The Gravity of the Thing

Postscript to a Horror Film | John Higgins "Next: relief. You have survived. Everything from here on out is improvement, no?" John Higgins's work has been featured in Always Crashing, Misery Tourism, and more.

"Next: relief. You have survived. Everything from here on out is improvement, no?"

A new short story from our Winter 2026 issue. Click below to read "Postscript to a Horror Film" by John Higgins.

#fiction #shortfiction #shortstory

Instincts | Lillian Durr "...she looks naïve. It’s sweet. But that sweetness is as brief as a camera flash capturing her. We lean to the side and see all at once how brief this moment is..."

"...she looks naïve. It’s sweet. But that sweetness is as brief as a camera flash capturing her. We lean to the side and see all at once how brief this moment is..."

Flash fiction by @lillian-durr-art.bsky.social from our Winter 2026 issue.

#fiction #flashfiction

November 6th, 2024 | Ethan Stanton "I woke up it was Wednesday and I made the coffee and prepared the lunchboxes, brushed the ants off the counter and the lunchbox was pink and plastic and needed extra scrubbing..."

"...it was the morning when the fish jumped out of the pan and swam around the room, when the pictures and their frames came unmoored and drifted into each other..."

Our Winter 2026 issue recently launched with a flash nonfiction story by Ethan Stanton.

#creativenonfiction #experimentalwriting

A black and white screen print of chanterelle mushrooms.

"Harvest" by Laurel Prieto for our Winter 2026 issue. New works of defamiliarized creative writing will appear in our winter issue throughout February and March. Learn more at thegravityofthething.com.

2025 Nominations: Best of the Net, Best American Anthologies, and More The Gravity of the Thing’s editors are excited to share our 2025 nominations for the Best of the Net anthology, the Best American anthologies, and the Pushcart Prize.

We are excited to share our 2025 nominations for the Pushcart Prize, the Best American anthologies, and the Best of the Net anthology. A very big congratulations to our contributors!

The Boys | Eric Oman Callahan "The Boys could be found on the Rock whenever there was sun. Their brown and pink tones dappling the grey jut, an image of the languid summer they all wished could last forever..."

"The Boys could be found on the Rock whenever there was sun. Their brown and pink tones dappling the grey jut, an image of the languid summer they all wished could last forever..."

Our Fall 2025 issue recently concluded with a short story by Eric Oman Callahan.

#fiction #shortfiction #shortstory

Pink Carnation | Rebecca Suzuki "A mimosa represented chastity because the leaves of the mimosa close at night, or when touched. White carnation meant pure love and good luck, and a pink one, a mother’s undying love..."

"A mimosa represented chastity because the leaves of the mimosa close at night, or when touched. White carnation meant pure love and good luck, and a pink one, a mother’s undying love..."

"Pink Carnation" by Rebecca Suzuki recently appeared in our Fall 2025 issue.

#creativenonfiction

In the Beforetimes | Carrie Nassif "work is a place where some adolescents and most adults spent a good deal of their waking time doing specified tasks or acting in prescribed roles in order to earn money..."

"work is a place where some adolescents and most adults spent a good deal of their waking time doing specified tasks or acting in prescribed roles in order to earn money..."

Genre-bending writing by Carrie Nassif from our Fall 2025 issue.

#crossgenre #experimentalwriting

Fealty and Other Poems | Judy Thorn "If you should ever miss me, take the boat. / If the boat is stalling, jump and fly. / May strong winds float you, levant kids. / I sing for quarters now, into my hat. / Nothing bad I’ve ever done has...

"If you should ever miss me, take the boat.
If the boat is stalling, jump and fly.
May strong winds float you, levant kids."

"The Firth of Forth" and other poems by Judy Thorn recently appeared in our Fall 2025 issue.

#poetry #poetrycommunity

The Birth of Evil | Rob Swystun "Other like me has sky brightness. He showed me. It was like many sky brightnesses, but small. They are in a piece of hard ground. They move like sky brightness on water..."

"I want the small sky brightnesses on the piece of hard ground like I want food, but different. I want to look at it. I want to touch it..."

A new flash fiction story by Rob Swystun from our Fall 2025 issue.

#fiction #flashfiction

Selected Poems | CS Crowe "we have so many words / for the act of sifting one thing / from another / sift, sieve, sort, strain / how many of these words / are gentle and soft / in our mouths / thresh, sever, sunder, winnow..."

"how our distant ancestors
first learned to grind with their teeth

how we have so many words
for the act of sifting one thing
from another"

Our Fall 2025 issue recently launched with two poems by CS Crowe.

#poetry #poetrycommunity

Green, red, and pink screen-printed images of brick walkways and wood picket fences.

"First Steps" by Laurel Prieto for our Fall 2025 issue. New works of defamiliarized creative writing will appear in our fall issue throughout September and October. Learn more at thegravityofthething.com.

How the Fire Must Have Started | Kathleen Hellen "black smoke charring faded floral wallpaper. / they were old, we didn’t know them. call it failure of occupation. the grass untamed. trackless. / the vines that willed a wall. call it failure of atte...

"did he touch a cigarette to synthetic? a single spark igniting. curtains / cabinets furniture. the hot cloud pawing through fusty / hallways..."

Our Summer 2025 issue recently concluded with a poem by Kathleen Hellen.

#poetry #poetrycommunity

Loneliness is a Room | Mykyta Ryzhykh "If anyone knows where this tlanguage of rocks leads then it's a trap / A dead end for people who are looking for something resembling the truth / We drowned like drowned men who have swum out three t...

"If anyone knows where this tlanguage of rocks leads then it’s a trap / A dead end for people who are looking for something resembling the truth..."

A new poem by Mykyta Ryzhykh from our Summer 2025 issue.

#poetry #poetrycommunity

Thank YOU for sharing your work with us!

Selected Prose Poems | Colleen S. Harris "My room is rural dark, back field dark, so dark I can read by the wan glow cast from the kitchen light through the crack under my bedroom door, the same dim radiance as this unhurried burn of inflamm...

"I convince myself that the view of sun breaking over water is what I need, to soothe this body whose pieces were cut with different blades, painted the same color, and built back together..."

Two prose poems by @warmaiden.bsky.social from our Summer 2025 issue.

#poetry #prosepoetry

Re(Evolution) | Nathan Tompkins "you're a fungus expanding your fibrous tendrils across dead skin and decaying organs; sing in the language of hunger, the words an ancestral memory buried in the genetic code..."

"you're a fungus expanding your fibrous tendrils across dead skin and decaying organs; sing in the language of hunger, the words an ancestral memory buried in the genetic code..."

Genre-bending writing by @gorillapoet.bsky.social from our Summer 2025 issue.

#flash #experimentalwriting

Walnut Creek Gas & Co. | Yuna Kang "Malicious, bleary-eyed scammers, payola and crime and all that. It wasn’t a life I knew, was acquainted with at all. But I liked to dream about it anyway..."

"Malicious, bleary-eyed scammers, payola and crime and all that. It wasn’t a life I knew, was acquainted with at all.

But I liked to dream about it anyway..."

Check out Yuna Kang's short fiction story, which appeared this week in our Summer 2025 issue.

#fiction #shortfiction #shortstory

Put Your Lips Together and Blow | Tate A. Geborkoff "A man stands in front of a mirror wearing last night’s makeup. He knows he should have taken it off, but he didn’t. He was having a good time, living his truest self, and he got home so late (so earl...

"A man stands in front of a mirror wearing last night’s makeup. He knows he should have taken it off, but he didn’t. He was having a good time, living his truest self, and he got home so late (so early)..."

Our Summer 2025 issue launches with a #flashfiction story by @adjinntonic.bsky.social.

A teal-green screen print of molecules, seed pods, and air waves on top of gray and blue blocks of color.

"Lichen" by Laurel Prieto for our Summer 2025 issue. New works of defamiliarized creative writing will appear in our summer issue throughout July and August. Learn more at thegravityofthething.com.

I Give the Angel Chuck’s Watch, and He Recalls the First Night of Creation | Zachariah Claypole White "We had no language, you understand, / only the possibility of it; / three strands of hibiscus arranged / left to right would mean grandmother; / it could also mean subway or wheelchair."

"We had no language, you understand,
only the possibility of it;

three strands of hibiscus arranged
left to right would mean grandmother"

Our Spring 2025 issue concludes with a poem by Zachariah Claypole White.
@zachariahcw.bsky.social #poetry

Getting Personal with Dr. Phil | Nadia Kalman "Did you ever think you’d end up here / Those times you went on Oprah, talking tough / To teenage moms? You never quite became a star." Nadia Kalman is an NEA Literature grantee and the author of The ...

"Did you ever think you’d end up here
Those times you went on Oprah, talking tough
To teenage moms? You never quite became a star."

New #poetry by Nadia Kalman from our Spring 2025 issue.

Call to Order | Heikki Huotari "In the beginning not yet sacred all is apropos. As I traverse a simple closed curve counterclockwise the interior is always on the left. I'll gaze in wonder only at that which I've gazed in wonder at...

"In the beginning not yet sacred all is apropos. As I traverse a simple closed curve counterclockwise the interior is always on the left."

A prose poem by Heikki Huotari from our Spring 2025 issue.

Death Trap | Henry Stevens "He sits back down in his throne of bone and ebony, admiring his phylactery. He wants to be excited, but there is something empty in his victory. No one to tell."

"Out of sight of the hero’s dead eyes, he brushes his bony hands and gets back to the very important work of writing his treatise on the condition of the undead..."

New fiction by Henry Stevens from our Spring 2025 issue.

Ten-Course Chicken (Adobo) Dinner | Elica Sue "I was told growing up 'you’re a quarter' of each thing, like a dollar bill, but with the weight of making sure you can keep all the pieces together, to be able to buy what you need at the dollar stor...

"I was told growing up 'you’re a quarter' of each thing, like a dollar bill, but with the weight of making sure you can keep all the pieces together, to be able to buy what you need at the dollar store."

Creative nonfiction by Elica Sue from our Spring 2025 issue.

The Fearsucker | Johan Smits "Something wraps your ankle in a tight grip. A sharp end presses into your lower back and threatens to pierce your skin. A claw? A sting? A beak?"

"Something wraps your ankle in a tight grip. A sharp end presses into your lower back and threatens to pierce your skin. A claw? A sting? A beak?"‪

Our Spring 2025 issue recently launched with a short story by @johansmits.bsky.social.

A multilayered screen print that features a yellow, brick walkway on top of purple and green flowers and bulbs.

"Pathways" by Laurel Prieto for our Spring 2025 issue. New works of defamiliarized prose and poetry will appear in our spring issue throughout May and June. Learn more at thegravityofthething.com.

Selected Poems | Panika M. C. Dillon "the Valkyries predicted we would crave quake, that the stars existed to shine down on our teeth embedded in sidewalks like ivory sequins / there’s a crack in the bruised sky of Ymir’s skull—that’s ho...

"the Valkyries predicted we would crave quake, that the stars existed to shine down on our teeth embedded in sidewalks like ivory sequins..."

Our Winter 2025 issue concludes with three experimental poems by Panika M. C. Dillon.
@withoutreports.bsky.social

The Emperor's Mirror | Alex Zhao "The seeds of my prison were sown in the third century when a drunk calligrapher scrawled an impromptu poem. On a spring afternoon beside a stream, the calligrapher Xizhi composed the Orchid Pavilion ...

"The seeds of my prison were sown in the third century when a drunk calligrapher scrawled an impromptu poem. On a spring afternoon beside a stream, the calligrapher Xizhi composed the Orchid Pavilion Preface..."

A new short story by Alex Zhao.

For Your Self-Defense | Shanti Chandrasekhar "Within a nanosecond, we are alert, guarded, equipped. We multiply into a huge army, ready for action. Not for nothing, we’re called your first line of defense. We charge with one goal. To protect you...

"Within a nanosecond, we are alert, guarded, equipped. We multiply into a huge army, ready for action. Not for nothing, we’re called your first line of defense. We charge with one goal. To protect you."

A new short story by Shanti Chandrasekhar from our Winter 2025 issue.