From The Editor (August 2025)
2025-Aug-26 • Victor D Sandiego
Hello everyone from Dog Throat Journal HQ bunker. As you may know, this time around marks our first ever flash fiction contest. The response was well beyond what I had hoped for and kept me busy reading and heading into the kitchen for more coffee.
I read each contest entry and each standard submission, many several times. A couple of things to note:
- Reading anonymously is liberating. I’m an advocate for putting the work itself above all other concerns, and this really helped put the focus on that goal. Although we like to show a bio for published work, it plays no part in the selection process.
- Ranking is something I don’t like. I needed to do it this time around because that’s what we put out there regarding the contest, but I couldn’t really say one story is objectively better than another. Of the ones I selected, I love them all for different reasons. Each has a distinctive voice. For the next contest, I’ll do things a bit differently. I’ll pick (probably three) stories and treat them equally in regard to the cash prizes.
From the contest entries, I selected six stories. Allow me to briefly share my thoughts on these pieces, shown here in alphabetical order of title.
Any Day Now (Barlow Crassmont)
This one is not for the timid. It uses a risk taking narrative with a relentless pull toward an ending that likely steps on a few toes. But that’s what we like around here, authors who are willing to take a chance. This one, although it reads in one huge exhalation without punctuation, is well worth riding the concentrated thrust.
Archaeology (Salvatore Difalco)
Dark, moody, and entering the unknown without a map, this piece poetically questions identity, whether we are connected, and the origin, the provenance, not only of material possessions but of life itself. Paraphrasing the author: Possibilities are possible simply because they aren’t impossible.
On the Inventional of the Mechanical Pencil or Why I Did Not Quit Today (Zary Fekete)
Switching gears, this piece carries a quiet, contemplative tone. It focuses on an everyday object, and in doing so in an introspective, poetic way, makes the ordinary sacred. It allows us to see that life is filled with wonder in small things, and in ways we may not have imagined.
Tangled (Chris Carrel)
This piece leans into the mystical, the metaphoric, and the sensual. It carries on its poetic back a story of two people transformed into raw animal states, who live in conjugated worlds, mythical, aboriginal, jungled and raw, as well as the world we see when we step onto an apartment balcony to view the concrete corpus of a modern city.
The Night Mothman Crashed On Black Mountain And Other Lies I Told Myself (Rachel Savage)
I was immediately engaged with the voice and poetic energy of this piece. I enjoyed how we got to know the narrator and the extent of her misfortune sideways, that is through revelations that carry weight in few words. The ending works very well and leaves us with a message of hope among life’s rubble.
When Harvey Arrives (Greg Lemon)
I really enjoyed this one. It made me laugh out loud and caused my dogs who sometimes sit in my office to look at me like I had tripped a cerebral circuit breaker. Maybe I did. This piece is off the wall, funny, psychedelic, uses a distinctive voice, and questions the nature of reality, something I’m absolutely in favor of. Why, we could say that it will knock the jellyfish right out of your casserole.
Okay, those are some of my thoughts, imperfect as they are, shared in the knowledge that yours will likely differ. And that is how it should be. I hope you enjoy.
And let’s not forget that for this issue, I also received standard (non contest) submissions. I’m pleased to welcome Joshua Walker with his wonderful piece The Rapture Machine (that I fell in love with), Louis Faber with the quirky and relatable Laryngitis, Skinner Matthews with the beautiful prose poem Gemini of a Different Art Form, and Thomas Zimmerman with the nostalgia of Called.
Thank you everybody. I now yield to the power within. Read, please share your thoughts in the comments, and stay blessed.
Victor David
Victor D Sandiego
Victor is the founder and editor of Dog Throat Journal. His work has appeared in various publications and on public radio.
Many of his fiction works may be found on his publication Dynamic Creed, one of a kind evocative creative fiction for those who enjoy thoughtful, edgy stories that provoke reflection upon our shared human condition.
Books
- 39 Boys On Ground
- The Defiant Light
- The Madmen Among Us
- The Strange and Beautiful Life of Daniel Raskovich
More: https://dynamiccreed.com
Thank you Victor for your work. Time to read stories.