Submissions Pause and New Slush Readers
Announcements: Submissions will close during the month of May, and we introduce our two newest slush readers: Amita and Katie! #TheMetaworker
The Metaworker Literary Magazine
Where great stories are forged.
Announcements: Submissions will close during the month of May, and we introduce our two newest slush readers: Amita and Katie! #TheMetaworker
“I longed to brush my lips next to yours– to taste the tang of rubies on your tongue.” excerpt from Rubies by Carol E. Anderson #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
Microfiction by F.D. Jackson #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“Today was the day – the day I’d make three year’s salary in a single evening. The day I met the Spaniard.” excerpt from Ashmedai and the Hairdresser by Allister Nelson #MetaworkerMondY #TheMetaworker
“You wait for the night / below the castle on the mountain.” – Excerpt from All You Should Remember by Perry L. Powell #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“Where shall they meet? The deli, let’s say. Maybe she works behind the counter. Maybe he comes in for a sandwich.” – excerpt from Recipe by Annie Borelli #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“Magic Tricks For The Homeless”, a web comic by Kevin Charles. #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
A Knight in Shining Armor for a Dad by Maxine Flam #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“the recurring colonnades /
offered the illusion / of progress, vital calamity / passed into oblivion…” excerpt from On the Plaza by Clay Waters. #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“Cleotis and I were guards at Parchman… He was a single man, a quiet kind of guy, and an exceptionally talented amateur oil painter.” excerpt from “Cleotis, The Secret Portraitist” by T. G. Metcalf #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“typoem” by Michael Betancourt: a visual poem made from collaged typographic fragments. #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“…she finds her balance again, inside her head, atop the roller skates.” excerpt from Skate Country by Robin Wyatt Dunn #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“In the Mood”, a poem by Lucia Owen #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
Micro Poetry by David Capps #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
https://themetaworker.com/2024/01/29/micro-poetry-by-david-capps/
“Alone, he paces from room to room,/each room a cabinet of memories,/a diorama of another life.” – excerpt from The Inhabitant of the Tower by Taliesin Gore, featuring art by Cerid Jones #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
Microfiction by Kathryn Gossow #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“Her other big talent was the ability to talk Kit into anything as long as she supplied the courage. That’s how she got him to go into that cave that day.” – excerpt from Big, Blue Watery Eye by Joe Ducato #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“Sheep are floating in the ocean, and I’m going to be sick again. Not that those two have much to do with each other.” – excerpt from Porcelain Sheep by Jamie Anthony Louis @jamieanthony187 #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
Micro Poetry by Michał Zieliński #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“Here’s where I was those last nights, / twisting on that rack / of a recliner next to your bed” – excerpt from “Last Nights, Dreaming” by Lucia Owen #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
Introducing our new slush readers, intern, and Pushcart Prize nominees! @dannyjbrennan @coopd88 @mlmcguinness #TheMetaworker #ForgeFriday #PushcartPrize
“Our Thoughts lurk in the darkened corner of your bedroom while you sleep. Our Thoughts are watching from outside the window while you enter the coffee shop and ask for a large chai latte with almond milk.” – excerpt from “Our Thoughts Are With You” by Sean Monett @nonsensepoetrycomics #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
Elena, Mel, and Cerid talk with former Metaworker Editor in Chief Matthew Maichen about their writing rituals, how they create characters, and the benefits and drawbacks of writing with or without a plan. #TheMetaworkerPodcast #TheMetaworker
“Breathing through his respirator to filter out the steady stream of dust from above, Dimitri passed through murky pools of brown air illuminated by always-on streetlights.” – excerpt from “Astronaut Application” by Andrew Rodgers #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“The beach is sinking. / It’s a sigh. It’s the lack of you and I, pulling like the tide / against its warm face.” – excerpt from “The Beach” by Daniel Brennan @dannyjbrennan #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“The egg of flesh was placed on the table where my son and I were breakfasting. It was the shape of an ostrich egg, and slightly larger than one, too. Its ‘shell’ would bend to the touch, but it had skin like that of a human.” – excerpt from A Living Stone by Jason Ruiter #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
Elena, Mel, and Cerid talk with former Metaworker Editor in Chief Matthew Maichen about his writing and publishing journey since he stepped away from leading the magazine. #TheMetaworkerPodcast #TheMetaworker
“It’s Not You, It’s Us” and “The Procedure” – Micro Poetry by Sam Alec #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
Enjoy these three short Halloween stories by our writing group members. Join us on Discord on Wednesday evenings at 8:30pm (EST) for writing prompts and a supportive group of folks! #TheMetaworker
“Give it up,” hollered a voice two tombstones down. “Nothing’s spooky to anyone in this damn world of endless light. You’re not scaring anyone.” Excerpt from “Grave Lightning” by Max Zell @ZellWriter #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“In a cracked-pot / full of tubes, / Chlorophyll leaks / out your mouth.” from “What if our bodies were trees?” by Lucio Cooper. #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“If my days were like the calcified chambers of a nautilus cell, then my work was the living meat they had arisen to protect. The most human part of me.” @mxwheels #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“The blinding light from the Frigidaire beams, a humming blaze fluorescing Lacey’s face as she stands, staring into the refrigerator glow with a vacant gaze.” @coopd88 art by @curiouscerid #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“It is raining in Boston. / My friend is in an ambulance on those wet roads” #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“Many thought that the worldwide aphasia outbreak would bring about the end of the world. It certainly put a crimp in all normal day-to-day activities.” #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“Our reconditioned 3D printer just made that gun,” said my boss. “The genuine ones were used by real cowboys during famous gunfights.” #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“One day, colorful dots specked the sky as if a rainbow exploded.” #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“At the height of my loneliness, I examine ways to escape my skin.” #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“An interview compilation with some of The Metaworker’s first contributors, reflecting upon the past and updating us on their careers.” #TheMetaworker
“The babies of Borad weren’t sleeping. They lay in their cribs blinking. Then the crying started.” #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“The bottom drawer in my father’s room contains his trash. Crumpled Budweiser cans and Marlboro ash, frayed photos from his childhood.” #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
Photo by David A. Goodrum
#TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“my swift nights powered by / Starbucks are behind me.”
#MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“I stand at the corner hailing autorickshaws. Many are ferrying schoolchildren, plastic sacks full of produce, five-litre gas cylinders, or the drivers’ wives holding stacked egg-trays bound for grocers.”
#TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“Good news greets Quibble’s return: his wife has conceived.”
#TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“My little brother had shown early signs, spitting up fire with his baby food. My parents were
covered in small burns for the first few years but I’d never seen them so happy.”
#TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“When the desk guard told him to report to medical, Cobb was dressed to go, his flimsy khaki shirt tucked neatly into his khaki pants, his sneakers—the good white ones he ordered from an inmate catalogue—laced, his prisoner ID card already in hand.”
#TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
poetry by Russell Willis
#TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
Nate turns me toward him, my round belly the bumper between us, his brown eyes plead with me. “Everyone has evacuated. We have to go now. Please.”
#TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“I lived here when the comet struck,” he said, raising his voice, “and I lost my Nellie when the rain of molten gold came down.”
#TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
Microfiction by Sharon Y. Sim
#MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“There is Juan Valdez sweat and mule shit / in the bottom of my cup.” #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
Three Microfictions by Corey Bryan @pip_prompts #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
At that moment, my internal gears pushed against the wall of my chest and like clockwork an alarm went off so instead of sitting alone, content with my coq au vin, I was confronted with the desire to know more about you… #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
She came out of the woods with nothing but a blanket sprayed with white and silver paint #F. J. Bergmann #TheMetaworker
#MetaworkerMonday
“The river of silence passes through the large classroom trough, its charcoal sides soft and cool to the touch.”
#TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“Your autumn red curls, wrapped in Nigerian print, crowned your head like royalty. Africa hung from your earlobes, swayed in pride.”
#MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“He told me how the image of that clear cold gin sliding past my red lips and down my throat had driven him nearly mad with desire.”
#MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“The bang came afterwards, as if the earth had just regained consciousness and gravity returned with violent force.”
#MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
The moons of twenty-eight yesterdaysare strung across silent twilight,a pearl necklace on the plump blue throat of a cyanotic stillborn prepared for burial. Under the phasing …
around these parts, you’d hear about trail angels, their wings spread between those parched white blazes. offering plenty and good.take your rest beneath their wings, …
Step 1: Take your shorn hair, barrette the sides with glimmer, the way you want to be a mermaid, tails extended, breaking hearts with the …
I’ve put the sign on the door for a reason: “Day sleeper, don’t ring or knock,” but the doorbell rings anyway, just when I’m dozing …
Episode Description: Matthew, Elena, and Mel talk with Oisín Breen about his poem “The Borderland Furies” and about his new book of poetry, Lillies on …
The sun peers down from above, spilling light on the ground; the clouds hang haloedby a fading gold. Daylight’s verve recedes as the purpling sky …
if you are listening, I am here, wracked with a Martian longing dreaming of stowaway spiders who would weave sickly webs over semi-important fixtures: reviled queen who presides …
Episode Description: Matthew, Elena, Mel, and Cerid talk with Isabel O’Hara Walsh about her short fiction piece “In the Willow Garden”. Content Warning: We discuss …
A piece was missing. It was a puzzle print of George Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte laid out on …
The car, an older gas-powered Lincoln, rolled up smoothly, making no splash in the curbside puddle. Driver’s face (human, of course, the Others could operate …
The woman at the cafe was out of breath as she sat in the window seat looking through the early night at the few groups …
I asked about her yearnings, her desires, as I suspected they might, perhaps, mesh with my own. It was worth a try, an attempt at some sort of shared, miraculous
camaraderie.
DetourmentiaIt began with her putting the kettle in the fridge and calling everybody ‘darling’ because shecouldn’t remember their names. Then she copied the young women’s …
The only word I understand is monsieur. A sling of unintelligible French blindsides me as I walk down the street; and though I have no …
“What are we waiting for?” Chris asked, staring at me from the passenger seat of the car. I shifted in the driver’s seat. “Lorenzo told …
I’m making a video game for you to live inside, since you can’t live inside the world anymore. I’ve never made a game before, so …
Hey folks! It’s the editor-in-chief Matthew Maichen. This won’t be a long post. We’ve had a great 2022, and everything that we’ve published has been …
The woman passes every day with her pink sneakers and floral running pants and cute son in a navy uniform. The son talks a blue …
“Older brother?” “Not now, I’m busy.” The papers shuffled make a noise like a river on a bank. “Older brother?” “What is it?” “Nothing.” Outside …
the night has not stolen the taste and shape of my grass-drowned flesh. after all, your croaks already drink the air from my lungs until …
In a house, in a heart, a demon lurked. The girl found it in her dead brother’s skull buried in the backyard. She looked into …
Tomorrow is too late. I’ve been listeningto the ground lick its lips, laying plans to closeon your heart. To beat the earth, brown batter, to bake …
Lock Howe grew up in rural Tennessee in a conservative, Baptist area. Raised atheist and liberal, Lock struggled with feelings of isolation and confusion, themes …
For Devan Daniel Romo is the author of Bum Knees and Grieving Sunsets (FlowerSong Press 2023), Moonlighting as an Avalanche (Tebot Bach 2021), Apologies in …
The boy feigns sleep, but he is ready to spring. Two children stalk his bed, dark-light-girl-boy, clad in spring-green and ochre, barefoot both. The boy …
On my sister’s 21st birthday, I visited her at the Cook County Jail. Looking back, I wish I hadn’t been so annoyed to see her …
You wore your grey fate perfectly—laughter, golden touch. It was a show, of course. Even as tiny hope waved over private blue melancolia, it stirred up a sludge,lingering …
Lock Howe grew up in rural Tennessee in a conservative, Baptist area. Raised atheist and liberal, Lock struggled with feelings of isolation and confusion, themes …
I want to scream until my voice blistersAround the hot cinders of the words I spitI burn out next to the Sun and SisterWhere my …
Trigger Warning: sexual themes and abuse In my career as a sex worker, I accept gifts with poise and grace. It’s an odd twist in …
When I think about it, none of this would have happened if Roger weren’t such a slob. After Roger left for the gym, I decided …
You and I will read our ways into the eternal whatever—questioning, wondering, wandering under skies grown gray with concern or maybe apathy. We’ll play outside until the streetlights …
The Mother sifts through the soil, searching. Using her fingers like a sieve, she tries to find the thin filament sprouts in the mulch and …
The most beautiful woman my father had ever seen, Except, he kept insisting, my mother, of course, Hailed from Grimstone, Stratton parish, in Dorset. So, …
There’s a distinct scent to the air right before a Firestorm breaks: acrid and sulfuric, with a touch of sweet smoke. It manifests moments before …
my youth has drooped, the trees in the forest too.beard grown thick, wet the bed black;death calls our names alphabetically,the rooster still crows in the …
(+_+)? A decade lost your last message sprang back to life today :O unwittingly resuscitated by a software upgrade. : – ) Happy Thursday! Such a great….xD …laughed so …
The sky is bigger in Texas. The trees in the Midwest loomed large, stretching their branches upward and forming green canopies that provided shelter. But …