On our first visit to the beach we could see something going on in the water, beyond the cliffs, buggering the view. Local divers and boaters had set up a kind of makeshift no-go zone. Ropes drooped from buoy to buoy in a wobbly oval, and there were small boats with winches and ropes and…
You didn’t go in the thicket. We all knew that. – Dan Layton was the eldest of us, and when he turned 13 he, of course, knew better. We’d heard the stories and we’d seen our mothers out at midsummer, tying ribbons to the spiked branches. We’d looked out of high windows at midwinter when…
They breed them in factories now, of course, hatch them in incubators in the rolling mills, and our young people would be shocked to ever come across one that could use its wings, or that was any bigger than, say, the house of a foundry manager or civil engineer along one of the tree-lined streets…
The annual Best Microfiction anthology (published by Pelekinesis), celebrates the best short short fiction around. The 2021 edition is co-edited by Meg Pokrass and Gary Fincke, with Amber Sparks making the final selection. All the stories featured will be under 400 words…
The Pushcart Prize, awarded annualy, is a prize and anthology which seeks to recognise brilliant work published by the small press. It’s open to nominations of fiction and poetry from literary magazines. Each year we nominate several of our favourite pieces from the last twelve months of Neon Literary Magazine…
[ Download Digital Edition | Print Edition SOLD OUT ] In issue 50 of Neon Literary Magazine we take a whirlwind trip through a range of improbable worlds. Artists in semi-submerged communes huff oocytes from test tubes. Tiny gods take up residence in birdhouses. A rusty tank begins a new life as a starship crewed…
It is my wife who always gets the phone. When she is not in, I just let it ring until it stops. “It is Paula,” she said as she slapped the receiver into my hand, and then, “Leo, who the fuck is Paula?” * This was nearly four years ago and she was very tense…
We both knewwhat was coming,but still we argueduntil the end. Until the attendantssecured the maskover my faceand lowered meslowly into stasis. At the last secondyou put your handup to the glass,just like in a movie;I was too druggedto lift mine,but tried to tell youwith my eyes,It’s not too lateyou can still join meon the other…
Two storeys, upper-level balcony, separate entrances. He might have to do something about that, Harry realized. Bird Palace, the box read. The word palace had caught his attention. Surely this was what he needed. Plus it was only £29.95, which was a good deal. – The cashier grunted as he heaved the heavy cardboard box…
there is inside my house a flightof rooms removed by halfan inch in a directionthat I can’t quite nameoff a little at an anglelike in the drawing of a childbut how to get there seemsimpossible to figure out. I sometimes feel the wallsand listen. I wonder ifthere’s something hiddenin those rooms. A cornerwhere the puppeteers…