Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Angela James

Jessica Valenti @jessicavalenti.bsky.social · 9d

To single out abortion as the place for compromise is to ignore the political reality of the last three years.

And in a moment when the stakes are so high—as women are literally dying—being both confidently wrong and hugely influential is straight up dangerous. jessica.substack.com/p/ezra-klein...

Ezra Klein is Wrong About Abortion

Abortion *is* a big tent issue

jessica.substack.com

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Reposted by Angela James

Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 22d

Guys, I could NOT be more excited to have a story published at Short Story, Long, and I honestly really love this story in a way that I think you love just a few stories you’ve written. Maybe it’s the encroaching nostalgia, maybe it’s just the fun I had with the form, but I hope you’ll read it!

Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 22d

New Short Story, Long Day! New Amber Sparks Day!

It's @ambersparks.bsky.social on SSL day!
(w/ some new fave story art from @philmcandrew.bsky.social!)

"Your Life in Parties" by Amber Sparks

"...your retirement party, the one they threw for you at the atrocious Italian restaurant. Surprise!, they all yell, which is so awkward because this isn’t a surprise party...."

ashortstorylong.substack.com

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Angela James @olangela.bsky.social · Sep 4

Thank you, Jessica!

Reposted by Angela James

Anna Vangala Jones @anniejowrites.bsky.social · Sep 4

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.

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Angela James @olangela.bsky.social · Aug 26

Gorgeous - both of you! Congratulations!

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Reposted by Angela James

Jonathan Danielson @jonathanin2k.bsky.social · Aug 25

Very happy with the work @danrussell.bsky.social and I get to share with this! Get it while it’s hot, people! Yum yum yum yum

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Angela James @olangela.bsky.social · Aug 25

Thank you so much @offbeatlit.bsky.social for the Best of the Net nomination! I am over the moon!

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Angela James @olangela.bsky.social · Aug 25

He did this but two women being in love and having a child is indecent. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snoop_D...

Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

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Angela James @olangela.bsky.social · Aug 22

Thank you so much, Myna!

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Angela James @olangela.bsky.social · Aug 22

Guess who has a story shouted out in Myna Chang’s always fantastic Spec Flash Roundup!

Myna Chang @mynachang.bsky.social · Aug 22

August Spec Flash Roundup!

With
@smallwondersmag.com
@flashfictiononline.bsky.social
@apexmag.bsky.social
@flashpointsf.bsky.social
@factorfourmagazine.com
@naturefutures.bsky.social
@hexliterary.bsky.social
@okaydonkeymag.com
@escapepod.org
@molotovlitzine.bsky.social
@yourimpossiblevoice.com

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Flash Roundup * August 2025

A gathering of recent speculative flash & micro fiction, each presenting a tiny-yet-powerful universe. How tiny? About one-thousand words for flash; four-hundred words for micro. The word count…

mynachang.com

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Reposted by Angela James

Flash Fiction Online @flashfictiononline.bsky.social · Aug 20

📣 Tuesday release: “The Body, Electric” by Lauren Kardos is free to read on FFO today. Content warning: immortality that’s as crumbling & inconsistent as the world we live in!
#writingcommunity #sciencefiction #flashfiction
@lkardos.bsky.social
www.flashfictiononline.com/article/the-...

The Body, Electric

My body is a body in which I mean it eats, sleeps, pisses, and shits, all thanks to the 200 jolt-a-roos the ruffian at the corner gives me once per week. I am ageless, I am boundless, but I can no …

www.flashfictiononline.com

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Angela James @olangela.bsky.social · Aug 19

On this, the day of my birthday

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Reposted by Angela James

Patricia Q. Bidar @patriciaqbidar.bsky.social · Aug 15

A tough one to write and "have out there," but I'm proud of this hybrid micro. Many thanks to Court Harler, Flash the Court journal, and @sfreligh.bsky.social, whose prompt spurred the piece.

Dawn Tasaka Steffler @dawnsteffler.bsky.social · Aug 15

Safe at the hotel where I worked, I answered their dark blue queries. Behind their eyes I discerned that I wasn’t the kind of victim they had to care about.

Hybrid piece that is a powerful example of what flash can do. Love the ending. @patriciaqbidar.bsky.social in new lit mag Flash the Court

“Bullet List for My Aged Kidnapper” by Patricia Q. Bidar

“Bullet List for My Aged Kidnapper” begins with a gun and ends with a song. With a list form, Patricia Q. Bidar leads us down the long dark alleyway of time, where traumatic recollections ricochet …

flashthecourt.com

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Reposted by Angela James

Good Friend Lion (writing as Sumitra Singam) @pleomorphic2.bsky.social · Aug 16

So a couple of years ago I feverishly wrote this thing about mothers and kids, pretending it had nothing whatsoever to do with my own mothering or childhood (hahahahahaha) and @publishedbyjake.bsky.social want to publish it (WHAT?). Coming towards the end of the year!!!

JAKE @publishedbyjake.bsky.social · Aug 16

ICYMI, yes, Sumitra's book Mother Karma, is coming soon!

Ben Shahon @beansbaker5.bsky.social · Aug 16

Re-reading @pleomorphic2.bsky.social's upcoming JAKE chapbook for edits, and damn, this is really a good one.

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Reposted by Angela James

Flash Fiction Online @flashfictiononline.bsky.social · Aug 15

Today, we have a historical, satirical, fantastical story from Angela James. “I Was Made for Loving You” imagines Gene Simmons from KISS as a Peter Pan figure. It’s wacky and fabulous!

#writingcommunity #flashfiction #satire #historical #literary #KISS

www.flashfictiononline.com/article/i-wa...

I Was Made for Loving You

The boys are staying overnight at their dad’s apartment for the first time. A perfect opportunity, I’m sure, for my ex to introduce them to his twenty-five-year-old tart.Flopped on my bed upstairs …

www.flashfictiononline.com

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Reposted by Angela James

Becky Halsey @beckyhalsey.bsky.social · Aug 1

New story out today with Ghost Parachute’s August 2025 issue. Check out my slipstream clump of mischief—“Dermoid.”

#flashfiction #writingcommunity #slipstream #lightbodyhorror #hysteria #ladytroubles

ghostparachute.com/issue/august...

Dermoid — Ghost Parachute

When hunger gnaws at Kima, the dermoid gnaws back until she has no appetite at all. Since her last gyno exam, it has amassed germ cells, their weight warping the balance of her insides. She plods to t...

ghostparachute.com

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Angela James @olangela.bsky.social · Aug 15

My 70s Gene Simmons story just dropped! Thank you @flashfictiononline.bsky.social and thanks to my @smokelong.bsky.social , @jdclappwrites.bsky.social and @kmelkes.bsky.social for earlier feedback and for generally enabling my foolishness! www.flashfictiononline.com/article/i-wa...

I Was Made for Loving You

The boys are staying overnight at their dad’s apartment for the first time. A perfect opportunity, I’m sure, for my ex to introduce them to his twenty-five-year-old tart.Flopped on my bed upstairs …

www.flashfictiononline.com

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Angela James @olangela.bsky.social · Jul 24

Are you working on a motherhood linked series? I thought I was spotting a theme in some of your recent ones!

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Angela James @olangela.bsky.social · Jul 23

How am I just seeing this now? What a wonderful pieces, Sumitra!!

Good Friend Lion (writing as Sumitra Singam) @pleomorphic2.bsky.social · Jul 17

Friends I have a piece up in a dream journal @jmwwjournal.bsky.social today about the relentlessness of motherhood (and a public toilet sign). Hope you’ll read. Thanks @kbonilla.bsky.social for seeing something in it 🧡🧡🧡

JMWW Journal @jmwwjournal.bsky.social · Jul 16

"I walk down the stairs – concrete, the edges smoothed away by time and the march of many mothers."

Flash Fiction: Baby Change by Sumitra Singam

jmwwblog.wordpress.com/2025/07/16/f...

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Reposted by Angela James

Animals R Us…. @trumph8ters.bsky.social · Jul 23

I love you… 🥰

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Reposted by Angela James

Kathy Fish @kathyfish.bsky.social · Jul 10

Love this new one by @coreyfarrenkopf.bsky.social in the new issue of Milk Candy Review!

Corey Farrenkopf @coreyfarrenkopf.bsky.social · Jul 10

New Story Day!!!!

I’ve been submitting to Milk Candy Review since 2019, and today my new flash piece, Maybe Someday I’ll Stop Writing About A House On The Border Of A Swamp, comes out!!!!

Proud of the weird little meta flash piece :)

milkcandyreview.home.blog/2025/07/10/m...

Maybe Someday I’ll Stop Writing About A House On The Border Of A Swamp ~ by Corey Farrenkopf

I want to write a story about a house sinking into a swamp, but I’m always writing a story about a house sinking into a swamp. Sometimes I’m unclear about the metaphor. Am I the house, slowly being…

milkcandyreview.home.blog

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Angela James @olangela.bsky.social · Jul 10

Signed up!

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Angela James @olangela.bsky.social · Jul 6

@bruisermag.com also springs to mind

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Angela James @olangela.bsky.social · Jul 2

The piece in here by @danbillyc.bsky.social will destroy you (but that’s why we’re here, right?).

Dan Crawley @danbillyc.bsky.social · Jul 1

I'm so grateful to have this piece appear. Big 💙 to @stateofkate.bsky.social @rudribhattpatel.bsky.social and all the editors at @pitheadchapel.bsky.social. Thank you so much for reading this one. 💙💙💙

Pithead Chapel @pitheadchapel.bsky.social · Jul 1

Our July issue is live! Read here: pitheadchapel.com/volume-14-issue-7/

Words
@mczyzniejewski.bsky.social
@kimchinquee.bsky.social
RENESHA DHANRAJ
WYLEY FROHLICH JUNGERMAN
TROY ANDERSON
@danbillyc.bsky.social
@theresegleason
@claudiamonpere.bsky.social
BRITTANY REDD
TARA SHEA BURKE

Art
JACELYN YAP

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Angela James @olangela.bsky.social · Jun 30

Did I say March? June but same diff.

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