Sudha Balagopal
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sudhab.bsky.social
Sudha Balagopal
@sudhab.bsky.social
1.8K followers 1.5K following 600 posts
Writer:
Nose Ornaments, Runner-up Bath NIF '24; Things I Can't Tell Amma (Ad Hoc, UK, '21).
Pubs: Adroit Journal, Doric Lit, CRAFT,SmokeLong, Fractured
Best Microfic, Best Small Fic, Wigleaf Top 50.
BathFlash HC/Shortlisted; Series Editor: Wigleaf Top 50
Posts Replies Media Videos
sudhab.bsky.social
But that harmless distance between them ballooned over time into an impassable canyon.
Love the structure, love the story, @anniejowrites.bsky.social 🌷
November 25, 2025 at 2:59 PM
sudhab.bsky.social
...if not for promises made and unmade, if not for promises kept, promises unkept, promises unkempt—
Oh, wow, love this story in @fictivedream.bsky.social @writesofkathryn.bsky.social!
Thanks for sharing, @claudiamonpere.bsky.social
November 23, 2025 at 3:07 PM
sudhab.bsky.social
…he is overcome by a sense of doubt, a belligerent unsettling that marches through his mind.
A stunner from the talented @mattkendrick.bsky.social at Milk Candy Review!👇🏽
November 21, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Reposted by Sudha Balagopal
jenwithwords.bsky.social
✨ A new episode has arrived! ✨

What does a Time Pirate do when she’s stuck on a bus for a long winter-dark morning commute?

Watch Episode 2: Route 301 of ‘The Time Pirate Who Waits Ashore’ to find out! 🕰️

Also, a first attempt at trying to have other people in my films!

youtu.be/sk73_mfRS98
The Time Pirate | Episode 2: Route 301
YouTube video by jenwithwords
youtu.be
November 15, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Reposted by Sudha Balagopal
fictivedream.bsky.social
Today from #MicroMonday we're thrilled to be featuring Mama, I'm Home by Sudha Balagopal @sudhab.bsky.social #microfiction #writingcommunity #readingcommunity. Please click on the link and enjoy fictivedream.com/2025/11/17/m...
November 17, 2025 at 6:15 PM
sudhab.bsky.social
So happy to have a micro up @fictivedream.bsky.social today.
Thank you so much, editor Laura Black🙏
fictivedream.bsky.social Fictive Dream @fictivedream.bsky.social · 9d
"...so I took away television and video games until you corrected yourself, making me proud of the discipline I'd instilled in you..." Mama, I'm Home by Sudha Balagopal @sudhab.bsky.social #microfiction #MicroMonday. Please click on the link and enjoy fictivedream.com/2025/11/17/m...
November 17, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Reposted by Sudha Balagopal
sashabrown.bsky.social
OH SHIT

DROP EVERYTHING

OOPS BRECHT DID IT AGAIN
brechtdp.bsky.social Brecht De Poortere @brechtdp.bsky.social · 16d
The 2026 lit mag rankings are now available from my website! They include an overall ranking, as well as separate rankings for fiction, flash fiction, non-fiction and poetry. If you find these helpful, please show your support by liking & sharing 🙏
November 9, 2025 at 8:10 PM
sudhab.bsky.social
...on the evening of our fifth wedding anniversary (wood). I give Gareth a hammer (he wanted one, honest) and he hands me two large hearts entwined.
Love this story from @laurabesley.bsky.social @fictivedream.bsky.social
fictivedream.bsky.social Fictive Dream @fictivedream.bsky.social · 19d
"After we sign the divorce papers, my soon-to-be ex-husband and I decide to go for lunch." Love (a journey) by Laura Besley @laurabesley.bsky.social #flashfiction #readingcommunity #writingcommunity. Please click on the link and enjoy fictivedream.com/2025/11/07/l...
fictivedream.com
November 7, 2025 at 1:34 PM
Reposted by Sudha Balagopal
lit-namjooning.bsky.social
As we head into the weekend, take a moment to read this masterclass in white space by @miriamgershow.bsky.social. "Delicious Trees" will make you feel things. Read here: literarynamjooning.wixsite.com/litnam/post/...

#namjooning #namjooningbutliterary
October 24, 2025 at 9:26 AM
Reposted by Sudha Balagopal
eunoiareview.bsky.social
The Address Wasn’t In English

(a letter I never learned how to write) Note: بابا جان (Baba Jan) means "Dear Father" in Farsi/Dari. Return to sender. Language: insufficient. Grief: postage unpaid. Recipient: missing. Baba Jan, I wrote your name on the envelope, then wiped it off with my sleeve. It…
The Address Wasn’t In English
(a letter I never learned how to write) Note: بابا جان (Baba Jan) means "Dear Father" in Farsi/Dari. Return to sender. Language: insufficient. Grief: postage unpaid. Recipient: missing. Baba Jan, I wrote your name on the envelope, then wiped it off with my sleeve. It looked too alive. Like maybe if I spelled it wrong, you'd stay dead. Mama said you lived on the hill behind the bakery that sold sesame at noon.
eunoiareview.wordpress.com
October 20, 2025 at 10:01 AM
sudhab.bsky.social
If you ask me about love, I’ll show you late winter light on the farmland—some liminal thing…..
beautiful! @dinalrelles.bsky.social @matchbooklitmag.bsky.social
dinalrelles.bsky.social Dina L. Relles @dinalrelles.bsky.social · Oct 6
it’s been a minute since i’ve published anything, so i’m especially grateful that @matchbooklitmag.bsky.social gave this little musing on love + leavings a home.

you can read the full piece here: matchbooklitmag.com/mb/relles/departures
Departures by Dina L. Relles handed you the promised coffee with an apology: no sugar, no milk, I’m sorry. I don’t need those things, you said, and I fell in impossible love with you all over again. I’d come from my room carrying everything I wanted to happen that didn’t. Now the lobby was too bright and smelled like grapefruits and your face was weary in a way that felt intimate. You spoke quietly to me in the taxi, then held me twice at the terminal, which I took to mean you loved me too, despite.
October 8, 2025 at 3:46 PM
sudhab.bsky.social
I am desperate to know why she disappeared—if they did something wrong, if she needed my help, if there was anything I could have done…..
This kept me riveted! @anniejowrites.bsky.social at Terrazo Editions👇🏽👇🏽
anniejowrites.bsky.social Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · Oct 1
I have a new short story in the wonderful Terrazzo Editions today called “Maybe Mary” & I’d be thrilled if you give it a read. so grateful to amazing editor Gina Nutt. you can find her interview with me here too www.terrazzoeditions.com/terrazzomag/...
title: Maybe Mary author: Anna Vangala Jones a mosaic pattern in blue, tan, and purple title: Maybe Mary author: Anna Vangala Jones a mosaic pattern in blue, tan, and purple quote from story: “She says she doesn’t want to talk about the disappearance. Anything but that is fine.”
October 6, 2025 at 4:17 AM
sudhab.bsky.social
What a joy to hear Phoenix writers read this afternoon : @mdbell79.bsky.social @stephanieaustin.bsky.social @shipraagarwal.bsky.social @sabrinahicks.bsky.social @haydenmcasey13.bsky.social @jonathanin2k.bsky.social !!! 👏👏👏👏
October 5, 2025 at 1:11 AM
sudhab.bsky.social
Loving Heart Lamp, by Banu Mushtaq, winner of @thebookerprizes.com !!!
October 2, 2025 at 5:56 PM
sudhab.bsky.social
I love this flash essay by Helen Collins Sitler via @short-reads.org.

www.short-reads.org/i-want-a-do-...
I Want a Do-Over
by Helen Collins Sitler | The limits of change.
www.short-reads.org
October 1, 2025 at 11:24 AM
sudhab.bsky.social
It is my pleasure to share that @andrewporter01.bsky.social will be the Guest Selecting Editor for the @wigleaf.bsky.social Top 50 2026! Andrew Porter's latest book, The Imagined Life, has received many accolades and has been called, "One of the best books of the year," by Esquire.
September 30, 2025 at 8:54 PM
sudhab.bsky.social
Wonderful to attend a reading by @andrewporter01.bsky.social and @sallywenmao.bsky.social moderated by @mdbell79.bsky.social at Changing Hands in Tempe yesterday. And it was great to see you @stephanieaustin.bsky.social @sabrinahicks.bsky.social @rudribhattpatel.bsky.social @karakahnke.bsky.social 💜
September 26, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Reposted by Sudha Balagopal
anniejowrites.bsky.social
I have a new story in Craft Literary, “Two Old Friends and a Ghost Walk Into the Woods”, about the people & places that haunt us. would be so thrilled for you to read this one 👻 🌲 🤍 www.craftliterary.com/2025/09/19/t...
Two Old Friends and a Ghost Walk into the Woods by Anna Vangala Jones - CRAFT
We’d agreed to never come back to this place yet here we are. The wind whispers through the trees and unsettles our hair, trying to remind us to leave. Why would we return to these woods? “I don’t car...
www.craftliterary.com
September 19, 2025 at 2:34 PM
Reposted by Sudha Balagopal
kathrynsilverhajo.bsky.social
I'm honored that @mattkendrick.bsky.social asked me to do the October Mondettes selection. But how challenging it was to choose only ten!! Ten beauties. I hope you'll give them all a read! 💜
mattkendrick.bsky.social Matt Kendrick @mattkendrick.bsky.social · Sep 16
This month's #Mondettes picked by @kathrynsilverhajo.bsky.social

⚡Ten wonderful flash fictions
🔍Ten splashes of analysis as to why Kathryn made these brilliant picks
🪴Three fantastic prompts to get you writing

mondettes.substack.com/p/september-...
September 2025
Ten stories picked by Kathryn Silver-Hajo
mondettes.substack.com
September 16, 2025 at 3:59 PM
sudhab.bsky.social
I love this beautiful flash essay by Mimi Schwartz via @short-reads.org.

www.short-reads.org/touchstones/
Touchstones
by Mimi Schwartz | What the living carry.
www.short-reads.org
September 18, 2025 at 5:00 AM
sudhab.bsky.social
So honored to have my story from @adroitjournal.bsky.social selected for this list by @kathrynsilverhajo.bsky.social
Thank you @mattkendrick.bsky.social 🙏🙏
mattkendrick.bsky.social Matt Kendrick @mattkendrick.bsky.social · Sep 16
This month's #Mondettes picked by @kathrynsilverhajo.bsky.social

⚡Ten wonderful flash fictions
🔍Ten splashes of analysis as to why Kathryn made these brilliant picks
🪴Three fantastic prompts to get you writing

mondettes.substack.com/p/september-...
September 2025
Ten stories picked by Kathryn Silver-Hajo
mondettes.substack.com
September 16, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Reposted by Sudha Balagopal
smokelong.bsky.social
Issue 89 with new CNF by Aimee Bender, our first featured author in our Master Series, is live! Work by established writers and those new to the form rubbing elbows in this issue. All rare gems by writers from around the globe. So proud of everyone in this issue. www.smokelong.com/issue-eighty...
September 15, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Sudha Balagopal
anniejowrites.bsky.social
I have a new tiny story in @havehashad.com today about fleeting connections. thanks as always to @aaronburch.bsky.social, one of the best editors around, & to all of you who read this one ♡ 💀 🪦 ♡ www.havehashad.com/hadposts/our...
At the top of the page is a drawing of a pile of skulls. Underneath is today’s date: September 4, 2025. Then the title of the story and the name of the author: Our second date was meant to be unconventional and unromantic by Anna Vangala Jones. Below that is the text of the story: —we thought we were funny when we suggested meeting at the laundromat because we bonded on the first date about putting it off so long we'd almost reached the bathing suits as underwear stage. But when he called to cancel, I worried I should have held onto my mystique a bit longer and not revealed the lazy mess lurking beneath my put together surface yet. "It's not that," he said. "I have to go to a funeral." After I told him how sorry I was, he said, "Want to come?" I joked, "It's too soon but take me to the next one." I appreciated the earnest vulnerability of his response that he could use the company so I said yes. My friends teased me that we'd only been on one date so maybe he was a serial killer and we would be going to my funeral. Weird how we cope with the possibility of being murdered every time we meet someone new by laughing about how hilarious it'll be if it happens, but it's preferable to being paralyzed by it. "He loves Bruce Springsteen, so he can't be that bad," I told them. The funeral was for his lifelong friend—they had first met at only five years old—so it was of course sad. We held hands as they lowered the casket. After everyone else left, we wandered the cemetery chatting about everything and nothing like we were at a coffee shop and he kissed me in front of a tombstone that read, "Beloved and remembered. Until we meet again." He ghosted me after that. When I listen to Bruce at the laundromat, I wonder why our first and last kiss happened amidst graves and death and almost write him to ask. But maybe it's better not to know.
September 4, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Reposted by Sudha Balagopal
mczyzniejewski.bsky.social
Some new @kimmagowan.bsky.social in the new ‪@literaryruby.bsky.social‬! Great issue, with ‪@allisonfieldbell.bsky.social ‬,
‪@patriciaqbidar.bsky.social‬, ‪@tcboudreau.bsky.social‬, @sudhab.bsky.social, and others, too. Congrats to the whole Ruby crew!

rubyliterarypress.com/issue-six-is...
ISSUE SIX
September 2, 2025 ISSUE SIX BACK TO TOP Sudha Balagopal FICTION Here and There ❦ I hear the double ring at the other end in India—different from the single ring here in the US. For the first minute…
rubyliterarypress.com
September 3, 2025 at 12:44 AM
sudhab.bsky.social
So happy to have a story up @literaryruby.bsky.social. I'm in awesome company, too. Thank you April Bradley👇
September 2, 2025 at 9:20 PM