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Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

Issue 3 contributors.

L. Acadia
Mehreen Ahmed
Hilary Ayshford
Samantha Backlund-Clapp
Robin J Bartley
Lanie Brice
Chris Cottom
Ivan de Monbrison
Litsa Dremousis
David Gaffney
Ezra Gatlin
S.A. Greene
Alaina Hammond
Rachel M. Hollis
Amy Marques
Rob Moore
Jay Parr
Juanita Rey
Chris Scott
R. P. Singletary
Calla Smith
Joanna Theiss
Christina Tudor
Dominic Walsh

December 2, 2025 at 10:43 PM

Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

Also a weekend shoutout to our Pushcart, BOTN wnd Best microfiction nominations. More nominations coming soon. Full list (so far) in the link. templeinacity.com/temple-in-a-...

Best microfiction
Elizabeth Rosen, Endeavor
Slawka G. Scarso, And then she told Jack off
Sumitra Singam, You-and-Kate in a field, loving me
Vijayalakshmi Sridhar, I heard you became a father again
Huina Zheng, The pin inside my body

November 29, 2025 at 5:37 PM

Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

Remember our joy pop-up? It’s going to keep popping. We’re permanently opening subs for flashes of joy (well, as permanent as anything, which is not very but you get the idea). If we love it and it’s joyful we’ll add it to the issue. Like a little library of joy.
templeinacity.com/explore-the-...

TiaC Timely and JOY, always open
If it's great and urgent now we'll publish it under TliaC Timely without waiting for a curated issue. And if it's joyful, send it our way. It may find itself in the ongoing JOY issue.

November 25, 2025 at 10:58 PM

Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

Our nominees for the 2026 best microfictions anthology are here. The link is to all our nominations so far, with more to come so keep watching. Congratulations to all including today’s tiny gems.
templeinacity.com/category/nom...

November 25, 2025 at 10:50 PM

Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

Nominations nominations nominations with a corrected typo because we are having a very mercury retrograde day just like cloudflare
With apologies. templeinacity.com/temple-in-a-...

Best of the net 2025

Sumitra Singam, Bird swallowers

Rachel Rodman, He Always Lied, I Always Told the Truth. And Then We Fell in Hate

Kathryn Reese, Post-vespers

Pushcart Prize 2025

Cole Beauchamp, If Only

Emily Rinkema, Lou

June Gemmell, The Homecoming

Kendra Cardin, A change in the recipe

S.A. Greene, Brian Wilson is dead and why can't I stop crying?

Dominic Walsh, Slice of life, in Absentia

November 18, 2025 at 5:38 PM

Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

For those who can’t bear to click on links, welcome to a sneak preview of our JOY special popup edition contributors. This little slice will be out soon which in our speak is between hours and days. But you’ll be the first to know, we promise.
templeinacity.com/joy/

Some of the work here is just a few words. Or just the right words.
Sometimes
nonsense words or
nonsense use of words. Words to make you smile or laugh or feel, for a moment, the warmth of a friendly sun, the touch of a loving breeze, the touch of another being, human or animal, equally in the dark, equally looking for strength to keep going. That moment can fuel the next moment, and the next. It doesn't need anything else. It just is.
Please let this issue wash over you. Let it give you some relief amid the burdens of being alive, with all that trying. Don't ask it to be anything but what it is, then give yourself that same kindness.
We hope you find joy, here and everywhere you can.

Contributors
Karen Baumgart, Denise Bayes, Jessica
Coles,
Kristin
Houlihan,
Patrick
Johanneson, Rachel Abbey McCafferty, Kathryn Reese, Slawka G. Scarso, Sumitra Singam, Karen Walker

November 12, 2025 at 3:43 PM

Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

With a brand new category. templeinacity.com/submit-writi...

Mix and match: Creatives, we see you. Why stick to one form when you have three? Send up to 3 pieces of any mix of micro, flash, poetry or art. One poem and two flash? Sure. Two poems and one micro? Why not. Fly free. Same word counts apply (up to 1,000, no minimum). Submit in
one .doc or doc file, art as 1000-1500 pixels wide files

October 28, 2025 at 7:08 PM

Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

This you?
templeinacity.com/submit-writi...

October 24, 2025 at 8:45 PM

Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

Lil update just for you.
We’ve added a new submissions category for the multi-creatives out there. Mix and match, up to 3 pieces of ANY poetry, flash, micro or art. We don’t want to be stuck in a box. Why should you be?
templeinacity.com/submit-writi...

October 24, 2025 at 2:15 PM

Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

Anyone feeling lost, thinking nothing can change for the better, a little reminder by
Kendra Cardin that it can. A change in the recipe, flash fiction.
templeinacity.com/flash-fictio...

Wishes can come true. Beautiful flower seedling not yet scattered to the wind but getting ready to burst out and find welcome soil.

September 28, 2025 at 1:36 AM

Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

When is a perfect time to read a poem? Now. Right now. Don’t miss the moment or these two by Yuan Changming. templeinacity.com/two-poems-yu...

Unlike your legendary Alexander the Great
None of us has come to conquer; nor
are we
To be conquered (even by God), let alone any
Human
artifacts
including science
or
behaviours,
And tech blockades & tariffs. Rather, as Confucius
Has taught us, we always avoid talking of strange
Phenomena,
disorder or sprits
feats of strength,
Whereas we do worship our
Ancestors, especially those not
accepting defeat

September 22, 2025 at 1:09 PM

Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

Bonkers fun with loads of heart by @travisflatt.bsky.social
We dare you not to smile.
templeinacity.com/fiction-trav...

In the elementary school's lobby-White Plains is K-6th—we parents mill about congratulating one another and one another's children. I find my Ex and say "What the fuck was that?" a little too loud.
"Right?" she says.

September 14, 2025 at 1:47 PM

Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

The build in this little Kendra Cardin story. The love, the menace, the care, the indrawn and let out breath. templeinacity.com/flash-fictio...

Maddie's birthday was one of the few predictably sunny days of the year, along with Thanksgiving and Christmas. Free from the eggshells she and her mom were so used to
walking on around the house. As the smoke from the burning candles curlicued above her cake, Maddie would hope that this year, yes, this year, her wish would come true.

September 12, 2025 at 12:37 PM

Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

‘As a strategy, this swelled and broke like an egg.’

His wife, Eleanor, enjoyed a different pathway into the light:
Influenced by an influencer, she went out each dawning before
Anything
else. Barely dressed,
barefoot or flip-flopping along,
Ellie followed the notion of forcing undesired action into being,
Doing that which she didn't want to do to skill her mind into
Facing the unknown; specifically, the rest of the unraveling day.
As a strategy, this swelled and broke like an egg.

September 11, 2025 at 12:54 PM

Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

Behold the mini chaos.

From story: Rylee Faulk, in her cardboard armor and Burger King crown shouts. "Say:
'There's a dragon,' Camel Boy!"
Gasps from the parents. Miss Katie hops up from her director's chair. My Ex, seated at the far end of my row, stands and makes a choked outraged sound alarmingly close to a death rattle.
Rylee's mom, in the third row, stands and says, "Oh my God. I'm so sorry darling." (Whether "darling" refers to my son or my Ex, I'm unsure.)

September 11, 2025 at 12:42 PM

Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

It’s a bop.

From story: This all happens at 10:00 AM, which is important to the story. A certain song was playing on the speakers. "Takin' Care of Business." Big with the Boomers, but it's a bop, not going to lie to you. Anyway, the manager starts to boogie. He's dancing around, flipping the clipboard over his head, and smacking the boxes of cans.
Metallic
thuds galore.
What
performer!

September 11, 2025 at 12:34 PM

Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

Also this ‘fair-weather grin’ sends us. Such a delicate touch to add a whole realm of understanding to the narrative.

Text snippet from story. ‘Eyes squeezed tight, she'd sit at the dining room table, holding her breath, anxiously waiting for her parents to finish singing Happy Birthday. Mom smiling soft and reassuring. Dad wearing his fair-weather grin.’

September 11, 2025 at 12:29 PM

Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

A little taste of this deliciousness by Toni Della Fata templeinacity.com/poetry-toni-...

September 9, 2025 at 2:33 PM

Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

Don’t you want to read more?
Yuan Changming.

templeinacity.com/two-poems-yu...

Snippet from Yuan Changming poem in Temple in a City literary journal.

September 8, 2025 at 2:32 PM

Temple in a city

@templeinacity.bsky.social

Why is it called Light? Who’s in it? Your questions answered here. The issue is 2/3rds full now with the final third releasing next week. We’re spreading out the joy so you can savour each piece.
templeinacity.com/explore-the-...