Flight: A Literary Sampler
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flightlit.bsky.social
Flight: A Literary Sampler
@flightlit.bsky.social
860 followers 2.8K following 120 posts
A literary journal presenting four pieces in each issue, a sampling of the best writing out there. EICs: @fklein907.bsky.social and @ketchiklein.bsky.social

https://flight-literary.ghost.io/
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flightlit.bsky.social
You heard it here! Duotrope says we’re speedy!
A screenshot of a duotrope listing that says Statistics Synopsis—Faster Flight's overall average response time is faster than most magazines.
October 17, 2025 at 3:02 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
Bartleby the Scrivener ass response to our submission questions:
A google form where the response to the question "Pronouns" is I/Me and the response to "Cover Letter" is I'd rather not.
October 3, 2025 at 3:08 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
Happy Saturday! Send us writing that feels like a kitten in a hotdog costume!

Guidelines here: flight-literary.ghost.io/submission-g...
A picture of a black kitten wearing a hotdog costume. The kitten does not look amused
September 27, 2025 at 8:18 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
Every editorial conversation devolves quickly into small town gossip
Received text: You joke, but it just reminds me of another complaint I have: The hunky guy is a conspiracy theorist, but this in no way impacts his character or personality. It's like he collects stamps. Sent text: Counterpoint: I work with one of the Bigfoot brothers and he is a very normal person otherwise Received text: Who are the bigfoot brothers?
September 20, 2025 at 6:08 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
Saturday writing prompt!

1. Go to your bookshelf and pull the first red book you see

2. Turn to page 140

3. Choose a line of dialogue from the page and use it as the first line of a flash piece
A bookshelf, with the Louise Erdrich book LaRose Pulled out A section of page 140 of LaRose, with the ljne “could a Saint kill for love” highlighted
September 13, 2025 at 6:17 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
We're on chillsubs! You can track your submissions to Flight, share our info with your writer friends, and see when we're open!
A chillsubs website listing for Flight: A Literary Sampler
September 7, 2025 at 4:40 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
Caption this:
A picture of a black kitten sitting at the kitchen table with just its head poking up. Next to it is an adult man looking at the kitten like he’s listening to it
September 6, 2025 at 6:29 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
We spy 👀

Flight: a Literary Sampler on duotrope!

We’re open for submissions, and can’t wait to read your work!

Read our guidelines: flight-literary.ghost.io/submission-g...
September 1, 2025 at 3:36 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
We spy 👀

Flight: a Literary Sampler on duotrope!

We’re open for submissions, and can’t wait to read your work!

Read our guidelines: flight-literary.ghost.io/submission-g...
September 1, 2025 at 3:36 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
Up early reading submissions with my favorite assistant editor—Flight 2 is open for submissions in all genres!
A picture of a laptop open to submission guidelines, in front of it is a black kitten with yellow eyes
August 31, 2025 at 3:43 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
Day 30 of the #sealeychallenge

August 30th- Book of Extraction, Adrian Dallas Frandle

This collection from @kithbooks.bsky.social by @adrianf.bsky.social covers a lot of ground while also being tightly focused—an impressive feat to say the least
The cover of book of extraction by Adrian Dallas frandle Lingual Liturgy Tongue, what's your role in the middle of all this wetness? You're all muscle, should you not provide some defenses, or are these enemies so sneaky they secreted past your probing? Do you trust them amidst this jagged decay, among all the treasonousness? You've got to work with me to be more careful about who and what we let in. I've long suspected the body of marshaling hidden forces to work against us (that's you and me, Tongue). The philosopher-fool of this loose kingdom. The Royal Exchequer, that brainiac upstairs, absolutely zero assistance. Organ of speech, you whose buds are never blooming, how can you compete for territory with kings? How your singing offends them.
August 31, 2025 at 1:23 AM
flightlit.bsky.social
Only 12 hours until Flight 1 lands and submissions open!
A picture of a flight of four beers
August 30, 2025 at 5:57 AM
flightlit.bsky.social
Day 29 of the #sealeychallenge

August 29th- Ragnarok at the Father-Daughter Dance, Todd Dillard

Not only is this @variantlit.bsky.social collection beautiful, but the poems inside have humor and heft in a way that many poets strive for but don’t quite reach

@toddedillard.bsky.social
The cover of the Todd Dillard book Ragnarok at the father daughter dance I Scrubbed Blood from the Walls and unscrewed cell bars from ceilings at my new job as a haunted house cleaner that November after you died. Where lightning pummeled breath into corpse lungs, I detongued exam tables of their leather straps, I broke down plasma lamps, broomed away clouds of spider webs. No more screams, just the roar of vacuums and carpet shampooers lowing as claw mark stickers curled like leeches in their bucket. Fresh paint, new furniture, Clorox wipes where witches once dragged fingers and of course I thought: "We could build a life here. We could live together again like this," me on the couch reading the same books, you trying on every shade of daylight and asking which suits you best. Noon, I would've said. Because you're gone and it's so bright. Because sometimes when I break for lunch, light striking my head like a poltergeist, I admire the shadows under my feet pooling like a hole I have just crawled out of, one I will fall into again.
August 29, 2025 at 2:53 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
Assistant Editor Tiny Elvis is here to warn you about the dangers of reading near the bath…sometimes you fall in
A picture of a small, all black kitten wrapped in a towel after falling, in a very undignified manner, into a full bathtub
August 29, 2025 at 2:33 AM
flightlit.bsky.social
Day 28 of the #sealeychallenge

August 28th- I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times, Taylor Byas

We always love an excuse to revisit this collection by @taylorbyas.bsky.social , but did you know her new book came out this week? Obviously you need both
The cover of the Taylor Byas book I done clicked my heels three times When the Air-Conditioning Breaks We discover home-grown auto-tune and yawp our Vaselined lips mere inches from the box fan's lattice—the flowered blades compute and swap our breaths for robot, monotone. When our friends sardine the porch and ask, Y'all coming out? we let the screen door boomerang back to chop the wooden frame, our dizzy laughter cutting out our grandmother's kitchen edict-Close that door and stop letting my air out this house. All bark, no bite. When we return, our shadows race the sunset back to the earth. Inside, we doff our white tank tops and blue jean shorts, our naked silhouettes like trophies welded in summer's afterburn, hot metal cooling to things for her to love—to spurn.
August 28, 2025 at 2:26 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
Day 27 of the #sealeychallenge

August 27th- Works and Days, Dean Rader

This book of poems by @deanrader.bsky.social was so influential to me when I first started writing—the work he does with form and erasure blew me away
The cover of the dean rader book works and days Talking Points [Love Poem) • And the way the light crawls up the side of the sky at dawn; • the room the sky] when you open the curtains after a long morning in bed; • the sun splashing on the sheets [a bowl of lightning;]; • a flame: your face: the palms of Jesus in an El Greco painting; • and the way the stars in their wool coats shine inward; • the time I drew back your blouse [&] [kissed the light of your skin); • the light crashing down your spine; • the light curving [off) the curve of your hip; • the light from the , the light in your mouth; • the light on your body that says (this way];
August 27, 2025 at 2:52 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
Day 26 of the #sealeychallenge

August 26th- Magdalene, Marie Howe

This is a great example of a poetry collection that has an organizing theme or principle, but doesn’t always strictly adhere to it, inviting reader engagement
The cover of the Marie Howe book Magdalene How the Story Started 3 "N I was driven toward desire by desire. inte Mag of N embe a cor raisir radic past tor o her s deat spiri a wo own in th believing that the fulfillment of that desire was an end. There was no end. Others might have looked into the future and seen a shape inside the coming years - a house, a child, a man who might be a help. I saw his back bent over what he was working on, the back of his neck, how he stood in his sneakers, and wanted to eat him. How could I see another person, I mean who he was —apart from me-apart from that
August 26, 2025 at 2:35 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
You can learn more about Rita and her work here: www.ritamookerjee.com/about-rita

And read a recent poem from Poetry Northwest here:
August 26, 2025 at 2:26 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
Day 25 of the #sealeychallenge

August 25th- You Better Be Lightning, Andrea Gibson

One thing that I don't think is talked about enough in the well-deserved accolades of Gibson's work is their mastery of both the very long and the very short poem.

@buttonpoetry.bsky.social
The cover of the Andrea Gibson book You Better Be Lightning No Such Thing as the Innocent Bystander- Silence rides shotgun wherever hate goes.
August 25, 2025 at 2:24 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
Your Sunday moment of zen courtesy of Flight editor @fklein907.bsky.social
August 24, 2025 at 10:50 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
Day 24 of the #sealeychallenge

August 24th- War of the Foxes, Richard Siken

I have re-read the second collection by Richard Siken a few times now, and each time I come away impressed by his clear and consistent poetic voice
The cover of the Richard siken book war of the foxes STILL LIFE WITH SKULLS AND BACON A thing and a thing and a thing held still you have to hold something still to find the other things. This is speculation. You will die in your sleep and leave everything unfinished. This is also speculation. I had obligations: hope, but hope negates the experience. I owe myself nothing. I cut off my head and threw it on the ground. I walked away. This is how we measure, walking away. We carve up the world into feet and minutes, to know how far from home, how many hogs in the yard. My head just sat there. Fair enough. A map without landmarks is useless. Science dreams its dreams of knowledge-names it, pokes it with equations. The crucial thing is not fifty times whatever but how we got these notions: how much, how many, how far, how long. It's good to give explicit answers, showing all the steps, necessary and sufficient. Finding the dots, connecting the dots. An interrogation of the dots. A pip, a point, a seed, a stone. This is philosophy. These are suppositions. If one has no apples, one has zero apples. There is, you see, no shortage of open problems. We carve up the world and crown it with numbers-lumens, ounces, decibels. All these things and what to do with them. We carve up the world all the time.
August 24, 2025 at 9:03 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
Day 23 of the #sealeychallenge

August 23rd- How to Play, Katie Manning

This chapbook by @katiemanningpoet.bsky.social from features poems inspired by games of childhood, a perfect nostalgia for the end of summer
The cover of the Katie manning book how to play, poems inspired by games YOU ALWAYS LET ME WIN AT CANDYLAND I never knew you were cheating, but Mom said you were going to make me a bad sport. If you could speak now, what would you say? I just loved to see you happy. No, you'd still say love— present-cigarettes and coffee on your breath. And you'd play love so I would be the one to find it, like our favorite card-the layered ice cream bar that never melts.
August 23, 2025 at 5:19 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
Day 22 of the #sealeychallenge

August 22nd- Shared Blood, Luke Wortley

This collection of prose poems from @lukewortley.bsky.social and @gnashing-teeth.bsky.social feels surreal and magical and true all at once
The cover of the Luke Wortley book Shared Blood Monster My son and I are on a hike. I'm tying my son's shoes when a monster crawls out of the woods and devours us whole. We barely avoid the teeth on the way down its gullet, slipping painfully into the cavernous stomach. We wander around for hours until we hear a rumbling above. Throughout the next few days, the monster swallows another father and son followed by still more pairs of fathers and sons. Until we populate the bottom of the stomach and whisper greetings to each other, decide that, yes, this is our life now, and we'd better make the most of it. So, we build a city in the stomach and listen for the soft rumbling here and there that means our population has grown. On my way to the grocery store, I befriend another father named Marcus, who affectionately changes my name every time I see him in the weeks to come. I never correct him. We share beer and watch our sons play together in the park. It suddenly occurs to us that we haven't heard the rumbling since we met. We awkwardly part ways after a few looks upward toward the mammoth throat. The city goes quiet, all the traffic stops, and the slow silence sets in. Nobody talks for weeks after that, and everyone stays in their spacious, modern apartments, not venturing out except to go to the store, and even then, everything is done quietly, the only blips of sound ringing out of the cash registers. The quiet drags on, and eventually we all forget each other's names. One day, we hear the rumbling above and cheer wildly.
August 22, 2025 at 3:40 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
And here’s Big Hungry Joe, known to his friends in the literary world as Bubba
A picture of a sleepy orange cat lying on a bed on its back with his legs in the air
August 22, 2025 at 2:07 PM
flightlit.bsky.social
Day 21 of the #sealeychallenge

August 21st- Larks, Han Vanderhart

It would be reductive to say that @hanvanderhart.bsky.social is “just” writing about grief and complex family dynamics in these poems, which bristle with detail and embodied place
The cover of the Han Vanderhart book Larks When My Grandmother Barbara Jean Was Dying, My Mother Sat on Her Bed and Played "House of the Rising Sun" on Her Guitar Because It Was the Only Song She Knew And this is also ekphrasis: the song plucked out of the guitar, held on a child's lap, sat on a sickbed. My mother shaping the air around herself and her mother: a small rain of notes. There is a house in New Orleans, she strummed not knowing her mother was dying. My mother, with her short hair and tomboy name, beside her mother, who went by Bobbie. Bobbie with her hair that waves like mine, resists the clip that holds it back. Don't wish your life away, my mother still says, words her mother, shadow-sick, said. If a person is a museum of rooms they've visited, inside my mother is a room with a bed, a guitar, and her mother who is not dying, only resting. It is called the rising sun.
August 22, 2025 at 12:30 AM