“When you read a piece under 400 words that stops you in your tracks, it only makes you want to read another with such power. Fortunately, thankfully, we have Best Microfiction, which gives us a book of the best. They may be short, but the pieces will last you a year, making their way into your heart and mind—just in time for next year’s edition.”
Brian Mihok, matchbook
The following stories have been chosen by final judge Deb Olin Unferth to appear in Best Microfiction 2023. Congratulations!
- Shastri Akella, “Attaboy Louis” (CRAFT)
- Christine Arroyo, “El Deliveryboy” (Variety Pack)
- Matt Barrett, “Home” (Flash Frog)
- Matt Barrett, “The Beach” (trampset)
- Janelle Bassett, “From Yoyo” (Wigleaf)
- Patricia Q. Bidar, “Visitacion Valley, 1962” (Ghost Parachute)
- Brett Biebel, “Holy War” (Atlas and Alice)
- Jamy Bond, “Tattoos” (CHEAP POP)
- Diamond Braxton, “A Piece of You” (Stanchion)
- Mathieu Cailler, “Warmer Water” (Flash Frog)
- Tim Craig, “Cat Barbeque” (Atticus Review)
- Tommy Dean, “Knocking” (Alternating Current Press)
- Tommy Dean, “The Romantic Maneuvers of a Tilting Planet” (The Citron Review)
- Teddy Engs, “Dad Paddles In” (trampset)
- Sean Ennis, “That Vasectomy Talk” (Pithead Chapel)
- Epiphany Ferrell, “Everything Depends on the Potato” (Ghost Parachute)
- Epiphany Ferrell, “Jack and Jill’s Final Adventure” (805 Lit + Art)
- Sara Fetherolf, “Via Combusta” (Flash Boulevard)
- Kathy Fish, “A Solid Contribution” (Milk Candy Review)
- Erica Frederick, “To You When You’re Twelve and You Hate Yourself” (Split Lip)
- Jeff Friedman, “My Mother's Dress Shop” (The Fortnightly Review)
- James R. Gapinski, “Karol's Cleaners Will Clean Anything” (Ghost Parachute)
- Diane Gottlieb, “21 Allen Drive” (SmokeLong Quarterly)
- Ryan Griffith, “24 Hour Elevator” (New World Writing Quarterly)
- Tina May Hall, “The Extinction Museum #506: Home Pregnancy Test, c. early 2000s” (Big Other)
- D.E. Hardy, “What We Believed” (FlashBack Fiction)
- Candace Hartsuyker, “When You're The Contortionist” (Cleaver)
- Jeffrey Hermann, “The Deaths of the Great Lakes” (Okay Donkey Magazine)
- Sabrina Hicks, “When the Cowboy Separates the Calves for Tomorrow’s Branding” (Emerge Literary Journal)
- Sabrina Hicks, “Potential” (Stanchion)
- Bruce Johnson, “Breath” (Wigleaf)
- Shelly Jones, “A Field Guide to Prehistoric Motherhood” (Apex Magazine)
- Tucker Leighty-Phillips, “Groceries” (Moon City Review)
- Tucker Leighty-Phillips, “Mr. Boggins” (The Journal)
- Monica Louzon, “9 Dystopias” (Paranoid Tree Press)
- Nicholas Mainieri, “Snapper” (The Cincinnati Review)
- Avra Margariti, “Cure for Tears” (Pidgeonholes)
- Leila Martin, “Grease and Feathers” (Nurture: A Literary Journal)
- Kathleen McGookey, “Workshop” (New World Writing Quarterly)
- Ross McMeekin, “Tusks” (Cease, Cows)
- Frankie McMillan, “The Knife Thrower's Daughter” (The Phare)
- Janna Miller, “What Bones Cary” (Whale Road Review)
- Lynn Mundell, “Chiltepin” (Bending Genres)
- Lynn Mundell, “Centaurs in the Laundromat” (The Disappointed Housewife)
- Elizabeth Maria Naranjo, “Windows” (Fractured Lit)
- Hema Nataraju, “Her Mother, My Mother” (100 Word Story)
- Bishop V. Navarro, “The Fox” (beestung)
- Christopher Notarnicola, “Available in Standard Sizes” (The Baltimore Review)
- Judith Osilé Ohikuare, “Occur” (CHEAP POP)
- Abigail Oswald, “Selected Google Searches Regarding Peter Jackson’s King Kong” (Paranoid Tree Press)
- Pamela Painter, “An Empty Day” (Pangyrus)
- Pamela Painter, “Sorrow Everywhere” (South Florida Poetry Journal)
- Helena Pantsis, “Artificial Autonomy” (Wyldblood (Wyld Flash))
- Meghan Phillips, “The Final Girl Prepares to Watch Her Season of American Horror Story” (Wigleaf)
- Camil Piperni, “rice & sugar” (Paranoid Tree Press)
- Keith J. Powell, “Kindling” (Bending Genres)
- Marzia Rahman, “The Dream He Forgot” (The Antonym)
- Faye Rapoport DesPres, “By the Sea” (The Dribble Drabble Review)
- Leila Renee, “Alight” (Split Lip)
- Maria Robinson, “Laugh Track” (The Forge)
- Michelle Ross, “What I Owned” (Monkeybicycle)
- Michelle Ross, “Squash” (The Forge)
- C.C. Russell, “Luck/History” (takahē)
- Kristina T. Saccone, “Hardy Holds Court at the Corner Store” (Cease, Cows)
- Aureleo Sans, “banana boat” (Ghost Parachute)
- Aureleo Sans, “Stamps” (trampset)
- Jasmine Sawers, “Your Childhood Best Friend Gets Her Hands on Some Questionable Dope” (beestung)
- Slawka G. Scarso, “54.7754° N, 31.7890° E, April of 1940” (FlashBack Fiction)
- Slawka G. Scarso, “Stay as Long as You Need” (CLOVES Literary)
- E.J. Schwartz, “Warmup” (Pithead Chapel)
- Gail Louise Siegel, “What the Mirror Tells You” (MicroLit Almanac)
- Marvin Shackelford, “Long After the Long Ride into the Sunset” (Janus Literary)
- Parth Shah, “My Uncle Lived in the Future” (hex)
- Eric Scot Tryon, “I'm a Honda Odyssey, I'm a Chrysler Voyager” (Whale Road Review)
- Eric Scot Tryon, “Bone on Bone” (Fractured Lit)
- Rebecca Turkewitz, “A Queer Girl’s Guide to Reading Fairy Tales” (The Cincinnati Review)
- Evan Williams, “An Eight Foot Possum” (Heavy Feather Review)
- Evan Williams, “The Circle Is A Part of the Hole” (Heavy Feather Review)
- Francine Witte, “Owen Will Tell You” (Five South)
- Sabina Y. Wong, “Shine in Her Light” (The Citron Review)
- Douglas A. Wright, “Last Time” (Vestal Review)
- Tara Isabel Zambrano, “My Mother Visits Me in America and is Offended by What the Dishwasher Can Do” (Okay Donkey Magazine)
- Lucy Zhang, “Unstable Relationship” (Exposition Review)
