Here at TPOW, we believe the practice of writing is a living craft; one that sharpens the mind, deepens empathy, and keeps language dangerous and alive. The Practice of Writing (TPOW) exists to teach that craft with rigor and to publish the stories that prove it’s still possible to be astonished by a sentence. We are a home for work that refuses to sit quietly on the page. Editorial Focus We publish short story and flash that surprises us. We want your tender grit, work that risks sentimentality but never succumbs to it, work that makes the familiar feel newly perilous or the surreal feel inevitable. We want stories that feel written with emotional truth front and center: precise, unsettling, odd, resonant. We want voice. Authors we LOVE: Sayaka Murata, Zadie Smith, Larry McMurtry, Ted Chiang, Haruki Murakami, Joy Williams, Kathy Fish, Carmen Maria Machado, Deb Marquart, Ron Currie, Jr., Tom Robbins. Sentences that earn their keep Endings that feel both surprising and preordained Humor that arrives with a scalpel Characters who embarrass, frighten, or outrun their authors Experiments that remember the reader is human Quiet stories that detonate hours later We have no interest in fiction that explains, soothes, moralizes, or mistakes cruelty for depth. Length: Flash up to 1,000 words · Short stories 1,001–7,500 words (We read every word, so make them count.)

The Practice of Writing

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