My flash fiction story “A Bird Watcher’s Guide to Malformed and Buzzing Things” earned a spot on the close-but-no-cigar shortlist shout-outs for the annual Flash Monster contest from The Molotov Cocktail! Congratulations to all the winners. I’m looking forward to reading all the winning monsters dropping this weekend in time for Halloween.

This is my third almost-but-not-quite when it comes to the quarterly contests run by The Molotov Cocktail. The publication is an awesome online literary pulp zine that publishes gorgeously-written genre flash fiction pieces that are often weird and dark. I’m a big fan, so the quarterly contests and the opportunity to submit my own work is extra joy.

I wasn’t necessarily thinking “murder hornets” when I sat down to write my story, but something of that threat was a kernel for what I eventually submitted.