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A Welcome . . .

Welcome to fiftytwo — highlighting flash, poetry, and art from 52|250′s fourth and final quarter. If you are not familiar with 52|250, this is a good place to start. In these pages we highlight the best of the final quarter of our Year of Flash – a period between May 2010 and May 2011 in which we wrote stories and poetry every week for 52 weeks. In the Best Of pages, you’ll find the editors’ picks for the best flashes of weeks 40 – 52. In addition, we bring you other highlights, too… .

First we asked our most frequent flashers – those writers who submitted pieces most often during the thirteen weeks of our last quarter – to take an old tale and add a new twist. You’ll find that frequent flashers Len Kuntz, Stephen Hastings-King, Susan Tepper, Matt Potter, Doug Bond, Catherine Russell, Susan Gibb, Linda Simoni-Wastila, Kim Hutchinson, Robert Vaughan, and Martin Brick did not disappoint. But then again, we knew that already, for we spent a year reading their stuff. Tell me that old story again… brings you something old in new packaging by these talented writers.

Next we honor some of the artists from our last quarter whose work made our pages pop. Each week during our Year of Flash featured one work of art at the top of the page – painting and collage, photography and drawing. Go to Artwalk to see why we chose works by Angelique Moselle Price, Peter Schwartz, Jennifer L. Tomaloff, aLnym (Aljoscha Lahner), and Abby Braman to include here.

Finally your editors met the challenge one last time, too. On Editors’ Farewell, you’ll find old stories with new twists by Michelle Elvy, John Wentworth Chapin, and Walter Bjorkman – because we don’t believe in letting the other frequent flashers have all the fun. And as always, we choose our favorites of each other’s works to feature here, and so you see the Best Of the Editors on this page, too.

We would like to thank all of 52|250’s contributors one last time for making the final quarter of this flashy year a fantastic experience for all. Our Year of Flash ended in May 2011 but the stories and art linger, as do the friendships and connections made across so many continents and time zones. What a fantastic year it turned out to be, growing from its modest roots to this inspiring community of writers and artists. We also thank all our readers who visit 52|250 and our quarterlies. Feel free to comment on the stories and art you find here on the Thanks to All! page. If you’re interested in reading more about the 52|250 challenge, you’ll find a year’s worth of outstanding flash, poetry, and art at 52|250 A Year of Flash.

Welcome to fiftytwo!

Yours,

Michelle Elvy John Wentworth Chapin Walter Bjorkman

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10 responses

Tom Allman

I learned so much from 52/250! I had never submitted anything before this. I would like to thank the editors and readers for helping me become a better writer.

October 3, 2011 at 1:53 am

Reply
ganymeder

Thank you for the help, encouragement, and experience. I loved every minute. 🙂

October 3, 2011 at 2:32 am

Reply
- Matt Potter
  
  Ah, so envious I did not get to contribute every week, but did so from Week #9. Still, it was great, and fun, and stirring, and i miss it greatly.
  
  October 3, 2011 at 7:51 am
  
  Reply
Matthew A. Hamilton

Very well done. It has been a great project.

-Matthew

October 3, 2011 at 11:20 am

Reply
estelle bruno

always love your 5250 and will look forward to more from all of these wonderful writer.

October 3, 2011 at 1:24 pm

Reply
Melissa Chadburn

Thank you for a wonderful year of flash

October 3, 2011 at 2:13 pm

Reply
drwasy

Thank you ALL for a marvelous year of writing on demand. Just digging into the stories — old and new — and enjoying immensely. And what gorgeous art.

I miss all of you, it felt like a salon every week when our stories posted. Peace…

October 6, 2011 at 11:25 am

Reply
Robert Vaughan

What an honor it has been to be among the pages of such wit, talent, thrills and surprises. Writers who take risks, try new genres, boldly adventure forward. All with the skilled guidance of these amazing editors and writers also: Michelle, Walter and John. I feel so fortunate to have been a part of this, participating every week since the bad haircut with the center part, right down the middle of these glorious 52 weeks.

October 6, 2011 at 3:22 pm

Reply
- estelle bruno
  
  This has been a wonderful year for everyone, those who wrote, and those of us who read.
  
  thanks
  
  October 7, 2011 at 5:28 pm
  
  Reply
Barbara Lucy Hosken

AS yhou see, I’m very late wtih my comment. Life has been unbelievably busy, but I’m still sticking in there. I think you have done a marvellous job and have enjoyed it so very much. Wish I had your energy! Lotsoluv

January 14, 2012 at 8:48 pm

Reply

Features

Best of …

fiftytwo Random Sparks

You came to quite a sudden halt; you stared, rather aghast, as I slid into the low seat; you asked where I was heading; I answered “yes.”
- Maude Larke

I heard you learned how to tuck people in the cuff of your sleeve, that your mouth became a bleeding martyrdom.
- H. Vitoria

There I was— a fire burning under mama’s winter school clothes, then burning under her spring blouses, then under her loose summer dresses, then under her autumn jacket... .
- Michelle McEwen

Lying still and naked like a gutted fish, I feel his hands hold mine tightly, sweat prickling up between us in little round, shining beads. He whispers in my ear I love you, but all I can think of is a piñata... .
- T. Jankovitz

She digs her heel in the dirt, her boot sends swirls of thick red dust vacuuming up tiny corridors between sweaty torsos. The whole population of this cowless cowtown gathered at the feet of the politician to hear it all come together or just as damn likely fall apart... .
- S. Marden

Somewhere there is a photograph of my father standing in a field of corn. I remember the photograph. Not the field. Not the corn. Not the father.
- S. Hastings-King

Wanda high-steps aside as we crest a curve, evil-eyeing me through Jersey-cow-length false eyelashes, and waves her baton: dispensing rhythm or casting a curse, I can’t tell.
- M. Potter

He begins to see things from the corner of his one unpatched, glass eye. He becomes a Tiresias in Greece, a Soothsayer in Rome.
- K. Balance

Tainted love is stained love, a dirty jeans love, mucky under nails and knees from garden dirt and worms... .
- Linda Simoni-Wastila

I will pick up the flag and trace a figure eight into the high sky. Like a child burning their name with a sparkler. The figure eight will fall on its side. Become infinity.
- E. Wenziak

Women hold their children and men hold their dogs and I finally let go my breath into a wailing siren sounding for nothing but for its leaving.
- D. Bond

For years, I was a monastery, a fortress made of bones.
- N. A. Long

In the room you are the absence of room
- G. Percesepe

Central Market had a special on handcrafted yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, brushed with what did I know, what did I know to add just the right amount of piquancy.> - J. Reese

It was clear to him that there was a woman on the moon, quite possibly waiting to be rescued since the Great Depression.
- M. Speh

The problem has not yet risen to a fever pitch, but one can never be too careful where the head is concerned.
- J. Riley

The deer’s head like a slab of meat on the grill grates in the cab of his father’s pick up.
- J. Harutanian

And they yawn and stretch without even looking at the clock.
- Mel. McEwen

We strangers sleep together family style.
- S. Tepper

Gone in a whoosh of flame, a smoke ring left to mark your place on earth.
- S. Gibb

I stood at their grave site and threw in three red roses and thank you, thank you, thank you ticked from my heart like hemlock needles falling, for the love, the spark, the living kindled.
- B. Sigriddaughter

I missed the way Irv woke up and immediately wanted to talk about the day ahead, the things we’d be seeing.
- L. Beighley

They were just kids, old enough to know better, young enough to be susceptible to dares.
- M. Brick

American flags and Whiting banners floated ghostlike from dozens of cranes silhouetted in tiny white lights.
- L. Simoni-Wastila

Within ten minutes, he was sitting right behind her, his garlic breath bouncing off the window.
- L. Kuntz

She’d grown up with soldiers, and learned the difference young.
- K. Hutchinson

"This family moved to the city after the war, and we’ve hung on like ticks on a dog’s ass ever since,” his father would say. “Someday, one of us is going to explode. You’ll see.”
- K. Grotke

Sleep, when it comes, comes in a rush like an orgasm. You’re not sleeping-you’re inside your head, thinking, tracing the action in the room with your ears, then suddenly you’re gone.
- M. Webb

Upon the horrifying discovery that the citizens’ needs were met and their appetites sated, the regime moved quickly to avert a moral crisis.
- B. Heise

The nun sitting across from them clutches her iPod like a crucifix and lowers the volume of her soundboard bootlegged Melissa Etheridge to better eavesdrop.
- S. Stucko

I read that hyenas come out of the womb already fighting. In that sentiment I recognised you.
- R. Lawson

He worried that someone would look up from the honking streets, maybe some crazy kid. The kid might see the white dazzle of his shirt, might scream.
- H. Taylor

He stood, stuffed the beep-boop twinkle stick into his breast pocket and headed back to the Impossible Blue Box, whistling an Arcturian pop tune that wouldn’t be written for another eleven centuries.
- T. Allman

Are you there? It’s been so long since I had someone to talk to. Besides Oscar and Wilde, I mean.
- F. Rasky

I dearly want to reject Darwin.
- A. McDermid

That is our bargain – a lifetime détente in exchange for a feast – although I had never been consulted. It’s an ancient marriage made by some outer space yenta.
- R. Houle

Hello ghosts. I’m not ready yet to become part of your toothless frothing group but I thank you for the bubbling foamy offer.
- D. Price

Four feet is all a shark needs.
- A. Lockwood

It started with other things—snow globes smashed through windows, dead birds tucked behind the chocolate milk—but it was her hair the rest of the world noticed.
- L. Kuntz

The wind tricks the lock shut. The hourglass is turned. Your feet touch together and you hold them
- D. Bond

her body in general reminded him of sacks of damp fodder left in a field
- S. Power-Chopra

each sends sound waves that ripple across the interminable unfoldings of the apparent dissonance of an earthquake in winter
- S. Hastings-King

I should have learned to be patient in my loneliness, still enough to watch a rosebud bloom
- S. L. Compton

He pictures their heads and bodies exploding, the blood spilling into the water, or maybe diluting the soft sand
- A. Nair

Their children are borne from small stones that lay atop a dusty hill
- M. Hamilton

You can’t believe the dirty girls we get here for head shots
- S. Tepper

just breathe, until the only noise is my pulse thumping through my brain and all I see are smoky-white trails of spent fireworks echoing against my closed eyelids
- L. Simoni-Wastila

It meant she could slip outside when the insomnia got to her, curl up in the driver’s seat, and smell his last remaining trace
- E. K. Switaj

I’d like to say we didn’t remember the Alamo, but one of ours had to piss
- R. Collins

I could see a glimpse of admiration in her eyes: the men in her future would have to be able to moo just like that
- M. Speh

It spreads itself across the back of my head. I’m ready to pull off a piece of my skull to get to it
- A. McDermid

She had been warned. On first glance, this species seemed like another average task: anthropoid, medium-brained, clueless about any realm beyond the third dimension
- D. Lang

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fiftytwo the best of 52|250's fourth quarter