We’re in something of a unique position this year with respect to the annual Best Microfiction contest. There’s a limit of 400 words on entries, and it turns out that we only published four pieces in 2025 that are eligible. Three of them are by a single writer. I happen to think that all three… Read More Best Microfiction 2026 Nominations
A Partial Dictionary of the Veridical Dialect Compiled from fragmentary speaker records recovered after cessation of use. Cross-referenced where materials permit. Archivist’s Note: This document remains in circulation despite the absence of any remaining interpretive community. Almost (adv.) Defined exclusively as measurable proximity or probability (e.g., “within 3.2 meters,” “88% likelihood”). The qualitative sense of… Read More A Partial Dictionary of the Veridical Dialect ~ lexicon by Libby Banks
In the Southwest in Mid-September (a Nuit Blanche poem, after Amy Lowell’s “Nuit Blanche”) The chirping of crickets in the night is not found in the desert. Two hours from Albuquerque, not much is. In Socorro, I stop to get gas, lunch, and a room for later that night. Then I head out, driving dusty… Read More In the Southwest in Mid-September ~ poetry by Mary Christine Delea
I never know what year to slap on this annual announcement. The Pushcart Prize anthology will come out in 2026, but all the pieces will have been published in 2025. Let’s just be forward-looking and go with 2026. In any event, here are the six pieces I’ve selected to represent The Disappointed Housewife this time… Read More Pushcart Prize Nominations 2026
We’re making a change to our submission guidelines as we wrap up our eighth year of operation. From now on we’re going to allow document attachments rather than requiring writers to paste their work into the submission email. For the most part, literary journals allow attachments. I’ve become more confident as the years go on… Read More Attachments now welcome!
There Are No Wild Dogs In Brooklyn Heights A skyline of wonders with a phantasmal attraction. The soapy comfort of store-bought flowers. Too pink, too sweet. Fragments in the sky on a day you’re brazen enough to look up. And they’re running. Just like you. Waiting to be shot down. Head back to Ainslie Avenue.… Read More There Are No Wild Dogs In Brooklyn Heights ~ poetry by Tessa McHattie
Burning Chocolat Mademoiselle likes her brioche with crème fraîche, Maupassant and a tasse de chocolat. I like her way of nonchalantly feigning I do not exist. Makes me feel like Camus smoking a Gauloises and struggling to pen the Myth of Sisyphus. She tells me all one needs is love but un peu de chocolat… Read More Burning Chocolat ~ poetry by Salvatore Difalco
Eternal Frat Boys So, this is who you’d rather spend time with? Does their obnoxious behavior compensate for my shyness? Does you saying you’re not like them, explicate your blindness? Or, are you just really that numb to my kindness? So much so, that these new friends are (not men, but) Eternal Frat Boys who… Read More Eternal Frat Boys ~ poetry by Jenna Mabus
Look at This Two wild pears from a tree near the train tracks, on a windowsill facing ten p.m. neighborhood backyards. Each would fit in one palm. Almost everything else lies on one table. A round pill box, brewpub restaurant coaster pasted to the lid, blue behind a red heart. My wife’s glasses: black bows,… Read More Look at This ~ poetry by David P. Miller
Recently Dottie and I added a statement to our submission guidelines that I thought I’d better highlight here for writers thinking about contributing: The Disappointed Housewife will not knowingly publish content generated by AI. It probably doesn’t really need to be said, but in a time when some creatives might convince themselves that AI is… Read More Our Policy on AI (it is verboten)
Angel Ranch after Las Poquianchis, by Francisco Corzas (Mexico) 1966 “Last week, in a San Francisco del Rincón courtroom … the (Gonzalez) sisters were found guilty of first-degree murder, white slavery and assorted other crimes and sentenced to the maximum penalty under Mexican law: 40 years in prison.” Time Magazine, October 30, 1964 Catalina, small, sweet,… Read More Angel Ranch ~ creative nonfiction by Lorette C. Luzajic
The 101 Uses of a Cravat The “Before” picture of a necktie. A bandage to staunch the blood. If it’s black, an armband for mourning. If it’s red, an armband for war. To welcome the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe to inhabit your body as his host. A lobster bib. A tourniquet. To appear epicurean… Read More The 101 Uses of a Cravat ~ poetry by E.R. Davis
One again, Dottie and I are happy to announce this year’s Best of the Net nominations. We always love when this time of year rolls around because we get to review all the terrific work we’ve published in the last twelve months. And, as always, it’s exceedingly difficult to filter all this great material down… Read More 2025 Best of the Net Nominations
When It Seems Like Nothing Is Happening a Lot Is Happening I’m planning a big party. My friend has no idea. She hates her job and cries on the weekends about it. We tell her she can do better. We tell each other lies all the time. The party will be drinks and dinner. When… Read More Three Micros ~ fiction by Jeffrey Hermann
Draft 1 08/18/25, 7:45 PM I like to be the boss of everything in my life. Ever since I was a child, I had to raise seven siblings on my own. My parents were always working, gone more than home. Naturally, I became the responsible one: the fixer, the planner. When I’m in charge, everything… Read More Without a Checklist ~ fiction by Christopher Grady
“Having Weight” is a modular story that mirrors the narrator’s fractured state of mind, prompting the reader to collaborate in constructing meaning from the apparent chaos. Each time the reader visits the page or clicks “Shuffle,” the narrative reorders itself, resisting a straight plot in favor of emotional constellations. The print button generates different “permanent”… Read More Having Weight ~ fiction by Cate McGowan
When Amanda Corin arrived at Mommy & Me Yoga, everyone could see that her new baby had turned into a glass of wine. Her friends felt bad. Their baby shower gifts—booties that looked like tacos, wool diaper covers from women-owned New Zealand farms, a onesie with Leonard Peltier’s face—all of them were useless now. As… Read More A Deficit of Attention ~ fiction by Sage Tyrtle
An extended metaphor to explore the uneven feelings associated with beginning psychotherapy. When I move into the house, the foundation is wonky. I know for sure because I roll an empty wine bottle down the hardwoods, and even with the friction of the area rug, the bottle cruises, gains momentum. There are hills and valleys… Read More My Brain is a Shifting Foundation ~ creative nonfiction by Kaci Neves
Self-Portrait as a Miniature Donkey Dew-grass. Groomed. Sing sweet hee- haw for saltlick treat. If sad, sagged ears, mossy eyes. If sad, so? Sing. Be silver, small. Fat velvet muzzle: be led by. Crowd. Blue ribbons prick. Best soft. Best good. Look, it’s smiling. See: teeth. Only stablehand smell grimy breath. Only stablehand scraped by… Read More Self-Portrait as a Miniature Donkey ~ poetry by Annie Przypyszny
Chronic Pain “The cure for pain is in the pain” – Rumi The tink of the gold band tumbling down a shower drain. Finding the unposed photograph of your mother at seventeen, falling in love with her, knowing you will never know that girl. The bleary-eyed stare of the goat in… Read More Chronic Pain ~ poetry by Colleen S. Harris
The Father of Minimalism I couldn’t sleep, so I poured myself a glass of water in the kitchen. That was when American composer Philip Glass walked through the door, a keyboard tucked under his arm. Why are you here, I asked. He opened his mouth but no sound came out. Instead, I heard the murmur… Read More The Father of Minimalism ~ poetry by Elena Zhang
Experiential Ecotone: Hashimoto’s Disease & Gestational Diabetes Something (un)natural happened. After almost twenty long years, I still want answers. I think I spent the first decade in denial. The first decade I spent raising other children. But around 2013, when I first moved to Las Vegas, I wanted to remember. I wanted to remember better,… Read More Experiential Ecotone: Hashimoto’s Disease & Gestational Diabetes ~ creative nonfiction by Court Harler
My Daddy’s Accordion My daddy’s accordion was his second set of lungs. The first was for breathing, He played it every night between Jeopardy and his bedtime medicine. He named it “Darla.” Said it was the only lady who never done him wrong or maxed out his credit card. Only thing that never judged him… Read More My Daddy’s Accordion ~ poetry by Tom Busillo
Ewen Glass (he/him) is a screenwriter and poet from Northern Ireland who lives with two dogs, a tortoise and a body of self-doubt; his poetry has appeared in the likes of Okay Donkey, Maudlin House, HAD, Poetry Scotland and One Art. Bluesky/X/IG: @ewenglass.
Bullet Pudding After taking a strong sleeping potion I left my bed, and the four of us spent the day playing badminton. Chloe says I have eyes like errant cabbages. Lately she’s been obsessed with luxury communism fully automated. Because we haven’t been thinking big enough, because badminton before it was badminton was known as… Read More Bullet Pudding ~ poetry by Damon Hubbs
Tess Godhardt is an attorney who has always harbored a love for creative writing. When she is not working, she can be found on the basketball court attempting to relive her collegiate glory days or outside throwing the ball for one of her five dogs. A few of her stories can be found in the… Read More How to be Enough ~ recipe by Tess Godhardt
I crept past the sunlight on the hay, hiding from the light so as not to appear present at all to my father’s men, who were pitching the golden strands into piles. I had been at it for an hour, trying to inch my way to Becker, who was sitting in the barn loft, stricken… Read More What have they done to the horses? ~ fiction by Chrissy Stegman
The Devil’s Handiwork LOGLINE The Devil himself runs his doom shop out of an industrial waste-processing plant in Cleveland. Eons of ushering humanity’s worst specimens to perdition have taken a toll on Nick Ruprecht (The Devil), but in the 21st century he decides to change it up and give the damned a second chance. The… Read More The Devil’s Handiwork ~ sitcom pitch by Janusz Cutler
The turbaned, red-lipped and broad-shouldered apparition announces she’s heard my pleas. My daughter, Delilah, the snarky adolescent that she is, had bought me a Joan Crawford prayer candle as a gag gift for Mother’s Day. Now, I see she must have moved it to where it’s currently sitting— on my alter. “I am delighted you… Read More Saint Joan ~ fiction by Angela James
I I see a land that looks like another world. There is agave and saguaro cactus and desert marigold, all of it brown and gold and dripping silver. The silver is the sun’s light and it bathes a city, pooling like water on waterless highways and dripping from statues of horses that have roamed the… Read More Statues of Horses Seen from the Sky ~ creative nonfiction by Karen Chaffee
His username is among the list of players when I log on the server, with a blue tick at the end. His avatar is gliding across the pixel-terrain, hovering over other users’ multicolored cursors. I don’t intend to play this game again. Not with him. Our broken bodies, battling each other online and off for… Read More Abandonware ~ fiction by Sarp Sozdinler
demise the la fires wolf down homes and buildings in the palisades – 0% containment. i walk outside my home 40 miles away and swallow a chunk of dust and debris that wind carries and deposits into my mouth. my yard looks like the aftermath of the storm in the wizard of oz. i walk… Read More demise ~ poetry by Ken Kakareka
No one knows what it was like, how very dark it was in 1815. The nights were enormous; you couldn’t believe they would ever end. After sunset, there was so little to do that, for amusement, I would linger outside by the stables, testing my bravery, but dusk had way of cowing me: the night… Read More On Seeing Byron ~ fiction by Amber Burke
Thanksgiving SOS Grandpa’s vodka watered down, the only potatoes served. Raised eyebrows & cocked heads after cocktail hour, guns with infinite woundability. Signs passed like cranberries over clicks of Morse code cutlery. Deep-fried turkey fireball a flare signal for help. The kids at the adult table a mere thirty- plus three major tantrums. Divorce… Read More Three Poems ~ poetry by Jennifer Ruth Jackson
What a terrific surprise the other day to learn that two stories we published in 2024 have been selected for the forthcoming Best Microfiction anthology by Guest Editor Dawn Raffel and Series Editors Meg Pokrass and Gary Fincke. Celebrate! Congratulations to Barbara Diggs, for “Questions The Caseworker Should Have Asked After My Ex Accused Me… Read More Best Microfiction Taps Two of Our Own!
A little bit wistfully, I conclude the season’s award nominations with these for the Best Small Fictions anthology. As usual, whittling our published fiction down to these five was difficult, since my approach to curating the magazine is to accept material that could win just about any award. That’s why, at times, it seems like… Read More Best Small Fictions Nominations 2025
A night with Fun Guy always delivers. After back-to-back shifts at the pulp mill you need a release. And who better to spend it with than Fun Guy? Fun Guy brings the drinks. Fun Guy knows where the music is playing, how to score tickets. Fun Guy high-fives everyone at the bar and introduces you.… Read More Fun Guy ~ fiction by Claire Fantus
He speaks to the penis to cajole and comfort, to sometimes instruct, to above all else socialize and introduce the penis to a world populated by others. To remind the penis of the broader community outside their townhome and of the warmth and timbre of his voice. “Let me know if it’s too hot,” he… Read More How to Be Happy for Two ~ fiction by Max Paradise
The Lament of Curley’s Wife He said I was a natural for the pitchers and he would write me when he got back to Hollywood. That starlight smile he had. Coulda been in the movies. Coulda had nice clothes and sat in them big hotels. He saw I was a natural. Coulda worn a white… Read More The Lament of Curley’s Wife ~ poetry by Ruth Lexton
And now it’s time for our Best Microfiction noms—stories under 400 words published in 2024. We have some good ones this year, and Dottie and I only wish we could have nominated all of the qualifying stories because they were all excellent. Here are the five finalists: Questions The Caseworker Should Have Asked After My… Read More Best Microfiction 2025 Nominations
The Disappointed Housewife 