Sunday, January 19th, 2025
The Judges have voted, the Fans have voted—
in only one day, on MLK Day (US), January 20th,
the winners will be announced.
In the meantime, scroll down for the poem
“Unethical Monogamy” by Chantelle Tibbs
and be sure to come through on Wednesday for
“Dedication to Keats” by Sarah Guppy
Keep surfing through, Lovers of Literature,
we do this three times a year.
by 
by Sunday, January 19th, 2025
by Chantelle Tibbs
I walk the tightest of ropes
My feet slip gripping a winding cord
Which makes its way up and around my neck
Toes twist in unnatural ways
To stay the course slammed into me
Since the mere thought I could ever one day flower
Tighter it squeezes
Every excuse to continue the squeeze
“No daughter of mine…”
“But I love you…”
“If you loved me you wouldn’t…”
Be me.
I taste vomit in my throat
The sound of my own bones cracking
My neck. My body.
What did she do?
What could I have done
Better.
Nothing.
I crawl the tightest prison wire
It constricts, contorts
I am tiny. I am broken. Dug into.
Penetrated, the irony.
Closing in on my heart
as it watches my demise.
by by Thursday, January 16th, 2025
Each song on the album is a bee.
Each one of these song-bees pollinates one of six gardens: “the orchard”, “the greenhouse”, “rock garden”, “desert garden”, “roses and thorns” and “herbs and elixirs”.
There is no other unifying concept to Tori Amos’ album The Beekeeper. The songs are otherwise unrelated, there are no recurring characters or topical catch-alls, and no narratives at all.
Yet, as Amos weaves her eloquent themes, sparkling images and substantial profundities across this collection of songs, a new and remarkable literary experience blooms from out the furrows.
by by Sunday, January 12th, 2025
Wednesday, January 8th, 2025
By Timothy Ryan
The blizzard of lies, disinformation, hatred and loathing unleashed by the Republican Party and its allies around immigration has been successful in skewing and obscuring the issue, all but destroying reasoned debate. It may seem odd then, even bizarre, to suggest one of the more incisive critiques of our current immigration dilemma actually comes from a gypsy-punk band named Gogol Bordello. In the song and video of “Immigraniada” from the “Before Times” of Obama in 2010, Ukrainian/Romany Eugene Hutz and his eclectic international band recorded some intense anthems that seemed to speak to our moment then – but even more so now.
by by Monday, January 6th, 2025
Monday, January 6th
Fan Voting beings
(vote here)
Wednesday, January 8th
How a Gypsy-Punk Music Video from 2010 Speaks to Our Current Immigration Moment
by Timothy Ryan
Sunday, January 12th
Concept Albums Explained: “A Musical Rebirth of the American Dream“
by Paul-Newell Reaves
Wednesday, January 15th
Concept Albums Explained: Tori Amos, “The Beekeeper”
by Paul-Newell Reaves
Friday, January 17th
Last Day of Fan Voting
Saturday, January 18th
Unethical Monogamy
by Chantelle Tibbs
Monday, January 20 (MLK Day)
Winners of the 2025 FLASH SUITE Contest Announced
Wednesday, January 22
Dedication to Keats
by Sarah Guppy
Throughout April, 2025
Lengthy Poem Contest
winners announces May Day, which is May 5th
— So keep surfing through, Lovers of Literature, we do these contests three times a year—
by by Monday, January 6th, 2025
Fan Voting is now open for the 2025 FLASH SUITE Contest.
Tell me, have you ever:
gone skinny-dipping in the rain on a Christmas Day?;
or sung to standing ovation on the longest day of the year?;
smoked a cigarette with your boss’ boss?
read a monster’s diary?;
or lost your favorite hat whilst steeling a Saudi prince’s sapphire from underwater turtles, only to escape by cover of lemurs?;
got caught up with by the emptiness— that, nothing-not-yet, emptiness?;
yet somehow— amidst all the abstraction— it’s all about the back-and-forth of a tennis match?
Why, all this winter you have, on Defenestrationism.net during the 2025 FLASH SUITE Contest.
Hope you have enjoyed as much as we did.
Monti Sturzaker can be found wherever there are words, or playing with her two rescue dogs, Echo and Whisper. She’s previously published in Andromeda.
Tracie Adams is a writer and teacher in rural Virginia. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in BULL, Does It Have Pockets, Cleaver Magazine, Trash Cat Lit, Anodyne, Bright Flash Literary Review, and others. Read her work at www.tracieadamswrites.com and follow her on Twitter @1funnyfarmAdams.
Jacob Anderson is an author from the Pacific Northwest and is majoring in Film at Arizona State. His works mostly fall into the genres of horror and fantasy, and has several works under consideration for publication.
Ann Kammerer lives in the Chicago area, having relocated from her home state of Michigan. Her poetry and short fiction have appeared or are coming in Fictive Dream, One Art, Open Arts Forum, Bright Flash Literary Review, Workers Write!, Chiron Review, Major 7th Magazine, Thoughtful Dog, and Ekphrastic Review, among others,andin anthologies byCrow Woods Publishing and Querencia Press. Her chapbook collections of narrative poetry include “Yesterday’s Playlist” (Bottlecap Press, 2023), “Beaut” (Kelsay Books, 2024), “Friends Once There” (Impspired, 2024), and “Someone Else” (Bottlecap Press, 2024). You can find her here: annkammerer.com
John Manderino is the author of five novels, two short stories collections and two memoirs. A novel titled Bopper’s Progress, was the winner of the 2017 Wundor International Fiction Award and a runner-up for the 2019 Maine Book of the Year, in fiction. Reason for Leaving (short stories) was Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year – Bronze Award Winner 2001 for Humor.
John has also written plays that have been performed at theater festivals and other venues and has had short stories published in periodicals. He is currently working on a novel titled And Jill Came Tumbling After and a short story collection titled The Man Who Made Jesus Laugh and Other Stories, which this piece is taken from.
Douglas Cole has published eight poetry collections, including The Cabin at the End of the World, winner the Best Poetry Award in the American Book Fest, and the novel The White Field, winner of the American Fiction Award. His work has appeared in journals such as Beloit Poetry, Fiction International, Valpariaso, The Gallway Review and Two Hawks Quarterly.
He contributes a regular column, “Trading Fours,” to the magazine, Jerry Jazz Musician. He also edits the American Writers section of Read Carpet, a journal of international writing produced in Columbia.
In addition to the American Fiction Award, his screenplay of The White Field won Best Unproduced Screenplay award in the Elegant Film Festival. He has been awarded the Leslie Hunt Memorial prize in poetry, the Best of Poetry Award from Clapboard House, First Prize in the “Picture Worth 500 Words” from Tattoo Highway, and the Editors’ Choice Award in fiction by RiverSedge. He has been nominated Seven times for a Pushcart and Nine times for Best of the Net. His website is https://douglastcole.com.
Holly Scott is a young writer from rural Australia. She was shortlisted for a competition held by Calanthe Press and has had several short stories published in speculative fiction literary magazines When she’s not writing, Holly can be found going on walks, enjoying a cup of coffee and wrangling a number of chickens. You can contact her on X, @fanfarress
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by Sunday, January 5th, 2025
by Holly Rose Scott
[this is a four part series–
read In Which We Stand Side By Side and Watch It All Burn from the beginning]
The sniper knelt beside the sergeant, his fingers pressing down on the wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding. They were alone, tucked into a ridge that hid them from the rest of the world—a grave built of dirt and rock.
“I got him, Sarge,” the sniper whispered. His voice shook, barely steady under the weight of relief and the cold knife of failure. “The one who hit you. I got him.”
The sergeant’s breathing rattled in his chest, each breath catching like a barbed wire snare. He blinked, looking at the sniper with an empty calm in his eyes, the spark already beginning to dim.
“Too late, kid,” he said, his voice a rasp like sandpaper against the bones of his throat. “But don’t worry… It’s all right.”
The sniper felt his stomach twist. He wanted to argue, to do something, anything, to hold on to the man who’d been a force of steel and strength, who’d marched beside him, taught him how to live, and how to kill.
“Don’t say that, Sarge. I can—I can carry you back.” He sounded desperate, even to his own ears.
The sergeant gave him a slow, sad smile, blood slipping from the corner of his mouth, dark and thick. “Can’t carry what’s already gone, kid. Everything burns. Everything rots.”
The sniper’s mouth tightened. “But… you didn’t deserve this.”
“Deserve?” The sergeant’s chuckle was a hollow, painful sound. “What anyone deserves is what they’ll get in the end. Don’t be sad for me, kid. Don’t be sad for any of it.”
A faint glimmer of bitterness crossed the sniper’s face. “That’s… that’s messed up.”
“It’s just how it is.” The sergeant’s eyes were unfocused now, his gaze fixed somewhere past the sniper’s shoulder, at something only he could see. “Everyone gets what’s coming to them. Someday… you’ll understand.”
The sniper looked away, unable to bear the sight of his sergeant—of his friend—slipping further. The dirt around them felt like it was swallowing them whole, dragging them into a pit they’d never climb out of.
The sergeant’s hand, surprisingly steady, reached up and grabbed the sniper’s collar. His grip was weak, but there was a fierce insistence in it.
“Remember this,” he muttered. “Nothing… stays untouched. Not by fire, not by time. The best thing you can do is… make peace with that.”
The sniper swallowed hard. “I’ll remember, Sarge.”
The grip on his collar loosened, the sergeant’s hand falling limp against the dirt. His eyes, still open, looked out into the distance, seeing something far beyond the sniper could imagine.
And just like that, the sergeant was gone, leaving only silence and a faint scent of smoke on the air, as if the world itself mourned.
The sniper stayed crouched there, feeling the weight of those words sink into his bones like a curse. Everything burns. Everything rots.
And in the end, everything catches up with you.
Fan Voting begins tomorrow, January 6th.
Meet the Finalists now posted.
Back to the 2025 FLASH SUITE Contest
What’s New at Defenestrationism.net
home/ Bonafides
by by Saturday, January 4th, 2025
by Holly Rose Scott
[this is a four part series–
read In Which We Stand Side By Side and Watch It All Burn from the beginning]
The air is thick with smoke and dust as the sky lights up, an orange glow flashing over the valley below. The sniper and the sergeant stand on the ridge, their silhouettes hidden among the rocks as they watch the airstrike unfold.
Wait, we’ve been here before, haven’t we?
Explosions ripple through the valley, echoing like thunder, sending up pillars of flame that pierce the darkening sky.
The sniper rests his rifle on his knee, but his eyes aren’t on his scope; they’re fixed somewhere beyond the flames, somewhere past the twisting shadows. He speaks up, voice barely audible over the distant roar of destruction.
“Can we talk about something else?”
The sergeant doesn’t look away from the burning horizon. His hands are tense, gripping the straps on his gear as he watches the village below disappear in fire and smoke. “Now’s not the time.”
The sniper shifts, his gaze dropping to the ground, his jaw tight. “I mean it. I don’t want to watch… this. Let’s talk about something else. Anything else.”
The sergeant glances at him, a shadow of impatience in his eyes. “We’re here to observe. You know that.”
The sniper doesn’t respond, and the silence stretches between them, broken only by the distant blasts and the crumbling of buildings collapsing into dust.
Finally, the sergeant speaks again, his tone sharp but hushed. “Is this what you meant when you said you ‘didn’t feel it anymore’?” He pauses, watching the sniper’s reaction. “Is this what you were talking about?”
The sniper’s eyes flick up, a strange, hollow glint in them. “It’s not just that I don’t feel it,” he murmurs. “It’s that… I don’t even want to. I don’t want to feel anything about this.” He gestures toward the wreckage below, his voice detached, cold. “I used to care. Used to think about the people… what was left behind. But now? It’s just noise. Ash. Shadows that mean nothing.”
The sergeant narrows his gaze, studying the sniper’s face as if trying to find something buried within him, something that still has a spark. “That’s not something you say lightly.”
The sniper shrugs, gaze fixed on the flames licking through the remains of what was once a village. “Maybe not. But I don’t think it’s something you say with meaning, either. Not anymore.” His voice grows quieter, almost a whisper. “That scares me, Sarge. More than this… this destruction. It’s the emptiness that gets me. It’s like I’m becoming the smoke. Fading.”
The sergeant watches him in silence, his face unreadable, lit by the orange flicker of flames. The explosions have quieted now, leaving only the crackling fires and the low rumble of jets retreating into the night.
After a long pause, the sergeant sighs, turning back toward the ridge they came from. “Maybe I understand what you meant,” he says, almost to himself. “Maybe we’re all starting to feel that emptiness.”
The sniper doesn’t answer. He only stands there, motionless, watching the fire burn until it becomes nothing but embers in the dark.
Fan Voting begins January 6th.
Meet the Finalists now posted.
Back to the 2025 FLASH SUITE Contest
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