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POETRY
Mounted by Johannah Simon of Velvet Grey [Free Verse]
made pretty by your attention (any line)
COMIC/CARTOON
Unreality by Finding Dee Fish of Finding Dee Fish [Comedy]
Drawing a comic where you're the main character can be... really WEIRD sometimes. (First Line)
MICRO/FLASH FICTION
Dive Bar by Sharron Bassano of LEAVES [Literary Fiction]
"You remember what trouble is, don't you?" (Any Line)
On the Wrong Side of the Line by Winona Morris - Author of Wild Verbs [Horror]
The sound rolled through her head, her brain worn smooth by the thousandth repetition of it, smooth like a river rock tossed in an unrelenting current. (Any Line)
SHORT STORY
The Life and Mostly Death of Sandy Jacobs by Howard Fox of The Jokes on You [Comedy]
The crossover from earthly mortal to a heavenly soul wasn’t hard for Sandy Jacobs. (First Line)
The First Law of Mars by Jenifer Jorgenson of Snark Floats [Science Fiction]
When we heard the nations of Earth had lost the plot and resorted to nukes, none of us believed it. (First Line)
Desert Rats by Jennifer Morrow of Autumn Lives Here [Horror]
"Are they chasing you?" the white-haired old woman angrily demanded. (Any Line)
Gálvez’s Mermaids by Copper Frog of Copper Frog Press [Fantasy]
The empires send their ships, but the sea washes the old world away. (Any Line)
SERIAL
Shackled Destiny [The Forest of Illusion, Chapter 25] by Aiden Marquis | Fantasy Writer of Shackled Destiny [Fantasy]
Ancient oaks stood guard at its edge, their gnarled branches grasping skyward. (First Line)
Hey ya’ll,
A few updates to The TiF Library have happened this week. Some long overdue things, a few tiny tweaks, and then a major addition. Let’s get into it:
Dark Mode has finally come to the library! And because there is now Dark Mode it has forced me to change a few tiny things about the color choices so that they didn’t get lost when switching. The Default view when you first visit the site will be whatever your system setting is at the time but you can click it on and off as you wish.
I removed “The TiF Library” from the Submit a Story page as it seemed redundant and now just says Submission Form.
I added TWO new social media icons at the bottom of the pages: Reddit & Patreon (Yes, we now have both of those. No, I haven’t actually added any content or done anything with them, but that will be coming soon.)
Buy Me a Coffee is there now as well. I think I’m going to create a Top in Fiction account so one-time donations point there instead of going to my personal page.
The last update is the addition of The TiF Quarterly Review! Like most things, it has been a long time coming but I wanted to roll it out rather than wait “for the right time” since it seems the right time was always yesterday! Okay, so the Quarterly Review will be comprised of 5 stories that will be accompanied by a short 2 - 3 sentence review by the Guest Curator. The selection process will come exclusively from stories that have been Featured in either a Weekly or Monthly issue. That involves going through at least 100 stories and selected 1 each from the Poetry, Micro/Flash Fiction, Short Story, and Serial categories.
As it’s a Quarterly Review that means, you guessed it, there will only be 4 per year. This coming Wednesday, July 15th I’m releasing the Q1 selections in an official email but you can go look at the page right now, read the stories (if you haven’t already), subscribe to the writers, and most importantly, spread the word to your fellow readers and writers of fiction.
The only way any of this works (Top in Fiction, TiF Press, The TiF Library) is by everyone sharing the stories they written/read and sharing that this place exists. It’s difficult to keep up with the number of new people who show up to Substack looking for stories to read and places to share their work and then directing them to the play that is designed to solve their problems. But imagine if everyone of you reading this email right now were to take a 5 minutes out of your day to send out a post on Substack or include a small blurb about Top in Fiction in your newsletter, how many eyeballs we’d get just doing it one time. I’ll be we could reach tens of thousands.
That’s my pitch for this week in the middle of a damn hot Summer as I try to keep cool, sitting in the dark with my AC blasting. Share about the work happening here. Share it loud. Share it proud.
Oh, and if you wanna help me keep this going far beyond the walled gardens of Substack, shoot me a DM. Let’s chat. There’s so much that I know you can do, with your particular set of skills, to help.
EXCLUSIVE FICTION COMING TO TOP IN FICTION THIS FALL
One of my biggest goals for Top in Fiction has always been to pay writers for their fiction, and thanks to the incredible support of our current paid subscribers, we’re finally ready to take that first step. This Fall I’ll be sharing two separate posts:
An official announcement explaining how the program works.
Our first call for exclusive fiction submissions.
Until then, here’s a quick preview of what you can expect:
💰 Paid Fiction: Accepted stories will receive a cash payout (the exact amount will be confirmed in each call for submissions as it may change over time).
✍️ Short-Short Stories: We’re looking for original stories up to 1,500 words, making this an opportunity that’s accessible whether you’re an experienced writer or just getting started.
📖 Exclusive Publication: Stories must be unpublished and remain exclusive to Top in Fiction for a 3-month period before authors are free to publish them elsewhere.
📚Nearly Every Genre Welcome: Horror, mystery, fantasy, science fiction, literary fiction, romance, and more are all encouraged, provided the content is appropriate for a broad readership. If it requires a trigger warning it likely will not be accepted.
🚫Human-Created Fiction Only: Top in Fiction celebrates human creativity. AI-generated or AI-assisted submissions will not be accepted.
This is only a preview. The official announcement and submissions post will include a complete breakdown of payment, publication schedule, rights, content guidelines, submission requirements, timelines, and everything else you’ll need to know before submitting.
I’m incredibly excited to finally reach this milestone, and I can’t wait to start paying members of our community for their fiction.
Do you want to help me increase the number of fiction I can release exclusively on TiF from 4 a year to 6 a year? All we need is 3 more Yearly or 6 Monthly paid subscribers. Scroll down to upgrade your subscription today.
JOIN THE HEATWAVE
Are you beating the heat? Staying cool? It’s been a cool 90+ degrees where I am. It’s just not safe to be outside for more than a few minutes at a time. Fry your brains and pretty soon insanity sets right in… What’s your heatwave story? The official collection of the important information will open up on July 25th. You don’t have to have your story ready at that time but if you’ve got it scheduled then let me know. I’m going to stop collecting links on July 30th at 9pm EST cause I gotta sleep and I wanna make sure the email goes out to everyone the next morning! Click the image below to learn more!
The guidelines? Let’s keep this very simple.
Short short story. Under 1,500 words (but any length you decide is fine). Any genre.
How the heatwave affects your story is totally up to you.
Write it now and schedule it for Friday, July 31st at 10am EST!
Just five more weeks to break a sweat or try to beat the heat.
BE A PAID SUBSCRIBER TODAY
Paying for exclusive fiction short stories is coming. All made 100% possible by your continued support.
Paid Subscribers will get early access to TiF Short Stories, for a period of two weeks, after which time the story will then be made available to all subscribers.
- Erica Drayton, Editor-in-Chief 😈
If you enjoyed any of these stories, please consider sharing this post everywhere:
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Amazon (US) / Amazon (UK) / Barnes & Noble / Bookshop.org
Thank you for the inclusion. ❤️
Small error: "Ancient oaks stood guard at its edge, their gnarled branches grasping skyward. Graceful maples spread among them, their broad leaves fracturing sunlight into scattered shadows, each tier of foliage merging into the one above."
That is (any line) not (first line). 🙂
Thanks so much for featuring "Desert Rats"!