Author: Shyla Shehan

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Author Q&A with Allison Hughes

Q&A with Allison Hughes: Life of Expression and Creativity

July 2, 2025

A close-up portrait of a person with reddish-brown hair styled in braids, wearing a grey top, and a septum piercing, set outdoors with greenery and a building in the background.

Allison Hughes lives on North Haven Island in Maine. She holds a BFA from Emerson College. Her work has been featured in Wack Mag.

Allison’s Essay, “I Am a Body Lying In the Grass” is featured in Issue #19.

Tell us about yourself.

I’m Allison, a queer nonfiction writer from Maine. I’ve been writing about my life since First Grade. My teacher wrote weekly letters to all her students, and my first letter to her was about swimming at a sandy beach with my cousins in September. I still swim in September but now the beaches are rocky and my cousins live in different states. I live on North Haven Island with my partner and our pet fish named Henry, who has far outlived his life expectancy.

What unique or surprising detail can you tell us about the origin, revision process, and/or final version of your piece appearing in this issue?

    I wrote the bulk of this essay in the notes app on my phone when I was having trouble falling asleep.

    What did you learn (about yourself or craft or life in general) through writing and revising it?

      I learned to use inspiration when it strikes.

      What fuels your desire to write (or engage in other creative outlets)? Or what have been the biggest influences in your writing?

        Curiosity is one of my biggest influences. My desire to write is fueled by my desire to learn. It helps me feel my emotions and to understand situations or people from different angles. I love to write about my relationships, sexuality, family, and home.

        How do you make expression a part of your daily life? Or how do you find a balance between your writing and other responsibilities?

          The outfit I choose to wear, the music I listen to, and the dinner I cook are all a part of my personal expression. These pieces of my life help fuel my creativity.

          I find a balance between my writing and other responsibilities with the help from my community. I enjoy writing in the company of others, whether I’m in a packed coffee shop or sitting next to a friend. My friend calls it “parallel play.” She draws and I write or we both write or we both draw. I’m in a writing group that meets twice a month, since there aren’t many opportunities to sit in a packed coffee shop on the island. I value my relationships and try to connect with new writers.

          What do you think when you hear, “the good life”?

            When I hear “the good life” I think of Maine. I think of my first cup of coffee of the day, reading on the beach, winter walks, falling asleep to the sound of waves crashing on shore. I think of falling in love and healing from heartbreak.


            Thank you, Allison, for being a part of our growing literary community and for spending extra time with us on this Q&A. We wish you the best!

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            Categories
            micro fiction micro monday short fiction

            Drawing from Life by Miles Parnegg

            Drawing from Life | Miles Parnegg

            Between poses, we eat Oreos and ginger snaps while the animators smoke on the patio. I keep pulling off your hood to run a palm over your buzzed scalp, frosted with bleach. You dip your head as though taking a sacrament. By now, we know the models, not personally or by name, but by their jawlines and hip creases. The drawing saddles are uneven wood, and sandbags still line the studio’s back wall from February’s flood. Paint pigment circles the drain in the bathroom sink, lit by the waving flames of votive candles. The soundtrack is spa-like and ambient, heavy on flute. Spooky, you lean over and jot on my sketchbook. 

            You went to art school, offer tips, gentle corrections. I want to learn this without learning, through blind seeing: no books or lessons, no regimentation—but I want your strokes on my page, the impressions of your fingertips and knuckles. You draw only in color, I only charcoal: a difference emblematic of something I can’t quite nail. You shy away from eyes and nose, preferring instead the suggesting shade of a high cheekbone, lifted by a thumb wetted on your tongue. Because you’re late, or you prefer the angle, you’re often on the floor in front of me, away from me. I smear charcoal across disproportionate masses while you hold a fistful of pastels and sit on the floor, cross-legged in your black boots. The bell rings to switch poses, and the model reaches for a stool, and I remind myself she’s the reason we’re here, that it’s foolish to think I can keep drawing you.

            A watercolor illustration of a bee on a black circular background.
            About the Author:

            Miles Parnegg holds an MFA from the University of California, Irvine. He lives in Los Angeles.


            Categories
            interviews

            Author Q&A with Myna Chang

            Q&A with Myna Chang: On Writing and Freedom

            June 25, 2025

            Headshot of a woman with long, straight blonde hair, wearing a black top and a delicate necklace, smiling at the camera against a plain white background.

            Myna Chang is the author of The Potential of Radio and Rain (CutBank Books). Her writing has been selected for Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and WW Norton’s Flash Fiction America. Find her at MynaChang.com or on Bluesky at @MynaChang.

            Myna’s Flas Fiction, “The Next Empty Cup” is featured in Issue #19.

            Tell us about yourself.

            I write flash fiction, short speculative fiction, and poetry, as well as creative nonfiction. I also interview authors and publishers for several magazines, and publish fiction reviews on my blog. I have a large German Shepherd who lays on my feet as I write, and a quick-witted husband who brings me sandwiches when I’m on a deadline. I feel incredibly lucky.

            What unique or surprising detail can you tell us about the origin, revision process, and/or final version of your piece appearing in this issue?

            This story is a reaction to the many ways society belittles and ignores older women. I’ve watched my grandmothers and my mother seemingly lose “value” as they aged, and I’m experiencing it myself directly now as I sail past middle-age. In this story, I wanted to repackage my frustration and anger into something more resonant, something a bit hopeful.

            How do you find a balance between your writing and other responsibilities?

            Finding balance seems somewhat unimportant to me. After too many years in a demanding career, and too much juggling of duties as a parent, I am joyful that I now can do what I want with my time. Someone else can wash the damn dishes—I have a story to write.

            What do you think when you hear, “the good life”?

            To me, “the good life” means having the freedom and opportunity to live life as I choose. I believe every person in the world deserves this unfettered autonomy, and I’d love to see more people working toward this goal.


            Thank you, Myna, for being a part of our growing literary community and for spending extra time with us on this Q&A. We wish you the best!

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            Categories
            interviews

            Author Q&A with Chris Lisieski

            Q&A with Poet and Attorney Chris Lisieski

            June 18, 2025

            An abstract painting featuring vibrant swirls of colors including red, green, blue, and gold, creating a dynamic and expressive visual effect.

            Chris Lisieski is an attorney and poet. He graduated from Antioch College with a degree in philosophy and creative writing, and the University of Virginia with a J.D. His work has been published by In Parentheses, The Courtship of Winds, and The Journal of Undiscovered Poets. He has one good dog, one other dog, and a multitude of rotating hobbies.

            Lisieski’s poem, “ephemera 31” is featured in Issue #19.

            Tell us about yourself.

            My interest in writing originated where it does for many of us, I think:  in reading.  I could never put books away.  I remember getting in trouble in Mr. Plischke’s sixth grade class for reading novels during class.  My relationship with language has changed a lot over the years, particularly so during law school, but I’ve never gotten far away from writing.

            What unique or surprising detail can you tell us about the origin, revision process, and/or final version of your piece appearing in this issue?  

            Each of the poems I’ve written in the ephemera series start from what is essentially a piece of trash:  a discarded paper or list or advertisement or some other kind of printed, written, or typed word with limited and temporally constrained utility.  I typically start with the piece of ephemera, and have no idea where the poem will end up from there.  Also, I have Saving Private Ryan to thank for the vocabulary word “defilade.”

            What do you think when you hear, “the good life”?  

            I’ve spent a lot of time thinking recently about how essential dualities are for human experience:  that pain is part and parcel to love; that happiness must contain sadness within it; that anger and peace are different ingredients in the same soup.  At a basic level, you can’t know, understand, or appreciate any single emotion without its counterpart.  If you feel joy, at some point, you’ll feel the absence of joy.  So, when I hear “the good life,” I think of the weird amalgam that flavors it, and how that includes “the bad life” within it.  Some bitterness, some sweet, some salt, all key to a rich broth and, in the end, inevitable to our very human lives.


            Thank you, Chris, for being a part of our growing literary community and for spending extra time with us on this Q&A. We wish you the best!

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            Categories
            micro fiction micro monday short fiction

            Once I Lived in Heaven by Mea Cohen

            Once I Lived in Heaven | Mea Cohen

            Remember when we were clumsy and gloomless? New lovers undressing in front of each other for the first time. I want to keep this story there. In the curls of your chest hair, in the uncrossing of my arms from my bare breasts. In the stroke of laughter from your lips as my fingers ran their way across your manhood. Oh, I said, surprised at my own bravery. Oh, I said, when you bravely found your way inside me. I want to keep the story there, in the sunlight that fell across your sweat-dappled forehead in the aftermath of our love. In the damp white sheet we turned into a tent and swore we’d never leave. 

            Regarding loss, I’m afraid to bring it into the story, worried what I might bring back to life. Like my marble belly so swollen with time and excellent time. And how I woke one night to find my innards scattered around my knees. They say that blood from the belly tastes sweeter than blood from anywhere else. How we held each other differently that night, how we wept tears we’d never weep again. Christening tears for what wasn’t born right. Can tears christen what wasn’t born right? 

            I kept dreaming I was a creature pulling out my wings to sell in a market stall, next to stacks of pomegranates and shovels. Once I lived in heaven with you, because I wanted to. 

            We didn’t ask for God that night. Or any night thereafter.

            A watercolor illustration of a bee on a black circular background.
            About the Author:
            A close-up portrait of a woman with long hair, wearing a dark scarf and a black coat, set against a forest background during autumn, with fallen leaves on the ground.

            Born and raised in Palisades, NY, Mea Cohen is a writer now based in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Her work has appeared in West Trade Review, OKAY Donkey, Big Whoopie Deal, Barely South Review, and more. She was nominated for best micro-fiction in 2024 and 2026. She earned her MFA in creative writing and literature from Stony Brook University, where she was a Contributing Editor for The Southampton Review. She is the Founder and Editor in Chief for The Palisades Review.

            Issue #22 ~ “Best” of Edition

            Categories
            micro fiction micro monday short fiction

            A Haunted House at the End of the World by Autumn Bettinger

            A Haunted House at the End of the World | Autumn Bettinger

            Is this the end of the world?

            “It may be, old girl. Are you ready?”

            Marigold slid a wrinkled hand up the faded post of her house. The ghosts were heavy with the coming storm—anxiety manifesting in creaky floorboards and swinging tapestries. Marigold leaned over the porch railing as the first plump drops of the apocalypse battered her front garden. The other seaside towns along the bluffs began to wink out, obscured by the storm that ingested the world with a swirling, single-minded intensity. 

            The satellite images had been all over the media before the internet went dark—a storm cell so large it covered half the planet. Earth’s own great red spot, only the color of bruised and necrotic skin: mottled purple veined with oily black. Sickly. Contagious.

            KA-CHUNK. The backup generator kicked in. 

            Marigold closed her eyes as the storm consumed, bloating on snapped branches and tsunami waves.

            I will protect you.

            “No need.” 

            The house shuddered. Marigold was nudged back inside by rolling porch boards that nipped along her fuzzy slippers. The door snapped shut behind her, and the locks chunked home. 

            “I’m happy to be here with you, at the end,” Marigold said as she shuffled towards the kitchen. The wind exploded. Rain drowned gutters and sloshed beneath the foundation. 

            Is it, though? The end?

            “I don’t think we’re getting out of this one.”

            Marigold settled herself in the breakfast nook. A cup of tea waited on the table. It smelled of garden lavender and lemon balm. The house must have hidden a bundle of those dried herbs from last harvest. Marigold’s favorite tea. The bond she shared with the house lay sticky with memories and murmured adorations. She mourned its destruction much more than the passing of her own unremarkable life.

              We got out of that thing with Ron.

            “Murdering my asshole husband was decidedly less complicated than surviving an extinction event.”

            But you are resourceful and clever. You fed me so many. 

            “Killing men is easy. I’m just sorry you had to keep their weak souls inside you.” 

            Once they were a part of me, they loved you, like I do.

            Hail whipped through shingles, softball-sized chunks of ice splintering rafters and shattering siding. Marigold sipped her tea as the house crowded around her with every last ounce of structural support. It coddled Marigold, collapsing into just one, tight room. It crumpled offices and bathrooms, slapped hallways against kitchen walls to reinforce this last bastion of safety. The storm sucked up the windows as the exterior shredded.

            The kitchen walls were so close, bent so deeply that Marigold could brush the wallpaper with her pale fingers. She smiled, love radiating between them as the roof buckled and plaster rained down, splashing into her tea and dusting Marigold like sugar. The room disintegrated. 

            “Buying a haunted house was the best thing I ever did,” Marigold whispered as the wind ripped them away.

            A watercolor illustration of a bee on a black circular background.
            About the Author:
            A woman with long brown hair sitting by a window, wearing a pink lace top and a black tulle skirt, gazing thoughtfully outside.

            Autumn Bettinger is a short-form fiction writer and full-time mother of two living in Portland, Oregon. She was the 2024 Fishtrap fellow, has won the Tadpole Press 100-Word Writing Contest, The Not Quite Write Flash Fiction Prize and the Silver Scribes Prize. All of Autumn’s published works can be found at autumnbettinger.com

            Issue #22 ~ “Best” of Edition
            Categories
            interviews

            Author Q&A with Katharine Jager

            Author Q&A with Katharine Jager

            May 28, 2025

            Katharine Jager is a poet and medieval scholar. She is Professor of English at the University of Houston-Downtown, and has published poems in such venues as The Gettysburg Review, Friends Journal, Commonweal, GoodFoot, The Red River Review and the Yale Anthology: Before the Door of God, among other places.

            Her poem, Enumeration, is featured in our spring issue.

            Tell us about yourself. 

            I am a poet and medievalist, and live in Houston with my three sons and husband.

            What unique or surprising detail can you tell us about the origin, revision process, and/or final version of your piece appearing in this issue? 

            This poem emerged from archival research I conducted at Texas Southern University, looking at their Heartman collection of artifacts related to enslavement. There was a register contained in that collection that documented the enslaved people who’d been taken from Mississippi to Texas in the 19th century; this register actually named each enslaved person, which was somewhat unusual. I teach a course on reparations, and we’d already discussed and examined the Harris County “slave schedules,” which were the way that the U.S. Census bureau accounted for enslaved people–by age, sex, and often color. In the “slave schedules,” enslaved people are not given names; the archive treats them as property, not human beings.

            What did you learn (about yourself or craft or life in general) through writing and revising it? 

            One of the things I learned through drafting and revising this poem was that a great deal of my thinking about race and history and place is filtered through my love for my sons, who are mixed race. 

            What do you hope readers take from the piece? 

            I hope that readers take from this piece a sense of empathy and concern for how the past might still resonate into the present.

             What fuels your desire to write (or engage in other creative outlets)? Or what have been the biggest influences in your writing? 

            The biggest influences on my writing are (of course!) other writers. In my case, those are poets with whom I have studied, like Marie Ponsot, Sharon Olds, Marie Howe, Jean Valentine. But there are writers whom I’ve only read and studied who deeply influence my poetry, and those include poets like Amy Clampitt, May Sarton, Basil Bunting, Adrienne Rich, and of course the greats like Hopkins, Dickinson, Whitman.

            How do you make expression a part of your daily life? Or how do you find a balance between your writing and other responsibilities? 

            Balancing writing and the responsibilities of motherhood and being a professor can be really challenging. I’ve found that I need a deadline, so I like taking writing workshops with a (for me, local) gambit called Grackle and Grackle. I also have a few writing groups I belong to that meet sporadically and when we do see each other, it’s a creative godsend of shared work and good writing prompts.

             What do you think when you hear, “the good life”? 

            “The good life” means time, for me. Time enough to make poems, time enough to be in my garden, abundant time to be with my children and spouse.

            Thank you, Katharine, for being a part of our growing community and for spending extra time with us on this Q&A. We’re glad we were able to connect and we wish you the best with your current and future writing endeavors.

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            Categories
            announcements

            2025 HoneyBee Prize Finalists

            Announcing the Short List of Finalists for the 2025 HoneyBee Prize

            May 27, 2025

            Graphic announcing the 2025 HoneyBee Prize finalists, featuring a gold bee logo on a blue background.



            Huzzah, we’ve finally done it! At long last the team is finished reading and deliberating submissions for the 2025 Honeybee Prize. This included hundreds of stories and essays and over a thousand poems! We’re pleased to report that finalists have been sent to the judges in each of the 5 genres.

            And we’re equally as excited to heave a hearty congratulations in the direction of those that made it onto this year’s short list. ↓↓↓

            A blue graphic featuring the word 'honeybee' in decorative font at the top and 'Poetry' in elegant script below, accompanied by an illustration of a golden bee.

            The cure to all the maladies by Jonathan Greenhause
            Red and Yellow Light over the Top of Houses by Dolapo Demuren
            Every Room is a Sonnet by Dolapo Demuren
            Drowned Crawdads by Sara Shea
            The Year I Carried You by Sara Shea
            Wedged Together We Are Flying by Reva Johnson
            Silence bears no fruit by Erwin Arroyo Pérez
            English Is My Second Language by Erwin Arroyo Pérez
            Yes, she did by Ashlie Hyer
            Autobiography of a Violin by Cassie Burkhardt
            Arouse Yourself by Yin Cheng
            Surely Every Man is Mere Breath by Yin Cheng
            The Weight of His Chair by Sam Aureli
            True Apothecary by Ellie Gold Laabs
            The Widower Writes from the Shipwreck by Ellie Gold Laabs

            Graphic featuring the text 'honeybee Flash Fiction' on a blue background with a stylized illustration of a bee.

            Before the Everything After by Jaime Gill & Charlie Rogers
            Solitary Creatures by Jaime Gill & Charlie Rogers
            Do You by Alison Sanders
            While Making Out the Lineup for Tomorrow’s 12U Softball Championship Game by Jim Parisi
            The Summer He left by Alison Sanders
            Hands by Pam Anderson

            Graphic featuring the text 'honeybee Flash Creative Nonfiction' on a blue background with an illustration of a bee.

            The Leftovers by Michelle La Vone
            Attack by Ginger Tolman
            Protocols and Such by Camara Garrett
            I Conjure My Great-Grandmother and Ask for Her Life Story. She Visits My Dreams and Gives Me a Lesson on Revision by Alayna Powell

            Graphic featuring the text 'honeybee Short Fiction' on a blue background with an illustration of a honeybee.

            Theatre of Solace by Nicole Bazemore
            Peabody by Joe Cappello
            Mr. Jensen by Madeline Rosales
            Take Me Through the Finish by Tom Ziemer
            When Mr. Boppo Joined the Cohort by Sharon Lee Snow

            Graphic design featuring the text 'honeybee Short Creative Nonfiction' on a blue background with an illustration of a bee.

            On the Telephone with Mom by Dean Gessie
            36 Hours in Lecce by Anne Schuchman
            The Laundry Hangs at Noon by Ginger Tolman

            Stay tuned to learn the results of the contest and who the judges selected as the winners.

            If you missed sending work for the prize this year (or even if you didn’t), there’s always another chance just around the next bend. And, we’re always open. Click here to give us a go. ↓↓↓

            A vibrant promotional graphic announcing free submissions, celebrating spring and summer, with a background that evokes a creative atmosphere.

            As a reminder, we nominate for Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best New Poets, Best Small Fictions and… YES we are a paying market! ($60 per piece published in the seasonal issue, $25 per piece published in Micro Monday, $50 for cover art).

            Your work will be handled with care and read by at least two (typically three or more) members of our editorial team.

            Peace and Love,
            The Good Life Review Team

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            Categories
            announcements

            Free Subs for Autumn 2025

            We are offering free subs today and through the end of May…

            Graphic promoting free submissions for an autumn issue, featuring a yellow-orange bee illustration and text stating 'FREE SUBS FOR OUR AUTUMN ISSUE THROUGH MAY 31ST' on a blue background.
            (Click to access the magic portal)

            Why? Because we love spring and we love summer, and we love reading poems and essays and strange stories by wonderful writers, even ones with spiders.

            Because we are done reading for this year’s HoneyBee Prize and are anxiously awaiting results from the five judges. And because we don’t want that pesky $3 fee to cause people to hold any grudges.

            Too much? OK. Maybe we’re doing it because we can.

            Guidelines are available on our submission page and the form to send work is available on Submittable (be sure to select the fee-free option, unless you want to give us moneys, which is OK too).

            A vibrant promotional graphic announcing free submissions, celebrating spring and summer, with a background that evokes a creative atmosphere.

            As a reminder, we nominate for Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best New Poets, Best Small Fictions and… YES we are a paying market! ($60 per piece published in the seasonal issue, $25 per piece published in Micro Monday, $50 for cover art).

            Your work will be handled with care and read by at least two (typically three or more) members of our editorial team.

            A watercolor illustration of a bee in shades of yellow and orange on a dark background.
            Categories
            interviews

            Author Q&A with Siobhan Ring

            Author Q&A with Siobhan Ring: Embracing Grief and Creative Freedom

            May 21, 2025

            Close-up selfie of a woman with glasses, wearing a black hoodie, standing near a tree with green leaves and a blue sky in the background.

            Siobhan Ring is a writer, organizer, and progressive movement-builder in the Pacific NW. She writes about parenting, caregiving, health, illness, and survival in a world that seems bound on destruction but overflows with beauty anyway. Her work has been previously published in The Write Launch, Lunch Ticket, and The Forge: Journal of Organizing Strategy and Practice. She lives with her sweet queer family in Seattle.

            Siobhan’s essay “Space / Time” appears in Issue #19 ~ Spring 2025.

            Tell us about yourself.

            I live with my wife and our almost-adult kid in the beautiful PNW, a place that became my home 30 years ago. I’ve lived in cities most of my adult life, but I carry the small town, rural, kid I was with me. I work in progressive movement organizing and deeply appreciate both cats and coffee in my everyday life.

            What unique or surprising detail can you tell us about the origin, revision process, and/or final version of your piece appearing in this issue?

            Revision is everything. Writing is humbling. This essay took so long to write, and it needed so many revisions. I thought it was going to be a very short, darkly funny story about an absurdist road trip, but it became something else. I revised and revised and revised. I have piles of leftover language that might be seeds of another essay.

            What do you hope readers take from the piece?

            Give yourself grace. “The past isn’t going anywhere.” (folk singer Utah Phillips). We really have lived through that pandemic, and we are not and will not ever be the same. Grief is unwieldy and like the ocean in its vast, unrelenting, insistence. Our ancestors are right beside us.

            What fuels your desire to write (or engage in other creative outlets) and how do you make expression a part of your daily life? Or how do you find a balance between your writing and other responsibilities?

            Writing is how I give love to my own voice and experience, amid the cacophony of everything else. I am a very slow writer, both in the pace of writing and in the long pauses when I don’t write a word. I’ve lived in the constrained space between parenting my own child and caring for ill parents for the past 16 years, and I have an intense job and a dirty house and a long list of everything else. I write when I can, when I feel the impulse pull me, and I don’t waste any time feeling bad about not writing enough. The time and energy I do have for it feels precious like water.

            What do you think when you hear, “the good life”?

            The good life is freedom, safety, love, and community. All of us deserve it, and not enough of us have it. 

            Thank you, Siobhan, for sharing part of your story and for being willing to spend extra time on this Q&A with us. We’re grateful we had a chance to connect and wish you the best.

            A watercolor illustration of a bee on a black circular background.