Barn Burning: Short Stories

Today I had the pleasure of reading J. Edward Kruft's story "The Big Balloon," followed by a wide-ranging conversation with Joe about MFA programs, character motivation, and the #FlashFiction format.

"The Big Balloon" appeared in the June 2020 issue of Door is a Jar Magazine and you can find it on his website.

J. Edward Kruft received his MFA in fiction writing from Brooklyn College, and has been a Best Small Fictions nominee. His stories have appeared in Jellyfish Review, MoonPark Review and Typehouse Literary Magazine, among others. He is a Virgo, and as such, while working at a storied fast food chain, he made an impassioned but reasoned argument against polyester uniforms given their proximity to the fry machine. He was fired. Originally from the very west of Washington state, he now lives in the very west of Queens, NY and Sullivan County, NY with his husband, Mike, and their adopted Siberian Husky, Sasha.
If you're a writer and would like to have your story read on Barn Burning, please email me at [email protected], or find me on Twitter at @barnburnpodcast. Read on, fellows barn-burners!

I was honored to have British writer Kieran Wyatt share three short stories on the Barn Burning Podcast, 'Seagull' 'Leviathan' & 'Spaniel', which first appeared in The Art of Everyone. We talked on UK Mother's Day about liminal places, magical realism, and the Camel Derby.

Kieran Wyatt lives on the Fylde Coast. He is co-chair of GenSex (@GenSexResearch), an interdisciplinary research group, asking probing questions about gender and sexuality. His work has been published by Eunoia Review, The Art of Everyone, Small Leaf Press, Fevers of the Mind, and others. He graduated from Edge Hill University in 2018 with honours in Creative Writing. You can find him on Twitter at @Kinz_Wyatt.

Welcome back to Barn Burning! After an extended hiatus, the Barn Burning short story podcast is back with a killer episode about hamsters, motherhood, and grief. I was honored to have on writer-poet @LannieStabile to read and discuss her story "Muriel vs. the Hunger," which was published in Sledgehammer Lit in November 2021. Lannie Stabile (she/her), a queer Detroiter, is the winner of OutWrite’s 2020 Chapbook Competition in Poetry and a back-to-back semifinalist for the Button Poetry Chapbook Contest. Lannie was also named a 2020 Best of the Net finalist. Her debut poetry full-length, Good Morning to Everyone Except Men Who Name Their Dogs Zeus, was published in 2021 by Cephalopress. Her fiction debut, Something Dead in Everything, is out now with ELJ Editions. Find her on Twitter @LannieStabile and her website, www.lanniestabile.com. Are you a writer and want to have your short story on the podcast? You can reach me at [email protected]!

Over a hundred years before George Romero, Mark Twain wrote a cutting satire of politics and politicians which is still delicious in its mordant humor.

What happens to the unemployed & dispossessed when a country is blighted by natural disasters & plague?