Short Short Stories
I remember the first day of my first creative writing class. My professor was a very good and very old writer, who I will not name. He started the class, like many writers-turned teachers did back then, with a monologue about about literature. He began giving a history of writing and starting with telling stories around a primitive campfire, went on and on until I was just slightly conscious. He then said, “the short story is really the only American literary art form.” I was awake at this. In all the history of the short story it took the hustle and bustle of early American life and capitalism to make it popular. All those pulp magazine editors looking for great short stories to fill their magazines with. America was in such a hurry that they could only read less than 10,000 words at a time, I guess.
Today things haven’t changed very much except that America is in even a bigger hurry. We are more rushed with less time. If the late 1800s and early 1900s popularized the short story, then the late 1900s and early 2000s have certainly popularized short short stories. It is a new art form (in some ways). It takes even less time to read than the short story. It consists of usually less than 1000 words, and it fills our hunger for a quick fix of literature. The soundbite, quick cutting world of television, I believe, has brought us to this. The short short story aka flash fiction is becoming increasingly popular.
Now literary websites, blogs and even magazine editors are drooling for those short short stories that everyone wants to read. They are easy to edit and publish. I will not go as far as saying they are easy to write. In fact I think they can be even more difficult than a short story or poetry to pen .
To be blunt, we love short short stories here at EWR: Short stories, and we are writing this little piece to celebrate the form and to mark a change on our site. We are only taking submissions of short short stories that are 500 words or less. So if you want to submit to us, go here, but only send us short short stories please.
Also, we have a mix of stories here, and to make it easier for everyone we have decided to list here only and all of our short short stories (man I used that term a lot). Either way, I hope you enjoy this list, kind of a recap.
Here is our large list of short short stories:
- Life in the valley by Stephen R Drage
- John the Fisherman by Marijke Hillmann
- Meet Your Maker by Sydney Avey
- Simple Truth by Jennifer-Crystal Johnson
- Hanged By Carla J. Dow
- “Hi” by Lauren K. Sweeney
- An Observation by Logan Roe
- Think Fast By Doug Elwell
- Dinner Party by Marijke Hillmann
- The Fabric of Time by Raymond Cothern
- The Storm by Kristin Leprich
- Rubber Gloves. And Lysol. by Christopher Taylor
- Three-Thirty Sharp by C. Gregory Thompson
- How Much Food Do You Need? by Kate LaDew
- Resume by Kristin Leprich
- Man at Work by Marijke Hillmann
- The Merger by Laura Goodchild
- Bootlegs by Adam Daniel
- First Date by John Faugno
- What The Murderer Had Left by Bahri Gordebak
- The White Suit by Marijke Hillmann
- On Layers by Ron Singer
- A Fool’s Game by Michael Karpienski
- Divided By Shannon Eden
- Carmel Girl by Julie Quiroz
- A Toe in the Water by Renay Allen
- He Wanders Lonely by Frank Joussen
- The Taste of 3 A.M. by Mercel Meyers
- Africa in Short by Marijke Hillmann
- Broken Windows by Marijke Hillmann
- The Ragged-Trousered Misogynist by Sue Roff
- The Art of Learning by Kristina England
- Face Down In Mud by Egle Pruckute
- Club by Night by Vicky Hayes
- The Fridge by Marijke Hillmann
- The Lone Car by Mary Lee
- Smiles by M.H.D.S. Dharshanapriya
- Late for the Window by Sandra Gould Thompson
- Jack by Victor A. Gallis
- Water and Ash by Abigail Russo
- Herman by Marijke Hillmann
- fast, eat by Jon Svec
- Searching the Library by Mikail Akrie
- The Biggest Dance by David Kerr
- Automobile Slide by Natasha Ganes
- Apple Care by Kiley Reid
- Sandra by Sue Roff
- Seconds in China by Geoffrey Heptonstall
- The Boy by Aarif Khan
- Weathervane by Christina Isler
- The Price of Becoming a Writer by Mahendra Waghela
- Me and My Friend by Nanette L. Avery
- Smoke Signals by Karen Preston
- The Enemy by M.H.D.S. Dharshanapriya
- A Tale of Hope
- All Behind Him by Giorgio Montanari
- Seals by Sid Gustafson
- Stripped Clean by Cassandra Dunn
- Premonition by Lorna Brown
- The Shoebox by: William Gaughan
- Gleanings by Naette L. Avery
- The Sack by P. Thompson
- Halloween Dinner by Erin Landers
- Wolf Wolf by Mike Ward
- The Loser by Arthur Mackeown
- Opportunities by Douglas Clifton
- Hansel and Grethel by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
- My Job by Ronald Robert Moore
- The Closed Door by Rita Crossley
- The Trail From The Cabin To The Lake by W.C. Fleischman
- Spinach and Rain by Diane Payne
- Taming the Devil by Chris Martin
- Lost Portrait London 1940s by Geoffrey Heptonstall
- My Mother Laughing by Dan Sklar
- Trick or Treat? by Anthony Sarnelle
- Philadelphia Roll by Kiley Reid
- The Wintering by Caitlin M
- ERNEST by John Carson
- What’s Happening at EWR!
- Last Call by Arthur Mackeown
- My New Love by Gena Ervin
- All Tied Up And Nowhere To Go by Jaime Faulkner
- Complaint Procedure by Kieren McCallum
- The Dead Tree by Lee Ann Petropoulos
- The Photographer By John Henry Beck
- Desert Kingsby Mike McCormick
- Where Angels Fly Away by Valery V. Petrovskiy
- English as a Home Language by Christopher Niemeyer
- Dream Catcher by Tantalus E
- Loose Ends By Ronald Robert Moore
- The Cold Sausages in my Neighbourhood by Owain Evans
- Wishful Thinking by Jules A Riley
- The Woman Who Got Down at King’s circle by Saranyan BV
- JUNK by Robert Kalkreuter
- On a Night Like This by Neeru Anand
- Sweet Vengeance by Spandna Chokhani
- Headstone by Jack Coey
- Sweet Memory by Emma Cox
- Scatterbrain by Tinashe Chiurugwi
- Heavenly Bodies by Frank Hubeny
- I really hate doing this! We need help!
- A Thank You From Evelyn by Eric Tarago
- An Aria in Peru by Christopher Niemeyer
- The Takers by D.D. Escalante
- Over and Out by Julie Morgan King
- The Astrologer by Debashish Majumdar
- Silent Genesis by L. Cesar Jimenez
- Seen but Not Heard by Rita Crossley
- Beside the Sea by Scott Seagram
- When Something Goes, Something Remains by Josepha Gutelius
- Off The Page by Rene Hankins
- Gone by Ronald Robert Moore
- Revenge by Leanne Adler
- Life As A Tattoo by J White
- Cowgirl Love By Gary V. Powell
- Marilyn Monroe Moment by Courtney Smart
- The Tile by Veronique Kootstra
- Bird Lesson by John Francis Steffen
- Turnabout’s Fair Play by D.D. Escalante
- Can You Help My Daughter? by Surbhi Thukral
- I Sit, and Watch by Owain G Evans
- The Rusted Swing Set by Sheila Good
- It Never Ends by Frank Joussen
- Blue China by Jason Ehlen
- Guapo by N. Fabal
- Daddy Dearest by Sue Buckwell
- The Day of the Dead by RLB Hartmann
- Step Two by Julia Newman
- Turtle Dreams by Susan Dickman
- The Beating by K. Zeth Ozbirn
- Josephine by Fritzroy Austin Sterling
- Manufactured Greatness: By Joshua Carroll
- Ugly in Stereo by Stacie Adams
- Electra by Sonia B. SyGaco
- Day 9961 by Felix Ames Glas
- The Tortoise and the Hare by Stephen Prime
- No Beauty Hovered Over Me by Jim Piper
- Driving by Jill Chan
- His Dark Flag by Axel Howerton
- Christmas in the City by Julie Morgan King
- House for Sale by George Eyre Masters
- She Doesn’t Know by Rumjhum Biswas
- The Jinx by Adam Renn Olenn
- Beginning to End by Benjamin Darrow
- Slowing to Park by Chris Martin
- Flannel Shirt by Kris Estebo
- Failure is Challengeable by Jerry Olasakinju
- Mummy Says by Lee Ann Petropoulos
- Surgeries by Amanda Leduc
- Found & Lost by Jarret Liotta
- The Birthday List by Scott Carpenter
- What Was Born by Michelle Soucy
- A Friend Indeed by Sue Buckwell
- Horror Story Contest!
- Holy Water by Keith Hoerner
- Frailty by Matt Bender
- A Chorus of Shaving by Michael Honda
- Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart (Youtube)
- Too Late for Lunch by Benjamin Eggleton
- The Lesson by Lynn Wynen-Chamberlain
- The Girl Who Had Everything Places an Ad By Deborah Nedelman
- First Snow by George Eyre Masters
- 20/20 Vision by Kristen Melillo
- Bee Cloud by Rebecca Loudon
- The Funeral by Neha Puntambekar
- Beasley’s Machines by Nathaniel Johnson
- Old Bells, Young Mountains by Eric Bosse
- A Narrow Bridge by Avital Gad-Cykman
- Sex and Candy by Hairee Lee
- My Soul by Rumjhum Biswas