short stories

Fall Fiction 2026

Pop Lit Fiction

COUPLES AND SINGLES, MEN AND WOMEN

Divides and conflicts between men and women seem to be a constant theme in social media of late, and even, on occasion, in the news. How to behave? How to get a person on the “other” side to be more agreeable, as if we’re on competing teams? We have no answers!– though we’re a couple ourselves, one who stumbled together in part through our common love of language and literature. Relationships may be up to fates, angels, or vibes, qualities beyond our conscious minds.

Anyway, we have as our new feature a short story which examines the subtleties of human relations, whether one is on the inside or outside. The mysteries of love and life as portrayed in the wonderfully written “Raspberry Leaf” by Paula Brancato. We know you’ll enjoy it.

Baby of the family, she sat up straight and glanced shyly down, twirling the stem of her glass with her fingertips, the bubbles fizzling out. A pilgrim walked past. A real honest-to-God John Wayne character. That kind of man. The kind I knew she liked. She turned away, pretending not to notice I noticed her noticing.

(Also check out the new poem by Ken Kakareka at our Fast Pop Lit site, and browse through the other links on our home page. Thanks!)

Pushing Back: 2026 to ?

Pop Lit Fiction

WILL LITERATURE RAISE ITS VOICE?

PUSHBACK against mad tech overdogs and an increasingly insane society has begun. Along the margins, so far. Among the people. At local city council meetings, citizens raising their voices against this planned technocratic atrocity or that one. From-the-ground-up happenings. The question for the populace, We the People, is how far to go. Open rebellion? Out of the question. Definitely not recommended with ICE and military budgets seeing big increases under this not-fascism regime.

Disconnection? Some may be trying it. A former member of the notorious Underground Literary Alliance (all mention of which is banned among the literary elite), who I’ll call here Paul S., has created an offline discussion group, using snail mail. A return to the defunct organization’s roots. Possible foundation for a revived literary alternative during an upcoming “Dead Internet” period–?

The idea of disconnecting from today’s technocratic dystopia is also addressed in our new feature short story, “Opting Out,” by Evan Brown. Fictional, yet timely and real. And after all, who knows what actions out there in the expanses of this vast country already are planned, or taking place? We hope you enjoy it!

Right-wing and left-wing podcasters warned the revolution would start in big cities like New York, San Francisco, or L.A. What the world learned from their daily hot takes and nightly news broadcasts was just how out of touch the opinion-makers really were.

Fall Fiction!

Pop Lit Fiction

What’s happening out in the world?

As opposed to, say, in stray literary areas of gentrified New York, where what’s happening among a self-absorbed media elite seems to be an article in Harper’s magazine about, er, self-absorption.

We say, enough! Time for writers to not be as insular as an AI chatbot, but to become interested in other people. To plunge into real-world human experience– the one edge we have over our new programmed, computer-generated competitors– then write about it. As Jeff Nazzaro does in our excellent new feature short story, “Of Music and Men.” All it does is capture our prime goal as a literary site: to present humanity and reality. Isn’t that what art has always been about?

Up here over the South LA freeways, it’s hazy and cool. I stop and let the dirty air wash over me, then I see a man come up the steps, stop at the top, turn, and take a seat one step down from the platform. My friend from the train? I can’t see his face, but no, I don’t think it’s him. And what difference would it make? I walk over to get a closer look. He wears dark pants and a gray hoodie, the hood pulled up and drawn tight. He’s hunched over on the top step, sobbing.  

End of Summer 2025

Pop Lit Fiction

LATE SUMMER! Post-Labor Day. A time of earlier sunsets, cooling nights, and poignant melancholy accompanying the end of summer’s carefree days. A time of change, wistfulness, memories.

Our new feature short story, “Big Lagoon” by Thomas Thonson is a tale about summer experiences and memories, of present merging with past– with persons from the past– an artistic blend of setting and personality, of experience that jumps out at you. With a hint of a surprise which calls into question our narrator, or at minimum, our opinion of him. Or a taste of another dimension. An example of what the fictional literary art can accomplish when all elements work harmoniously together.

A summer story. But is it the best short story of this 2025 summer? We think so!

Going out in that storm was the kind of idea only Marcel would’ve come up with. He was the daredevil, and I was his willing accomplice. He was also a talker––a voluminous, non-stop, wildly imaginative talker. His words could fill you with a sense of expectation, of worlds you hadn’t even dreamed of.

(ALSO stay up to date with everything happening at our Fast Pop Lit site, where everything happens fast, and will get faster.)

Dystopian Fiction, Dystopian Life

Pop Lit Fiction

A NEW SHORT STORY ABOUT A.I.

Dystopian fiction has been around a long time– at least since Mary Shelley’s still timely 1818 novel Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus. The difference between her world and ours is that we now find ourselves living in a full-on dystopia, in which we’re losing the distinction between what’s real and not-real, human and not-human. It’s likely to become worse, as tech moguls and venture capitalists are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in AI companies and AI devices– ever more dreamed-up money-grab gimmicks to separate the gullible from their bucks. After all, the AI wave needs to be monetized. Someone needs to pay for it. That targeted someone being YOU. Us. All of us.

ON THAT happy note we present a new short story about one such company and consumer: “Ghost In the Machine” by Andie Weber. It’s fiction. Sure it is.

We hope you like it!

C. Ryan: Yeah, now I’m speaking your language. And AfterLife is the hottest new word in profits. This isn’t just your average chatbot, it’s bigger, better, and way more lucrative—and with the projections our finance department has put together, I can assure you this money-making snowball isn’t going to stop rolling anytime soon.

More 2025 Fiction

Pop Lit Fiction

What should 2025 fiction– of the here and now– look like?

COULD it capture today’s chaotically volatile up-and-down economy and markets? The “let’s make a buck” societal mindset? The culmination of a tech wave of ambitious innovators and hustlers eager to make fortunes? Who are these guys? Have any writers captured the personality and/or mystery of them?

Well, yes– in our new feature short story, “Crypto” by Jonathan Stone, one of the most intelligent short story writers around.

NOT ONLY is it a glimpse of a unique moment of history– this moment– it’s an excellent story, about the pursuit of a kind of excellence. We’re sure you’ll agree when you read it!

Nine figures doesn’t happen every day, but for Mark, its pathway is utterly unsurprising – money that comes from money. Ahmet’s eight figures is inherently far stranger – produced from nothing but an idea, walked into the right receptive investor at the right market moment. When it came time to transfer proceeds – required distributions per the fund charter, and then unloading into cash equivalents when they all dumped their shares – Mark had overseen the allocation to Ahmet’s brokerage account. A deposit requiring phone calls and letters with signatories. Eight figures in a fell swoop. The American dream, on steroids. Or better yet, hallucinogens.

On American Dreams

Pop Lit Fiction

MOST AMERICANS still believe in the Dream, or want to believe in it. Often difficult to, given rising costs, a widening wealth gap, and of course contentious politics. Amid it all, the American Dream remains. People grasp for any semblance of it– even illusory caricatures of the Dream like crypto coins and other gimmicks.

Where we live, downriver from Detroit, we see and hear expressions of the American Dream. Two young fast food workers opening their own hamburger stand, for instance. Or the many immigrants– those most put-upon persons at the moment– mostly from Mexico and the Mideast running sixteen-hour food trucks on street corners as prelude, they hope, to the real thing. In so doing, mimicking what immigrants to America have done over the decades (a great novel about this: City for Conquest by Aben Kandel, written in 1936) while adding value and variety to beaten-down neighborhoods. America was once a beacon, a welcome mat for ambitious hustlers of every stripe. Much of what we know today as America, economically and culturally, was due to them. We here in our little pop-lit world believe America can still be that beacon– and not open solely to those who can pay a five-million dollar “gold card” fee!

WHICH BRINGS US to our new feature short story, “Fame and Fortune” by Alan Swyer, about two cousins pursuing their own ambitious dream in California, the Golden State. (Which has itself been put upon, by nature, of late.) It’s kind of a Cinderella story, capturing those quintessentially American qualities of ambition, creativity and opportunity. Needed reading.

We hope you enjoy it!

By the time he was alone in Steve’s guest room, Jeff’s head was spinning. Growing up, he’d always revered his older cousin, who had long served as a role model. It was due to Steve that Jeff became passionate about the Red Sox and Celtics. And, though not gifted athletically, he had worked hard enough to overlap with his older cousin for a year on their high school baseball team. Then, after following Steve’s path through Brown and B.U. Med School, Jeff chose to specialize in pediatrics once Steve suggested that they eventually form a practice together. 

Yet suddenly he couldn’t help but wonder what in the world he’d gotten himself into. 

Human Potential

Pop Lit Fiction

OUR SOCIETY is designed to place all of us into narrow categories based on this standardized two-dimensional test or that one, gauging our ability to fit into a technocratic economic system.  But can they possibly measure all human abilities? IQ tests and others like it have their uses, but are only one way of quantifying human potential. There are many ways of perceiving and interacting with the world, some which go beyond the easily measured or comprehended.

These thoughts provoked by our brand-new feature short story, “The Meteorologist” by Olaf Kroneman— about an autistic young woman whose abilities run outside the norm. A story in line with our goal to present more work which emphasizes our humanity– in this dawning age of the artificial; of robots and AI. Also, this terrific story is simply a great way to end our year of new featured fiction and poetry. (Though we may have a quick classic surprise come Christmas Eve!)

“Mr. Andrew is going to die,” Sarah said. Her voice was loud and piercing, almost a scream. 

She became mute and returned to her mysterious parallel world, but it seemed like she could still hear everything we said. As her long-time family physician, I had grown accustomed to her living in a private world. She would interact with me when she needed something basic or when I attempted to drag her into my world.

Too Much Technology?

Pop Lit Fiction

2024 or 1984?

DO PEOPLE EVER CONSIDER that George Orwell’s novel 1984 was set forty years ago, that we live in a dystopia but it’s more benign albeit subtle and insidious than Orwell’s vision, creeping incrementally but steadily into every minute aspect of our lives? We’re proverbial frogs in a pot of water only the water is 95% boiled and no one’s noticed. Thoughts provoked by our new feature story, “What Does It Cost to Be Civil?” by Tom Ray, about an ordinary couple in an ordinary community who just haven’t quite adapted, yet, to the changing conditions of the world we live in now. Anyone who was bombarded during the recent election campaign by texts and phone messages from hosts of strange numbers will definitely get it. Enjoy!

“Who are you?”

“You know who I am Albert. When you answer a call from me you become argumentative sometimes. Other times, when you’re on your laptop and have YouTube open, you play ’25 or 6 to 4’ by Chicago for me. That’s funny. Why that song, I wonder? And you know about spoofing, which you’ve explained to people who’ve called your number.”

He exhaled. “I thought you were a computer. If somebody answers, you transfer the call to a real person.”

“Oh, I am a computer, but I’m a person, too.”

Late Fall Fiction

Pop Lit Fiction

November! The last days of autumn. A time of falling leaves and dropping temperatures– at least where we’re at. Moments of shortening daylight, cooling breezes, and wistfulness– accompanied by the sudden pulling out of closets sweaters, hats, scarves– and overcoats. Which brings us to our new feature short story, “An Overcoat” by Tony Covatta. About a lawsuit over a missing coat, with glimpses of restaurants, businesses, attorneys, and courts– also a case which must be wrapped up as quickly as possible.

Why is that? You’ll have to read the story to find out!

Here was a chance for astute Gino not only to repair relations with favored client and disgruntled “chief” but also to display his blossoming courtroom chops. Lawyers who try cases—litigators, in short—are a breed apart. They are the jet jockeys of the profession, just as surgeons of essential organs are in medicine. Success, even on a small case involving a missing overcoat, could advance Gino’s climb up the greasy poles of firm acceptance and professional renown.