Tag: short-story
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“Spiral” and “Ma’Donna” among 20 works of memorable short fiction – Turn & Work 2025 Shortlist Favourites
Thank you to media review blog Turn & Work for including two of my short stories among 20 featured in their 2025 Shortlist Favourites list. From the blog: “These are the 20 most memorable stories I linked to at other sites – some of the best short fiction and creative nonfiction I read this year.”…
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“In Another Life” nominated for Best Microfiction 2026
Thank you to Ink In Thirds literary magazine for nominating “In Another Life,” a piece of surreal short prose, for inclusion in the Best Microfiction 2026 anthology. Judges this year are Meg Pokrass, Gary Fincke, and Diane Seuss. “In Another Life” was published in Volume 6, Issue 1 of Ink In Thirds and is available…
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“Once, We Were Under the Sea” nominated for Pushcart Prize
“Once, We Were Under the Sea,” a prose poem inspired by hunting for shark teeth in rural central Florida, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize by my publisher, Whale Road Review. Read the piece here. Or, read it here. Once, We Were Under the Sea You don’t have to dig. The teeth have eaten…
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Inkd Publications: Cthulhu Dreams: That Sinking Feeling
Cthulhu Dreams: A short story anthology of horror influenced by or reflective of Lovecraftian themes. For sale at Barnes and Noble online. My contribution, “That Sinking Feeling,” is a quasi-memoir of the time I lived in a commercial loft space built by family members. The place was horrific, an abandoned call center, and we did…
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Fictive Dream: The Almost
The Almost: a school bus driver passes the early morning hours in rural Florida reading her favorite romance novel while idling in her bus before the kids show up. As the sensual language of the book, “Heather’s Rake,” provides her with an escape from the mundane, she finds comfort in the tension and anticipation of…
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The Scavenger
“I watched a wake of turkey vultures slurp up bits of cow…” The Scavenger, a rural Florida gothic serial killer tale, first dramatized by Creepy Podcast and later picked up by Illustrated Worlds Magazine – is reprinted below. (First, though, this photo…taken from my grandparent’s 40 acre homestead in Arcadia, FL, where this story is set. Crazy place!)…
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Green Hills Literary Lantern: Ma’Donna
The Harborside Mobil Stop-n-Go shines its beacon, its big old sign with all the gas prices, the ones that go back and forth a few cents every day for reasons I’ll never know, way up high for the boats to see. After closing, all the lights in and around the store go out except for…
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BULL: Spiral
She spits through lips painted green. She means disrespect but I see DNA. In spit is a stamp that can clone or convict you. I suppose that an artist’s work, to its maker, does both. I can understand the desire for distance.… “Spiral” – a story about bodies, minds, and masks. About devotion and disillusionment.…
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To Bethany, with teeth.(Reprinted here, read in full.)
To Bethany, with teeth. debuted in Luna Station Quarterly earlier this Spring. I am reprinting it here today in full. An odd little morality tale featuring witchcraft gone wrong…gone right. (Painting above, Buried in the Sand, by me.) To Bethany, with teeth. Michael dunks the beaver carcass into a bright blue drum of Strip-All. He…
Kelli Dianne Rule: Author 