Fictionaut Blog

“Dad woke us up and said it was time to go.” Thus begins “Christmas Morning” by Rarely Likable blogger and Northville Review editor Erin Fitzgerald, an eerie post-apocalyptic flash fiction that distills the promise and dread of the holidays into a compact 200-word story fraught with hope and fear. It’s our way of wishing you happy holidays and thanking you for being a part of Fictionaut. We’re thrilled with the way the community is developing, and we’re looking forward to adding all sorts exciting improvements to the site in the coming year.

If we were to assemble an anthology of Christmas stories on Fictionaut — alas, there are none that reference Kwanzaa or Chanukah — we’d also include Gary Percesepe’s “Moratorium,” in which the narrator’s sister is wanted by the F.B.I. “in connection with car bombings in several states on Christmas, 1972. These bombings were of black Buicks wrapped in white Christmas paper, with embossed red crosses and ‘Henry Kissenger, War Criminal,’ written in blood on the hoods.”

In Jesse Jarnow’s “Free Time,” Tom Mareema’s “White,” and John Minichillo’s “Death in Venice,” Christmas lights illuminate office parties, San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, and a debauched, virus-infested cruise ship. Unreedemed gift certificates are among the clutter of a burgeoning relationship in Briggs Nisbet’s “Last Thing,” and Marcy Dermansky’s tween heroine prefers “Halloween” to Christmas.  Finally, in Matt Brigg’s “Sugarexplosion,” “everyone knew Douglas peed his pants during the Christmas Pageant.” Merry, merry!