Five Minutes features micro-memoirs, hundred-word pieces about five minutes in a life. I’m thrilled to share the wonderful news that my short story, ‘Cellophane Wrapped,’ about the controversy and conscience around eating meat, has been accepted by Five Minute Lit and will be published in February 2024.
Reading team comments included “kept me thinking after” and “witty, relevant, well-written.”
They have also invited me to be an editorial reader for future submissions in 2024. I will share the publication once it is published at Five Minute Lit. You can read some of their micro stories online and read Karen Zey’s useful article, The Art and Craft of Writing Micro.
“Ready for war but not yet called up, fuelled on coffee and vodka with a lick of cynicism and delayed hope.”
My poem, I Want to Wear a Dress with Lemons All Over It, has been published in Sledgehammer Lit Mag. It was inspired by a photograph of a dress that Jill Biden wore, along with an ensuing conversation on Twitter about said dress. As a writer, I questioned why it had caused such a stir, especially because I’m not keen on the media focus on what women wear, so I played with the idea that it was the boldness of the colour and the print…
“the brazen cheer of it, the rebelliousness with which is stands out against the grey and drudge of news bulletins.”
And there began my poem….
“Somewhere there must be a place for a dress with lemons all over it, if not here, then there.“
I want to wear a dress with lemons all over it,
a bright yellow citrus burst of colour like the
pansies in the garden. The brazen cheer of it,
the rebelliousness with which it stands out
against the grey and drudge of news bulletins
and long faces, people in their houses, locked
away with slippers, computers fixed to bodies
like combat clothing. Ready for war but not yet
called up, fuelled on coffee and vodka with a lick
of cynicism and delayed hope. The blackbird sings,
F C MALBY 
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