For HFR 67, we asked writers to tell us what it meant to be haunted. They responded in droves—one of our busiest submission periods to date. Writers showed us what unsettled them: the places and objects and systems and people and lost loves and future losses and lost futures. We were so thrilled by the response that we wanted to summon another call for submissions: this time for short-form work. Prose poems, microfiction, the flash essay; all have captivating ways of passing through us like a cold spot in an old house. The pieces contained within this companion issue are separate from the work in the print journal, but they evoke similar feelings. Every two weeks, we’ll share a new piece, allowing them to raise the hair at the back of our necks, texture our arms with goosebumps, halt our breath as we give way to the attention they require. These pieces are fleeting and disorienting, quiet and gripping. They’re our brief haunts.
brief haunts
Noa Covo’s Katya (flash fiction)
Stephen Tuttle’s What Else Are They Doing to the Bodies of the Dead? (prose poem)
Rhea Ramakrishnan’s Mirror Trick (poem)
Meghan Phillips’ Final Girls Late-Night Running Club (flash fiction)
Miriam Rae-Silver’s Crushed (comic)
Sadie Dupuis’ Be My Valentine (poem)
Vincent Poturica’s Alvin (flash fiction)
N.T. Arévalo’s Truths About Dogs, Cats, and Ducks (flash fiction)
Kristine Langley Mahler’s Creepsake (essay)
Justin Greene’s Tourette’s Syndrome As Poltergeist (poem)
Ashwini Bhasi’s You dream of centipedes (poem)