Welcome to our latest newsletter. We have news, submission stuffs, Trash Family publications, Quick Reads from award nominees and a seasonal ekphrastic writing prompt.

Shortlisted pieces for the 2025 Welkin Mini

Coleman Bigelow Listen to Coleman read his story Content Warning active shooter On bended knee, he came to me. Well, it was more like an army crawl. “Get down!” he hissed. I was confused. Couldn’t …

We never walk alone at night. Never. Only stupid girls ignore that rule and we know what happens to them. If we need reminding, all we need to do is watch Dateline and listen to Keith Morrison, watch breaking news in any state any city any day. We never forget the girls’ faces. Their Bambi eyes, their yearbook grins, hair shiny as rearview mirrors. We click deadbolts, check them twice. We lock our bedroom doors at night—a lock inside of locks. We never take cocktails from strange men. We travel in packs, never leave a girl alone, never drink more than two martinis. We remember the girl who went missing last month, the ghosts of her eyes, her Chiclet smile stapled to a Starbucks bulletin board. A girl who broke the rules. It won’t be us, we say. We never walk to our cars without our keys in hand, nails flashing Kick Ass Red, metal splayed through our fingers like weapons. We are cortisol-flushed, animal eyes alert. We are ready. We never forget the rules. Until our keys are hung, our pajamas on. Until we’ve turned locks upon locks upon locks. We never see them coming. Until their whiskey breath runs hot down our necks. Until their arms slip around us, familiar as locks. Until we remember Keith Morrison, his baritone warning, it’s always the friend, the boyfriend, the husband, it’s always someone you know.   --- Kelli Short Borges writes from her home in Phoenix, Arizona. Her fiction has appeared in Peatsmoke, Moon City Review, Lost Balloon, and elsewhere. Recently, Kelli's work was chosen for the Wigleaf Top 50 longlist and the 2024 and 2025 editions of Best Microfiction. She’s currently working on her first novel.

Let’s say I never set out on that shiny Schwinn that I thought was a special present from my dad, but which turned out to be just a free ten-speed the dealer had “thrown in” with his new truck. And let’s say I wasn’t taking the bike to the tennis courts because I had no other ride. Then we can forget how I hung my tennis racket through the handbrake wires, and how the racket dropped into the front wheel as I was flying down that hill and stopped the bike dead and sent me hurtling over the handlebars. Because, if I’m not on that bike, then I’ll never land helmetless head first on the pavement and lay sprawled there for minutes trying to make sense of what’s happened until I hear car brakes and open my eyes to a find a strange woman kneeling beside my road-rashed body. And we can fast forward right past my parents’ eventual arrival at the hospital, and ignore the curses under Mom’s breath and the whiskey on Dad’s.  Actually, let’s drop the bike altogether, and imagine that my dad does drive me to the courts. And that for the entire drive, Dad talks to me about building a game plan and sticking to a strategy. And while we’re stretching things, suppose my dad stays to watch. He sits there on the bleachers in his Izod and visor and cheers for my good shots and throws his big hairy arm around my sweaty shoulders. And if Dad’s too much to ask for, then I’ll settle for making it to the match on my own. I’ll settle for winning the whole tournament, and having a scouting pro who “likes my potential” and who begs me to board at his training camp—a camp which just so happens to be far, far from home.   --- Coleman Bigelow's work has appeared recently, or is upcoming, in Brilliant Flash Fiction, Cleaver, Flash Boulevard, Ghost Parachute, Gooseberry Pie and NFFD. Find more at: www.colemanbigelow.com or follow him on Instagram @cbigswrites and Bluesky @cbigs.bsky.social.

Let’s say I never set out on that shiny Schwinn that I thought was a special present from my dad, but which turned out to be just a free ten-speed the dealer had “thrown in” with his new truck. And let’s say I wasn’t taking the bike to the tennis courts because I had no other ride. Then we can forget how I hung my tennis racket through the handbrake wires, and how the racket dropped into the front wheel as I was flying down that hill and stopped the bike dead and sent me hurtling over the handlebars. Because, if I’m not on that bike, then I’ll never land helmetless head first on the pavement and lay sprawled there for minutes trying to make sense of what’s happened until I hear car brakes and open my eyes to a find a strange woman kneeling beside my road-rashed body. And we can fast forward right past my parents’ eventual arrival at the hospital, and ignore the curses under Mom’s breath and the whiskey on Dad’s.  Actually, let’s drop the bike altogether, and imagine that my dad does drive me to the courts. And that for the entire drive, Dad talks to me about building a game plan and sticking to a strategy. And while we’re stretching things, suppose my dad stays to watch. He sits there on the bleachers in his Izod and visor and cheers for my good shots and throws his big hairy arm around my sweaty shoulders. And if Dad’s too much to ask for, then I’ll settle for making it to the match on my own. I’ll settle for winning the whole tournament, and having a scouting pro who “likes my potential” and who begs me to board at his training camp—a camp which just so happens to be far, far from home.   --- Coleman Bigelow's work has appeared recently, or is upcoming, in Brilliant Flash Fiction, Cleaver, Flash Boulevard, Ghost Parachute, Gooseberry Pie and NFFD. Find more at: www.colemanbigelow.com or follow him on Instagram @cbigswrites and Bluesky @cbigs.bsky.social.