On the Shore by GJ Gillespie
A mixed media collage by GJ Gillespie #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
The Metaworker Literary Magazine
Where great stories are forged.
A mixed media collage by GJ Gillespie #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“I’m cursed to know the whereabouts of every small lost thing, even the things I never touch, like your toothbrush.” excerpt from Only a Witch by Steven Hage #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“Not Done Yet”, a poem by Nancy Noelke #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
“It was a kind of transformation we could witness like astral projection but of our entire being. We spoke broken English, which she was proud of.” – Excerpt from “My English Teacher” by Bharti Bansal @useless_thought25 #MetaworkerMonday #TheMetaworker
“After years in the sanitarium, / the grasshopper looks up and sees / his therapist is the ant.” excerpt from Grasshopper Looks Up At His Therapist by Jocko Benoit #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
In this two-part series, we celebrate our Pushcart Prize nominees. This episode features @coopd88, @FrankNjugi, and Linda Lacey. #TheMetaworker #PushcartPrize
Creative Non-Fiction Micros by Kevin Browne #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
In this two-part series, we celebrate our Pushcart Prize nominees. This episode features Amita Basu, Daniel Brennan, and Marie-Louise McGuinness. #TheMetaworker #PushcartPrize
Photo by James Reade Venable #TheMetaworker #MetaworkerMonday
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
Episode Description: Matthew, Elena, …
Episode Description: Matthew, Elena, …
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.