2022 has been my quietest year since I started writing seriously. Sure, I’ve continued to work on the novel, and I hope to ramp this up in 2023. And yes, I’ve been very busy on the music front, with new singles, a new album, and lots more to come. But with everything else that’s been going on, I’ve only written a couple of new flash fiction stories this year, and so far only one of these has been published.
On 30 October 2022, Ellipsis Zine published ‘Preacher’s Dilemma’ in Ellipsis Zine #12, ‘Wade’ – a collection of flash fiction myths, legends and fairytales. Preacher’s Dilemma revisits a familiar world, centuries after a famous monster’s demise.
On 23 December 2022, The Arcanist published ‘Our Lady of the Martyrs,’ which considers what it might be like to be Quasimodo in an age of celebrity and consumerism, in a city without a cathedral. Sadly, The Arcanist went on permanent hiatus soon after – a great loss to the flash fiction and speculative writing communities.
Ellipsis Zine is an online literary magazine for beautifully written fiction & creative nonfiction. They ‘love stories that make us forget where we are, stories that introduce us to people, places and things we’ve never seen before and stories that stick with us long after we leave them.’
The Arcanist publishes speculative flash fiction once a fortnight on their website. In 2019, they were kind enough to publish my debut collection, The Lamppost Huggers and Other Wretched Tales. At the end of 2022, they will go on permanent hiatus.
Christopher Stanley 