⬇️ Submissions should be no more than 25,000 characters in total (which equals about 4,500 words) including spaces and an author bio. Submissions should be sans racism, sans sexism, sans assholism, sans hate. Our favorite stories are attempts to unravel and make sense of the incurable human condition in whatever form they may take — fiction, non fiction, literary, genre, whatever you want to call it. We like good writing but we also like good stories. We like characters that we care about for some reason and endings that satisfy in some way. We’re probably not the best place for poetry, but you never know. We’re also unlikely to accept anything ultra violent or super sexual or hyper horrific. Selections will appear in this “twitterary magazine”, which will be pinned to this account, with each selection “published” in its own threaded tweet, attributed to author by name and twitter @, with an author bio where you can tell everyone a little about yourself and your writing. $50 for original unpublished work paid via PayPal upon posting. Authors retain all other rights to their work. There is no payment for previously-published works aside from the possibility of finding new readers and new people to read. You must retain the rights to your submitted work and you will continue to retain all rights after being “republished” here. You should also credit the original publication. Send submissions to “theMPTSP at gmail dot com” with story and bio copied into body of e-mail. No attachments. Subject line should read “MPTSP sub / your name / title” or something to that effect. We don’t want to be annoying about submission guidelines but we also want to be able to identify and read your submission and tell it apart from spam and whatnot. Previously published is welcome. Simultaneous subs are encouraged. Multiple subs are okay but in separate e-mails. We have a limited budget so unfortunately we can’t accept everything. Different people really do like different things at different times, and if your story isn’t the right one at the right time for us we’ll let you know with a simple response that won’t mean anything about the quality of you or your writing. We won’t tell you how to make your story better or more publishable or more marketable or more anything, because we don’t know the answer to any of that. We only know what we like best at this particular time and that is not always what someone else likes best, so keep submitting until you find that someone. Okay, I guess that covers it? Let us know by reply or DM or e-mail if you have any questions or comments or whatever. Hope to see you and hope you’ll read the stories as they accumulate below ⬇️

It is congratulations and commiserations time again - A drum roll please... as chosen by Judge Caroline Greene  @cgreene100 The FFF Competition Twenty-Four Shortlist! #writingcompetitions freeflashfiction.com/fff-com…

Big Bird by Sheldon Birnie / @badguybirnie ~ 2,300 words #MythicPicnicTweetStory _ Back when I was a kid, I loved Big Bird. So gentle. So kind. So very big. But now, man, I just don’t know. Lemme explain. My buddy Bill — you know Bill, from the parks department? — he told me something so fucked the other day. Bill, he’s divorced since way back. He’s got a little post-war story-n-a-half out by the airport. His son, he’s grown, lives out east selling something or other on Bay Street. Been out there forever, almost never comes home to see his old man. Some falling out or other, around the divorce. Still, Bill keeps his son’s room for him, a bed and whatever anyhow, up where the attic used to be. Calls it a guest room, but Bill don’t take many visitors. So, the other day there, Bill’s puttering around the house. He’s making a sandwich or something. Taking a shit. I dunno. But then, Bill hears a big thud coming from upstairs. Fuck sakes, he goes, figuring a picture that’s been haphazardly nailed up to the plaster for decades finally come crashing down. He finishes up whatever he’s got going and trudges upstairs, cursing like a roofer under his breath. What he seen when he come up the stairs nearly knocked him right back down the whole flight and into an early grave. So said Bill, anyhow. Said he walked right up them stairs, stepped onto the landing and looked into the open door of his son’s old room. Sitting right there, middle of the room, was a giant fuckin bird. Now, Bill’s no birder. Don’t pretend to be, neither. He don’t know what he’s looking at, only that it’s ungodly big. Unnatural. Some sorta dinosaur, like as not. Big as he is, at any rate – and shit, Bill’s a big boy, himself – and it just sitting there, looking stunned on the worn out old carpet. The window’d been open, catching the breeze. Course, the screen now’s fucked all to bits. But even that don’t account for how this thing smashed or squeezed its way in there. It certainly don’t account for the big ass bird itself, period. What the Christ, Bill goes, or something similar. He can’t help himself. But he don’t wanna scare this bird, see? Big enough could cause some serious damage. More damage, at that. So he just stands there, top of the stairs, kinda flapping his meaty paws at it, going, Shoo. Shoo, bird. Shoo. Bird, it just rounds its big black eyes on Bill and stares at him awhile. It’s big, black like a giant crow. Or a raven, from that old story or whatever. But not quite, says Bill. Kinda like a king hell buzzard, maybe? Or else a sickly stork, demented beyond all recognition. Anyways, the bird, whatever it is, just gives Bill the hairy eye awhile. Just as Bill’s going into his shoo routine again, the bird creaks open its beak. I’m sorry to disturb you, the bird says, clear as fuckin day in the King’s own English. But I’ve suffered some misfortune. That’s putting it lightly, Bill goes. Or says he goes. I can’t really see him being so quick off the draw as that. Who’s to say, though, given the circumstances and all. But anyhow. Who are you, he goes, and what are you doing in my boy’s bedroom? I’ve suffered a mishap, bird repeats, clearing its throat, shuffling around. Seems like it’s in pain. I’m sure I’m not quite myself right now. Would you help me, stranger? Please? Now – you know Bill – he’s not one to turn a blind eye to anyone in trouble. Not even a big ol’ talking bird. I might be losing it, he says to himself, but goddamnit, I can lend a hand where one’s needed. He asks the bird, What can I do? Bird shuffles about, slowly, as though in pain or discomfort. It sighed, or seemed to, resettling itself. I don’t need much, it said at last. But I need some water. Sure enough, Bill fetches a pail of water, sets it in front of the bird. Bird nods his giant head, lowers its beak and starts lapping at the water with its grey, slug-like tongue. Bird takes it all in, whole bucket, heaves a big ol’ sigh. Thank you, bird says, closing its eyes. I am tired, bird says. I am weary. Can I sleep a while here? Sure thing, Bill says. Bird sighs, settles in. Bill backs out of the room. But then he has an idea. Goes and fetches some flyers, the Saturday paper. Hey buddy, he says to the bird. Can we get this under you there? Bird nods, shifts gingerly side to side. Bill gets right in there, covering the ratty old carpet with newsprint. Up close, Bill said, the bird smelled to high heaven. Like wet dirt, rotting meat, old age. The dried out husks of dead bugs that creep about dark, dank places. Whatever. He’s hoping the smell don’t sink its way into the plaster or the flooring. Figures, newspaper or no, that carpet’s a goner. Now, that big bird stays that way for days. For days, bud. Doesn’t say nothing, doesn’t do nothing, just sleeping, pissing and shitting in a big old pile. Bill, he ain’t too happy about it. But that rug was fit for the pit anyhow. He’s just hoping the bird don’t up and die on him. How the fuck he gonna explain that to animal services, hauling the rotting corpse of some heretofore unknown genus of feathered friend out into the alley dumpster? Wouldn’t want that on his conscience. No sir. But then, couple days in, Bill hears a croaking a-coming from upstairs. Puts the game on mute. Sure enough, big bird’s a-beckoning. Bill don’t usually move too quick, but he’s up them stairs lickety split. Water, bird croaks again. So Bill’s back downstairs, filling up the water once, twice, three times for the old bird. He’s sweating, legs a-trembling. But this bird, it’s feeling miles better than when it come crashing in. Thanks Bill up and down. Bill asks if it needs anything else. Offers to change the papers beneath him. Bird takes him up on that – no small task, according to Bill. But he does it. How about some food? Bird asks for rabbit or hare. Bill says, No can do. How about fish? Bird’s amenable. So Bill goes down to the freezer, tosses a couple pounds of pickerel in the sink to thaw. Gonna be a while, Bill says, standing in the doorway. But we’ll get ya fed. We’ll get ya back on your feet. Or wings. Whatever. Time I’ve got, bird says. Time enough. Have you? Bill, he don’t know what to say to that. So he don’t say nothing, just shrugs and sits down on his boy’s old bed next to where the bird is crouched. Big bird, he starts talking, and he don’t stop for a long time. I’ve been on a journey, the bird tells Bill, among many other things Bill don’t share with me. I was born on a high mountain, where winds howled without cease. Upon my wings, I have crossed the seas, looked down upon all parts of the earth from high above the clouds. There is nowhere upon the globe where my shadow has not been cast, be it by the sun’s rays direct or reflected off the cold mirror of the moon. Yet, the other night, I got lost. Lost? Bill goes. How’s a fella who’s been everywhere get lost? Bird says he’d grown weary, despondent even, owing to a lifetime of ceaseless circumnavigation. On cruise control, basically, the bird’s brain had begun to wander. Zoned right the fuck out, bud. Something snapped him from his days long daze, a plane, hot air balloon or drone or fuck knows, and he panicked. Crash, boom, bang, he ends up in Bill’s boy’s room, busted up and beat down. Besides all that, the bird’s lonesome something fierce. Once legion, bird said, my traveling companions are all but gone. Years may pass before I cross any of their paths again. If ever even am I so blessed. You got a mate? Bill asks, no doubt thinking of his own sorry state. A mate I had, bird goes. For many years, many years, we flew the skies together. But they, too, are long gone. Now, Bill don’t say as much. But I know he musta been thinking about whether this bird had any little birds of its own. Offspring, hatchlings, whatever. Wonders whether they flew the nest, whether it ever seen ‘em again. See, Bill misses his son something terrible, even though he won’t put it that way in so many words. Why else would he keep that room ready for the boy, even though the boy ain’t been back out west for years and years. Not even over Christmas. Bill knows you can’t force time to stand still. Knows there’s just no way. But knowing and accepting are two different beasts altogether. So Bill, he don’t ask about offspring. Or if he does, he don’t tell me. Course, I didn’t really know how to take all this bird talk. But Bill – and you know Bill – ain’t usually one to bullshit, least ways not about something like this. So I just figured either Bill’s gone and lost his marbles for real, or what he’s saying ain’t bullshit at all. Course, now I’m not so sure about anything. But that don’t mean I wasn’t curious. Hell no. I wanted to see this big ass bird with my own two eyes, ask it questions only it could answer. Do you hold a map of the world in your head? Or do you take directions from the blood pumping through your big bird heart? How clear are the stars, at that height, without the lights of the city smothering ‘em? You ever see a UFO buzzing about up there? How about any other beasts beyond our ken? How’s it feel to be among the last of your kind? Bill, though, he wasn’t so forthcoming. Not typically one to extend an invitation, like. So, I found some pretense to pop on by, a couple days back. I’d been there before, to pick up an old mower off him. So, the other day, I just so happened to be in the neighbourhood, if you catch my drift. Sure enough, Bill let me in. If with some reluctance. We stood in the front hall awhile, shooting the shit. He finally asked me into the front room for a beer, it being early evening and all. He hadn’t said shit about the bird, though. Not wanting to tip my hand, I didn’t ask, either. Once Bill had drained his tall boy and excused himself to take a leak, I got up quick and made my way to the bottom of the stairs. I looked up, one ear on Bill there in the pisser down the hall, the other aimed up them stairs. But I couldn’t hear nothing coming from upstairs. Not a flutter, nor a shuffle, nor a peep. Quickly, quietly, I climbed the first few steps. Paused, listened, climbed a few more. While there wasn’t no sound coming from the upper half-floor, there sure was a smell. Hell of a smell. Not unlike how Bill had described it: wet dirt, rotting meat, old age, bugs. But there was something more there. Something bad off. You could taste it, for fuck sakes. Still, I took another step. I could see the door to Bill’s boy’s bedroom, closed. No light shining through the crack along the floor. But I could hear something, now. But it wasn’t no bird chirping. More like the soft static on the TV or the radio. Or the buzzing of a million flies. Downstairs, the toilet flushed. I was only a couple steps shy of the upstairs, could have made a bolt for it. But the smell, man. It brought me to stop, tears brimming over my eyelids. I couldn’t make myself go no further. It just smelled powerful wrong. So, I soft footed back to the bottom of the stairs, slid into my boots. Thanked Bill up and down for the drink and apologized again for stopping by unannounced and having to go so soon. No problem, Bill says. Anytime. My coat’s on, I’m half-way out the door. Bill, he goes, Say, don’t you wanna meet the bird? Course, that’d been the whole purpose of my bullshit stopping by story in the first place. Bill had put that much together. He wasn’t born yesterday, Bill. But I couldn’t do it. I could not do it. I didn’t care to see whatever was behind Bill’s boy’s bedroom door. What was making that soft buzzing sound. What was behind that smell. Didn’t care no more about no big bird, whether it could talk or dance a do-si-do or whether it was even there in the first place. Just wanted to get the smell out of my nostrils, the buzzing outta my ears. I made my excuses, headed home. It had started snowing when I was in there, jawing with Bill. When I got home I got out the shovel, cleared my driveway and the front walk. Then cleared my next door neighbours. Then I went and did the whole block. When I come in from the cold, sweating, tired as hell, damned if that smell wasn’t still there. Damned if the buzzing didn’t still fill my ears. Damned if it isn’t still there, buddy. Damned if it ain’t. ~ end ~ Bio: Sheldon Birnie is a writer, dad, and beer league hockey player from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and the author of Where the Pavement Turns to Sand (Malarkey Books, 2023).

Hey #writers and #readers of #WritingCommunity , the next #WritersReading on Thu 12th Dec at 7pm UK will be a #novellainflash special. A place to showcase your published or in progress NIF. Book a ticket first and let me know if you want to read. 🙂🤩 tickettailor.com/events/dubl…