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POETRY
October Night - 10/26/24 [Horror]
Aporia Impasse IV - 10/29/24 [Literary Fiction]
Lightning Strikes - 10/27/24 [Literary Fiction]
Star Gazing - 10/27/24 [Literary Fiction]
MICRO/FLASH FICTION
Jack-o'-Lantern - 10/31/24 [Literary Fiction]
Party On - 10/30/24 [Literary Fiction]
Mirror! Mirror! - 10/29/24 [Horror]
Countdown - 10/30/24 [Folklore]
SHORT STORY
Red Sauce and Noodles - 10/31/24 [Literary Fiction]
SHORT SERIAL
The Witch in the Cellar [Part One] - 10/28/24 [Horror]
SERIAL
Cold Secrets [Ch. 12 & 13] - 10/26/24 [Mystery]
Beyond the Iron Door [Tooth and Nail, Prologue] - 11/1/24 [Fantasy]
Winds of Feeling [The Legend of Mother Wind, Ep. 5] - 10/29/24 [Fantasy]
Bones and Silk [The Undergrave, Pt. 8] - 10/29/24 [Fantasy]
On the Run [The Art of Darkness, Pt. 3] - 10/31/24 [Romance]
HONORABLE MENTIONS
The Lamp - 11/1/24 [Literary Fiction]
Reunion (a dialogue) - 10/30/24 [Literary Fiction]
Envy Pt. 2 [How to Lose Your Soul in Three Easy Steps] - 10/27/24 [Magic Realism]
Pathological - 10/31/24 [Horror]
Showing Howard Hullman - 10/30/24 [Fantasy]
Weeping Willow - 10/28/24 [Free Verse]
Let’s talk a little bit about the first ever Annual Recap of 2024 that was announced a couple of weeks ago and that I’m sure you’re all curious with questions about! For starters, why in the hell would I willingly set myself up to put together such a document with 200+ fiction stories?
That is an easy answer, actually! It bugged me that TiF got its start in July. I’m a very OCD person in my own life. One of my obsessions is wanting things to “start at the beginning” if I can help it. The fact that TiF started in the middle of the year meant that there was an entire 6 months of 2024 where weekly issues didn’t happen. But you and I know that amazing stories happened in that time. How could I highlight those without going back week-over-week to create these issues? And that’s when the idea came to me! Why not let all of you who’ve already been featured to choose instead! True, many of you may not even pick a story you wrote in the first half of 2024 or maybe you didn’t start your Substack journey in the beginning of the year? That’s totally fine too!
Another question you’re probably wondering is, why everyone that’s been featured? Surely, I don’t need to put together a list of 200+? I could limit it to maybe 50 or 100? But then I’d be going against a promise I made to myself about TiF, which is that there will be no bias or playing the favorite when it comes to who is selected every week. I’m not here to judge your work, good, bad, or otherwise. I am simply here to provide a vessel and a platform for all writers of fiction here and let the readers decide what they like and don’t like based on weekly discoveries. That statement would no longer ring true if I left even the Honorable Mentions out. Which is why this list will include everyone who’s ever been Featured. Fair is fair.
That said, I realize even after just being in operation for 4 months that we’ve merely scratched the surface in finding all of the fiction writers here. Trust me, I am leaving no stone unturned. Which is why the Friday Recommendation emails are so important. Because I can’t be everywhere all at once, this post helps me to find what I may have missed somewhere. And I always try to give priority entry onto the TiF weekly and monthly lists to those who’ve never been featured before. So, as long as you keep doing your part finding them, I’ll do mine and share them to the readers who are always in search of someone new to read.
Last question: Do I worry that creating a list of 200+ stories might be too much for anyone to take on and therefore a waste of time? Yes, I do. I considered the cons even more than the pros of this list, actually. I’ve seen lists before but never of this size and scope so it’s very possible that fatigue can set in for the person who receives this massive PDF. But that is why I’m trying things a bit differently with how it’s going to be organized. I’m starting with Genre. There will be a Table of Contents that will list out the Genre and then break down each genre into the Category (Poem, Short Story, Serial, etc.). I hope that in organizing the list this way it will help everyone hone in on what they like and find what they are looking for. Yes, it means some genres might get overlooked, but if featuring writers is important to me, what is at the opposite end and equally (if not more) important are helping readers find what they are looking for and not trying to trick them into a genre that isn’t their cup of tea. I want to make sure TiF is a place everyone from writer to reader can trust and know that we offer the kind of fiction variety they’ve been searching for.
— Your Most Trusted Fiction Curator 😈
TiF EXTRAS
[FEATURED WRITERS: DOWNLOAD YOUR MEDALLION HERE]
We’ll be back next Monday for another amazing list of fiction stories worth reading! And if you enjoyed any of these stories, please consider sharing this post everywhere:
Oh my goodness, what a lovely surprise! Thank you so much Erica - what a brilliant thing you're doing!!
Eee! Thank you for the honorable mention 💗💗