Needs Must

We’re not sure who first came up with the idea, but we all applauded when the decision was made. We turned out with balloons, tight and shiny as blisters, the day the Pump was pieced together in the dead centre of town. Faced with the need for more and more sacrifices, the Pump has now streamlined the process. Of course, it takes at least two men to operate, three if there’s a struggle, and it isn’t without its heartbreak. But it’s efficient. There’s hardly any mess, now they’ve perfected the procedure. I’ve started a business selling earplugs, which is thriving. 


This story was shortlisted for the September 2023 Monthly Micro Competition.

About the author: Katie Holloway writes tiny stories in the south of England. She is often tempted to uproot her family to go and live in a tree. Katie has received a DYCP grant from the Arts Council England, a nomination for the Pushcart prize, and the first prize in the 2023 Retreat West prize (flash fiction category). Katie tweets @KatieLHWrites

A Beginner’s Guide To Displacement

Callie raises her hand long after other students give up. Mrs. Wilson announces, “Right again.” Later, Callie will sit alone at the lunch table working out an equation. Even later, she’ll graduate cumma sum laude in engineering, get hired by a top firm, and spend her weekends calculating power output and friction loss. On Mondays she’ll sit at a conference table. The project leader will ask a question. Callie will raise her hand. Her male coworkers will call out answers. She’ll accept a beer after work, rebuff sexual advances, and wonder what to do when the numbers don’t add up.


This story was shortlisted for the September 2023 Monthly Micro Competition.

About the author: Sally Simon is a retired teacher writing from upstate New York. She’s putting the finishing touches on her first novel. 

Meeting Point

I suggest cascara, he points towards a lemonade.

I, a serpentine lane, he, borders drawn at right angles on old maps.

I slide down a funnel to the beach, he ramp walks to the mouth of the river.

I, a sand castle with red sand from the moon, he, a labourer digging a diamond mine.

The ring around Saturn, my gift. A moat with floating criss-cross stars, his choice.

Give me the tick-tack of knitting needles. The pulley silent for him, a cease-work order?

Sweaty, sweaty, sweaty on, humid nights. Same pinch, says he, drenched. I roll over in laughter.


This story was shortlisted for the September 2023 Monthly Micro Competition.

About the author: Shrutidhora P Mohor has been listed in several international writing competitions like Bath, Bristol, Retreat West, and been published by literary magazines like oranges journal, Fiery Scribe Review Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine, Erato magazine, Bullshit Lit, Friday Flash. She has been nominated for Best Micro Fictions 2023 by Vestal Review.

Two Boys, One Book, In Jim Crow’s Jackson

Emmet knows the math book is raggedy, but his teacher doles them out like they’re candied yams. His fingers trace the name inside the cover. Randall. 

Emmet pictures a gold-curled boy claiming the book when it’s crisp new. 

“It’s no matter, numbers don’t change,” the teacher says. But Randall has already written the incorrect answers in the book. Emmet knows math comes at you true as a Mississippi morning. Emmet has learnt it’s words that lie. Like lynching can mean justice. The word separate can mean equal.

Emmet corrects Randall’s answers. His slim black fingers learning to make things right. 


This story won Second Prize and The People’s Prize in the September 2023 Monthly Micro Competition.

About the author: Fiona Dignan started writing during lockdown to cope with the chaos of home-schooling four children. This year, she won The London Society Poetry Prize and The Plaza Prize for Sudden Fiction. In 2022, she was longlisted for the Reflex Flash Fiction Autumn Prize and EHP Barnard Poetry Prize.

Why My Big Sister Won ‘The City Of The Future’ Art Competition

Everyone else drew gleaming skyscrapers, and spaceships, and astronauts zooming across the page with flaming red rocket packs, but she sketched a fairy castle beneath candy floss clouds, with white unicorns leaping through delicate blue mist. It ‘stood out’ the judges said.

And when we were sent home early from school six months later, to see our apartment building bomb-blasted into smouldering rubble, my sister led me away from the fires and sirens. We built a tiny palace from shattered concrete and broken glass, and galloped our winged steeds over twisted girders. For just a little while, it was beautiful.   


This story won First Prize in the September 2023 Monthly Micro Competition.

About the author: Mairead Robinson is a teacher and writer from the North West, living in the South West. Her work can be found in EllipsisZine, Full House Literary, Free Flash Fiction, and a few other places. She tweets @Judasspoon and she skeets @maireadwrites.bsky.social

They Burn Women Here

“I’ll love her like my own, she’ll want for nothing,” the lady says as I leave, blanking my eyes to rose-petal skin, closing nostrils to sun-warmed scent, ears to new-born purrs.

When they come for me, I’ll know she’s safe with her new mama.

They burn women here.

The pyre in the village is stacked high with favourite trees – dancing willow, stately oak, gossipy alder, caring birch. I trust them to offer succour when I stand amongst spiralling flames. I hope to accept my fate.

My daughter is the seed that will flourish, grow roots, come into her inheritance, someday.


This story was shortlisted in the June 2023 monthly micro fiction competition.

About the author: Maria Thomas is a middle-aged, apple-shaped mum. Maria recently won Oxford Flash Fiction and named Best Speculative Fiction by Welkin Prize. Maria won Free Flash Fiction’s Competition 13, Retreat West’s April 2022 Micro. She placed in LISP and Propelling Pencil in 2022. She is on Twitter @AppleWriter and Insta @AppleShapedWriter.