About MicroLit Almanac

Welcome to MicroLit, an online literary magazine. Every few weeks, we’ll publish innovative flash fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

We hold up fostering community as necessary: a world-building endeavor focused on loving responsibility in a realm that asks much of us. Our creative actions flow, form, and sustain a community built on diversity and inclusion.

MicroLit accepts submissions twice a year. Details will be announced in Fall 2024.

Submissions closed.

Submission Guidelines

Birch Bark Editing 11/7/24 Birch Bark Editing 11/7/24

A Salvage Operation by Sue Repko

I am in a dentist’s chair in July, watching a plane make two parallel lines across a clear blue New England sky, as that racy heart-feeling from local anesthesia kicks in.

Birch Bark Editing 10/23/24 Birch Bark Editing 10/23/24

Queen of Everything by Valerie Fox

When inventing a religion, be sure to include laser-focused, arch eyes, at least if you want your religion to have a God, a catechism, etc.

Birch Bark Editing 10/9/24 Birch Bark Editing 10/9/24

For My Sons, Who are Convinced We’re All Screwed by Craig Holt

Guys, I love you but I have bad news: we are all fucked by Time as surely as we are by our wireless internet providers. And during the flicker and fade of our brief lives we will burn too much time sorting laundry and navigating the labyrinthine phone trees of insurance companies who make billions betting on our mortality.

Birch Bark Editing 9/25/24 Birch Bark Editing 9/25/24

The Old Man and the Light Bulb by V. Hansmann

I am an old man in HomeDepot and I want a lightbulb.

Birch Bark Editing 9/10/24 Birch Bark Editing 9/10/24

Thumbs by Roger D’Agostin

Twiddling your thumbs doesn’t get you high.

Birch Bark Editing 9/4/24 Birch Bark Editing 9/4/24

Wisdom of Butterflies by Jean Janicke

a small girl’s shadow...

Birch Bark Editing 8/28/24 Birch Bark Editing 8/28/24

Educated by Becky Jo Gesteland

I perceived the irony of the not-so-subtle message that went out in that gift-giving gesture from the family matriarch

Birch Bark Editing 8/21/24 Birch Bark Editing 8/21/24

Dead Poet’s Eulogy by Les Schofield

Surely as poets write…

Birch Bark Editing 8/14/24 Birch Bark Editing 8/14/24

Instructions for Living by Heidi Barr

No one can tell another
how to live–so be wary
of anybody selling that particular
brand of promise. There is no way
you'll get your money's worth.

Birch Bark Editing 7/31/24 Birch Bark Editing 7/31/24

Molasses by Wendy BooydeGraaff

Molasses. Slow as. Trickles out the bolted spots, rivets thick with sticky sweet, thin steel buckling.

Still, it stands.

Birch Bark Editing 7/24/24 Birch Bark Editing 7/24/24

Poem Addressed to a Young Master at the Piano by Susan Smith

I watch you disappear, slight figure severe in concert black, sucked into that black immensity,

Birch Bark Editing 7/17/24 Birch Bark Editing 7/17/24

Listening to the Wind Like a Dry Ocean Outside My Window by Gail Hosking

I feel without direction or certainty. Raw and vulnerable. Out of sorts. In a fog. Mournful. Call it what you will.

Birch Bark Editing 7/4/24 Birch Bark Editing 7/4/24

Dandelions are Weeds by Sara Kempfer

You’re four years old visiting your dad at the castle that grownups call the social services building. A nice lady named Mrs. Chen usually plays with your dad and you, but she gets up and leaves the room.

Birch Bark Editing 6/20/24 Birch Bark Editing 6/20/24

On the Taxonomical Classification of Dollar General as a Keystone Species* by Briar Hyssop

I fly amongst swarms of
black and yellow lines between
bent-necked trees and church parking lots

Birch Bark Editing 6/6/24 Birch Bark Editing 6/6/24

Daddy, Can We Go Ride the Rides? by Sharon Waters

I preferred avoiding crowds from the early days of my life.

Birch Bark Editing 5/30/24 Birch Bark Editing 5/30/24

Late Afternoon In An Ontario Orchard by Maria Claire Leng

To an apple in an orchard blue,
The sky’s a copper green,
Cloistered crimson honeycombs,
You’re recherché in elk-en tree.

Birch Bark Editing 5/23/24 Birch Bark Editing 5/23/24

Indulgence by Jane C. Elkin

Indulgence

My mother grunts like a greedy infant at the breast as the hospice health aide massages lotion into her flaky feet, her pleasure so audible it drowns out The Eternal Word Television Network she insists on playing 24/7 until the lesions on her brain claim her.

Birch Bark Editing 5/9/24 Birch Bark Editing 5/9/24

The Opihi Shell Necklace Hidden in My Mother’s Closet by Melissa Llanes Brownlee

I know there are hidden spaces in my mother’s closet I can’t reach.

Birch Bark Editing 4/25/24 Birch Bark Editing 4/25/24

Karina by Terry Huff

I walk where Karina’s path began, certain
that her vision became clear as her name
framed in concrete, like a Hollywood star.

Birch Bark Editing 4/11/24 Birch Bark Editing 4/11/24

The Raw and the Crocked by Andre F. Peltier

To live and die in Lynchburg,
Mad Jack sang his song as he
waved a bloody shirt.