Wigleaf

Big thank you to SmokeLong for challenging us to commit to two weeks of reading and sharing daily flash. Diving into @wigleaf.bsky.social's archive has been both inspiring and rewarding. <3

Not quite sure if yesterday or today was the last day of the @smokelong.bsky.social Archive Challenge, so JUST TO BE SAFE here's a little one from the @wigleaf.bsky.social Hint Fiction issue by Ben White
wigleaf.com/201008ied.htm

Today's @smokelong.bsky.social Archive Challenge story (the last?) from @wigleaf.bsky.social is this tiny little one by @kimchinquee.bsky.social

Maybe it's bc my parents listened to REO Speedwagon or bc of the particular moment it captures, but this one hits hard
wigleaf.com/201002speedw...

"Hi, Natalie," I said. "Where's Janine?"

"I ate her," Natalie said without looking in my direction.

Last day of @smokelong.bsky.social's #ArchiveChallenge

Taking it back to year one at @wigleaf.bsky.social with this agile, intricate character study by Tai Dong Huai.

wigleaf.com/200810natali...

Today's @smokelong.bsky.social Archive Challenge story from @wigleaf.bsky.social is this one from @horse-updates.bsky.social

I like the way this one uses little touches to illustrate the edges of the fuller, more complicated live of the characters
wigleaf.com/201902electr...

"Five years after that, I cried wildly with a good friend on the floor of a Radisson Blu bathroom."

The anaphora here makes the closing line twinkle all the brighter.

@martamaranda.bsky.social in '18 @wigleaf.bsky.social
@smokelong.bsky.social #ArchiveChallenge Day 13

wigleaf.com/201804five.htm

"Pancakes" from @kristintenor.bsky.social in '23 @wigleaf.bsky.social threw me right into the moment and didn't let up once.

"She doesn't know why her mother walked barefoot to the neighbor's pond that day..."

@smokelong.bsky.social #ArchiveChallenge Day 12

wigleaf.com/202301pancak...

Wrote something while on vacation and got a prize for it 🥲 thank you Wigleaf and thank you jet lag! wigleaf.com/202409sydw.htm

Today for the @smokelong.bsky.social Archive Challenge, as we journey through @wigleaf.bsky.social :

A neat little list story from Ling Ma in 2011. It's fun going back and seeing the stories big names published as they were coming up:
wigleaf.com/201110lifepl...

"A strange vibrancy came upon us—the Betta a ruby glint in the corners of our eyes."

This story of a drowning marriage by Emma Smith-Stevens in '14 @wigleaf.bsky.social so effortlessly laces metaphor with meaning.

@smokelong.bsky.social #ArchiveChallenge Day 11

wigleaf.com/201409august...

BIG CONGRATS 2025 MythicPicnic winners, Sophie Hoss and @stephanieyu.bsky.social 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Still doing the @smokelong.bsky.social Archive Challenge bc art doesn't stop for fascism!

This one in @wigleaf.bsky.social is a classic from @roxanegay.bsky.social back in 2012. You know how the best apocalypse movies have that one image that stays with you? This is THAT
wigleaf.com/201203as.htm

I've lost track of what day we're on for the @smokelong.bsky.social Archive Challenge...

This one from @wigleaf.bsky.social is a bit more recent, by @katetooley.bsky.social. The lyrical language creates a mist of ambiguity, like looking at a streetlamp through fog
wigleaf.com/202301bodies...

"I have told her a thousand times that we are not all heading, every second, toward some quiet epiphany."

Such a fan of this quiet, introspective, meta, story from @rebekahbergman.bsky.social in '21 @wigleaf.bsky.social

@smokelong.bsky.social #ArchiveChallenge

wigleaf.com/202104everyt...

Day 8 of @smokelong.bsky.social's #ArchiveChallenge

Love this glum + grotesque + rather beautiful story from @aubreyhirsch.bsky.social in '16 @wigleaf.bsky.social

"...at night it pooled around her like spilled milk that could not be un-spilled."

wigleaf.com/201612place....

A whole week of @smokelong.bsky.social #ArchiveChallenge!

"The air above me illuminates like sections of code I've been working on."

This eerie piece by Tara Isabel Zambrano in '17 @wigleaf.bsky.social reminds me of Severance + the horror of time passing in cubicles.

wigleaf.com/201711cubes....

Happy Wigleaf Day!

Just been reading some of these - top choices from Wigleaf 👏👏👏

Congratulations, everyone! 💚✨💚

#WigleafTop502025

new on our mainpage: THE WIGLEAF TOP 50 VERY SHORT FICTIONS 2025 (selecting editor @samanito.bsky.social )

One of my real favs ❤️ (speaking as Scott, not Wigleaf!)

"The lump in my throat tastes like overripe mangoes—the ones that are on the precipice of rotting."

Love Hema Nataraju's sensory imagery + young narrator who knows and doesn't know what it all means. @wigleaf.bsky.social

Day 4 @smokelong.bsky.social #ArchiveChallenge

wigleaf.com/202103mangoe...

Update on Mythic Picnic prizes! Winners to be announced next week (reason: you know life).

For Day 3 of the @smokelong.bsky.social Archive Challenge, here's another one from @wigleaf.bsky.social, this time from 2021:

I love this one from @nairarw.bsky.social for the way each segment reveals a new layer of meaning, like an onion
wigleaf.com/202111men.htm

Day 3 of the @smokelong.bsky.social #ArchiveChallenge and I'm really into the passage of time and cyclical ending in this surreal story by Renée Jessica Tan in @wigleaf.bsky.social

"A decade goes by. Toddlers in the sandbox become smoking teenagers on the swings."

wigleaf.com/202209expect...

"Just a little tongue is what you see at every syllable, its tip harnessed between two tidy rows, white as unmarked graves."

Read this 2011 piece by Carissa Halston in @wigleaf.bsky.social over and over—each line a tiny parcel.

@smokelong.bsky.social #ArchiveChallenge

wigleaf.com/201101girls....

Day two @smokelong.bsky.social #ArchiveChallenge
The VOICE in Donna D. Vitucci's "If Not for the Time" @wigleaf.bsky.social

"I've lived in the desert, got lost there and found there, too. How can that be, you're asking, lost and found in the same one place? It happens."

wigleaf.com/201011ifnot....

We were so excited that Gerardo was up for it!!!

Super honored to have worked with the truly lovely @laughingyeti.bsky.social and this great group of readers. So much amazing work out there 😍

DAY 2 OF THE @smokelong.bsky.social CHALLENGE

From the @wigleaf.bsky.social archives, this little stunner from 2017 by @jacqdoyle.bsky.social. I teach this regularly in workshops to show how a micro doesn't have to be about "plot" but can still be all about what happens.
wigleaf.com/201709darlin...