The Molotov Cocktail is an online journal that publishes dark, weird, pulpy, wonderful flash fiction. They also run quarterly flash fiction contests. Flash Monster 2019 is currently accepting submissions through October 20, 2019.

Once a year, The Molotov Cocktail dabbles in dark poetry with the Shadow Award. I’ve been entering most of their contests for the past two years and this year I submitted two entries and a total of four poems to the Shadow Award. I didn’t place, but one of my entries landed me on the coveted “Close-but-no-cigar” short list!

I’m very happy about this honor and I choose to view it as an indicator that my poetry is steadily improving. I was surprised by “Burning Baby” and “The Pretty Men” when I first wrote them, and I’m excited—and a little creeped out—about where my speculative poetry is leading me.

But now it’s time to write some flash fiction about monsters…