Arthur Mandal
@arthurmandal.bsky.social
Brit/US writer of uncanny fiction. Best Small Fictions 2025. Over 30 stories in The Barcelona Review, LITRO, Southeast Review, The Forge, The Los Angeles Review and others. @nightjarpress Based in Eugene, Oregon (but grew up in UK). www.arthurmandal.com
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Prose: “The End of Craftsmanship,” by Arthur Mandal
He has been living on the edge of the desert for nearly fourteen years. There is very little to distract him. A truck stop and a gas station, about a mile down the road. A small strip of shops a fu…
euphonyjournal.org
Although it’s Halloween, I’m afraid the flash fiction piece I’m sharing is not even remotely supernatural. Apologies in advance. It’s called “The End of Craftmanship”, and just came out in the Euphony Journal. euphonyjournal.org/2025/10/22/p...
Sharing this haunting micro-fiction by Cheryl Pappas @cherylpappas.bsky.social , an American poet based in Boston. I think it moved me partly because it reminded me of William Carlos Williams, and also that poem by Heaney (if you know it), “Midterm Break”. Beautifully sad piece.
November 8, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Sharing this haunting micro-fiction by Cheryl Pappas @cherylpappas.bsky.social , an American poet based in Boston. I think it moved me partly because it reminded me of William Carlos Williams, and also that poem by Heaney (if you know it), “Midterm Break”. Beautifully sad piece.
In one week: a librarian friend says she barely reads six books a year; a writer friend’s pre-orders are dismal; half of U.S. 18–25s “hardly read” at all. Are we in a post-book world—definitively, or just a lull before rediscovery? These days I feel more like a handloom weaver than a fiction writer.
November 4, 2025 at 7:17 PM
In one week: a librarian friend says she barely reads six books a year; a writer friend’s pre-orders are dismal; half of U.S. 18–25s “hardly read” at all. Are we in a post-book world—definitively, or just a lull before rediscovery? These days I feel more like a handloom weaver than a fiction writer.
Although it’s Halloween, I’m afraid the flash fiction piece I’m sharing is not even remotely supernatural. Apologies in advance. It’s called “The End of Craftmanship”, and just came out in the Euphony Journal. euphonyjournal.org/2025/10/22/p...
Prose: “The End of Craftsmanship,” by Arthur Mandal
He has been living on the edge of the desert for nearly fourteen years. There is very little to distract him. A truck stop and a gas station, about a mile down the road. A small strip of shops a fu…
euphonyjournal.org
October 30, 2025 at 11:32 PM
Although it’s Halloween, I’m afraid the flash fiction piece I’m sharing is not even remotely supernatural. Apologies in advance. It’s called “The End of Craftmanship”, and just came out in the Euphony Journal. euphonyjournal.org/2025/10/22/p...
I’m following the dark, precise cinema of Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvilli. I recently watched “April” (2024), a tale of a doctor doing local abortions. There is “Beginning” (2020), about a Christian evangelical church. She films with absolute, spellbinding control. mubi.com/en/qa/films/...
April (2024) | MUBI
Nina, an obstetrician-gynecologist working in the only hospital of a provincial town in Georgia, is unconditionally devoted to her patients, even if that means crossing the line legally or socially. B...
mubi.com
October 28, 2025 at 7:27 PM
I’m following the dark, precise cinema of Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvilli. I recently watched “April” (2024), a tale of a doctor doing local abortions. There is “Beginning” (2020), about a Christian evangelical church. She films with absolute, spellbinding control. mubi.com/en/qa/films/...
This week’s writer is Mehreen Ahmed, a gifted Bangladeshi-born novelist now based in Australia. Won multiple prizes. I’m reading her Incandescence (2023) and really enjoying it—maybe because I visited Dhaka 3 years ago and recognise some of the places. www.goodreads.com/book/show/64...
Incandescence
New ISBN: 978-1915819048 Incandescence is a novel abou…
www.goodreads.com
October 25, 2025 at 7:53 PM
This week’s writer is Mehreen Ahmed, a gifted Bangladeshi-born novelist now based in Australia. Won multiple prizes. I’m reading her Incandescence (2023) and really enjoying it—maybe because I visited Dhaka 3 years ago and recognise some of the places. www.goodreads.com/book/show/64...
Photos from Berlin – die schoenste Stadt der Welt.
October 23, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Photos from Berlin – die schoenste Stadt der Welt.
My short story “Hymn to Sri Devi” came out last week in Catamaran (link in first comment). I’m sharing a photo of the first page – sorry I can’t share the whole thing. Honored to be on the same cover as Percival Everett.
October 19, 2025 at 3:04 PM
My short story “Hymn to Sri Devi” came out last week in Catamaran (link in first comment). I’m sharing a photo of the first page – sorry I can’t share the whole thing. Honored to be on the same cover as Percival Everett.
I thought I was numb to Epstein stuff by now, but this one really hit. Not just that the woman who wrote it killed herself, or that predators target working-class women with family trauma—but that their clients will die peacefully in their beds. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
‘Prince Andrew believed having sex with me was his birthright’: Virginia Giuffre on her abuse at the hands of Epstein, Maxwell and the king’s brother
In an extract from her posthumous memoir, Virginia Roberts Giuffre remembers the day an ‘apex predator’ recruited her from Mar-a-Lago, aged just 16; how she was trafficked to a succession of wealthy a...
www.theguardian.com
October 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM
I thought I was numb to Epstein stuff by now, but this one really hit. Not just that the woman who wrote it killed herself, or that predators target working-class women with family trauma—but that their clients will die peacefully in their beds. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
As Western societies politically unravel, I wonder about the future of horror—which always relied on First World “normality” to create its weirdness and angst. Now that such stability (which never really existed elsewhere) is dissolving, how will we scare ourselves when so many are scared already?
October 13, 2025 at 5:53 PM
As Western societies politically unravel, I wonder about the future of horror—which always relied on First World “normality” to create its weirdness and angst. Now that such stability (which never really existed elsewhere) is dissolving, how will we scare ourselves when so many are scared already?
Sharing one of my favourite short stories this week—from perhaps the greatest Turkish writer of the 20th century, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar. A gentle, sharp satire on Turkey’s modernization. Brilliant translation by film critic Fatih Ozguven. wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...
wordswithoutborders.org
October 10, 2025 at 4:32 AM
Sharing one of my favourite short stories this week—from perhaps the greatest Turkish writer of the 20th century, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar. A gentle, sharp satire on Turkey’s modernization. Brilliant translation by film critic Fatih Ozguven. wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...
Had three short fictions accepted in @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social today. In other news: Karen Schauber from Vancouver Flash Fiction kindly asked me to provide a “writing tip” for their FB page, so here it is. It’s not Seneca or La Rochefoucauld, but you’re getting it for free so don’t complain.
October 6, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Had three short fictions accepted in @thebrusselsreview.bsky.social today. In other news: Karen Schauber from Vancouver Flash Fiction kindly asked me to provide a “writing tip” for their FB page, so here it is. It’s not Seneca or La Rochefoucauld, but you’re getting it for free so don’t complain.
Huge congratulations to Imogen Reid @imogenreid.bsky.social for getting her story “Fabrication” into Best British Short Stories 2025 alongside Ian Critchley, Alison Moore, Pippa Goldschmidt and others. Will definitely buy a copy when I’m back in the UK.
September 30, 2025 at 7:43 PM
Huge congratulations to Imogen Reid @imogenreid.bsky.social for getting her story “Fabrication” into Best British Short Stories 2025 alongside Ian Critchley, Alison Moore, Pippa Goldschmidt and others. Will definitely buy a copy when I’m back in the UK.
More photos from Turkey - this time eastern Turkey. 1/2
September 26, 2025 at 9:30 PM
More photos from Turkey - this time eastern Turkey. 1/2
Just watched the indie horror Milk & Serial (2024). Started half-bored, ended impressed: yes, some formulaic turns, but the young director nails the atmosphere and gives us a genuinely disturbing protagonist. Strange age when a phone can outdo a $50m studio. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbzG...
MILK & SERIAL (FOUND FOOTAGE HORROR FILM)
YouTube video by that's a bad idea
www.youtube.com
September 22, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Just watched the indie horror Milk & Serial (2024). Started half-bored, ended impressed: yes, some formulaic turns, but the young director nails the atmosphere and gives us a genuinely disturbing protagonist. Strange age when a phone can outdo a $50m studio. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbzG...
Beautiful piece by the California poet Natalie Marino this week. I loved how the closing lines of this text communicate through images the remembered bigness of everything in childhood without actually saying it.
September 15, 2025 at 6:32 PM
Beautiful piece by the California poet Natalie Marino this week. I loved how the closing lines of this text communicate through images the remembered bigness of everything in childhood without actually saying it.
A short fiction of mine, “On the Outside of Something”, came out in the Southeast Review this week. @southeastreview.bsky.social . www.southeastreview.org/single-post/...
Fiction by Arthur Mandal
On the Outside of Something When the couple came to lease her studio, she could see they were rich. There was a…a…what was it? A languor…in the way they talked, the way they sat and stood and yawned, ...
www.southeastreview.org
September 9, 2025 at 6:30 PM
A short fiction of mine, “On the Outside of Something”, came out in the Southeast Review this week. @southeastreview.bsky.social . www.southeastreview.org/single-post/...
The peer I’m sharing this week is Megan A. Schikora, a Michigan writer based in Michigan who has a novel out next year. The story below will resonate with anyone who’s had to negotiate the odd, sometimes awkward space of the children’s playground. frictionlit.org/sticks-and-s...
Sticks and Stones - F(r)iction
“Mom?”For the last half an hour, the magnetic building blocks spread across our living room floor have completely engrossed Kate. Now, she looks up from them as if snapping from...
frictionlit.org
September 5, 2025 at 6:33 PM
The peer I’m sharing this week is Megan A. Schikora, a Michigan writer based in Michigan who has a novel out next year. The story below will resonate with anyone who’s had to negotiate the odd, sometimes awkward space of the children’s playground. frictionlit.org/sticks-and-s...
I’ve tried a couple of Rachel Cusk novels in the past and not been able to get very far. I’m a quarter of the way into this one – “Outline” – and its odd, monotone, weirdly detached narrator has me absolutely hooked.
September 2, 2025 at 6:45 PM
I’ve tried a couple of Rachel Cusk novels in the past and not been able to get very far. I’m a quarter of the way into this one – “Outline” – and its odd, monotone, weirdly detached narrator has me absolutely hooked.
We visited Brighton in the UK for a couple of days in the summer. I had Graham Greene on my mind, and tried my hardest to find the seedy, dilapidated, fifties seaside resort – but to no avail. Tescos, organic cafés, overpriced wine bars and ubiquitous London English was my superficial impression.
September 1, 2025 at 7:39 PM
We visited Brighton in the UK for a couple of days in the summer. I had Graham Greene on my mind, and tried my hardest to find the seedy, dilapidated, fifties seaside resort – but to no avail. Tescos, organic cafés, overpriced wine bars and ubiquitous London English was my superficial impression.
Finally got my paper copy of the Quarterl(y) journal today. When a suitable stretch of time has passed, I’ll share the complete story. Many thanks to Chris Smith for accepting the piece. @quarterpress.bsky.social
August 26, 2025 at 5:30 AM
Finally got my paper copy of the Quarterl(y) journal today. When a suitable stretch of time has passed, I’ll share the complete story. Many thanks to Chris Smith for accepting the piece. @quarterpress.bsky.social
One of my favourite stories: Raymond Carver’s Cathedral. A masterclass in turning a grumpy, unlikeable narrator into the vehicle of an epiphany. I read it reluctantly a year ago, but it pulled me in like a black hole—into its dark, silent centre. thelondonmagazine.org/cathedral-by...
Archive | Cathedral by Raymond Carver - The London Magazine
From the archives, this short story by Raymond Carver originally appeared in the February 1984 edition of The London Magazine.
thelondonmagazine.org
August 17, 2025 at 7:47 PM
One of my favourite stories: Raymond Carver’s Cathedral. A masterclass in turning a grumpy, unlikeable narrator into the vehicle of an epiphany. I read it reluctantly a year ago, but it pulled me in like a black hole—into its dark, silent centre. thelondonmagazine.org/cathedral-by...
Last year I got a tax refund from the US gov for $1,400. We spent it straightaway. This week, I got another letter, saying this had been an error and, with no trace of an apology, demanding immediate repayment with a self-addressed envelope for the purpose. It’s the little things that count, right?
August 11, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Last year I got a tax refund from the US gov for $1,400. We spent it straightaway. This week, I got another letter, saying this had been an error and, with no trace of an apology, demanding immediate repayment with a self-addressed envelope for the purpose. It’s the little things that count, right?
This week a curious piece that I really liked by @andrewbertaina.bsky.social Andrew Bertaina in The Forge @theforge.bsky.social . I think I was intrigued by the disparity between the calm, reflective tone of the narrator and the aggressive episodes he describes.
forgelitmag.com/2025/08/04/p...
forgelitmag.com/2025/08/04/p...
Places I’ll Never See Again - The Forge Literary Magazine
Places I’ll Never See Again, nonfiction by Andrew Bertaina
forgelitmag.com
August 5, 2025 at 10:54 PM
This week a curious piece that I really liked by @andrewbertaina.bsky.social Andrew Bertaina in The Forge @theforge.bsky.social . I think I was intrigued by the disparity between the calm, reflective tone of the narrator and the aggressive episodes he describes.
forgelitmag.com/2025/08/04/p...
forgelitmag.com/2025/08/04/p...
Tunisia, 2020. 1/2
August 1, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Tunisia, 2020. 1/2
Today I sat down by the window and spent an uninterrupted two hours just reading paper books: a Bengali short story, half an hour of Schopenhauer, a horror novel by Ramsay Campbell and a history of medieval Spanish Jews. I feel rejuvenated.
July 26, 2025 at 11:52 PM
Today I sat down by the window and spent an uninterrupted two hours just reading paper books: a Bengali short story, half an hour of Schopenhauer, a horror novel by Ramsay Campbell and a history of medieval Spanish Jews. I feel rejuvenated.