Today, we’re catching up with Kate Heartfield, author of Hairbrush, Socks, Pencils, Orange, which was published in Issue #15 in December 2014. FFO: What’s your favorite line from your Flash Fiction Online story, and why do you think it works particularly well? KH: Strangely enough, my favorite line from my story “Hairbrush, Socks, Pencils, Orange” […]
Dad was carrying a tray of grilled hot dogs across the fresh-cut grass when his knees stiffened and black smoke spewed from his nose. His shoulders lurched forward and his chin swung down and clanged against his chest as more and more black smoke billowed from his open mouth. There was a loud bang and […]
Five miles from town, just me, my rifle, the deer blind, the white field getting deeper the more powder falls. Here’s me in a pile of myself, one foot corked at a ninety-degree angle, still caught in the bottom rung of the slick ladder. There’s the vast pale dark held up by the skinny pines […]
Kodi had always known the distance between himself and the nearest pie. It seemed the thing to care about, in a world full of long shifts and dark roads. For example, leaning on the steering wheel, he knew that a peach pie was .0023 miles away, in one shop called Pies and Thank You, and […]
Grady’s family had always gone Christmas tree hunting. The day after Thanksgiving he helped Mom pack sandwiches spilling leftover cranberry and stuffing, hot cider and slices of pumpkin pie, while Dad and his aunts Amy and Pat packed the real supplies. Most families went to one of those U-Cut places, where trees were raised up […]
For some, holidays conjure up Norman Rockwell-like images of a cozy family gathered around a perfectly trimmed tree while basking in the warmth of their good life. But for others, the holidays are complicated. Memories and expectations mix with something darker of which we do not speak—at least not openly—but it’s there, all along, beneath […]
“Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.” – J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan As 2021 draws to a close, so does another chapter here at Flash Fiction Online. December 2021 will be the last issue published during Wendy Nikel’s tenure as Editor-in-Chief. Wendy will be sorely missed, but the staff […]