Nick Olson is the author of Here’s Waldo and Editor-in-Chief of (mac)ro(mic). Noa Covo’s work has appeared in, or is forthcoming from, Jellyfish Review, Passages North, Waxwing and elsewhere. Tyler Barton is the author of the story collection, Eternal Night at the Nature Museum, forthcoming from Sarabande Books in November, 2021.
These three haunting microfictions create worlds adjacent to our own, and yet articulate truth about the world we inhabit; our fears about the future, our despair, cruelty, curiosity—they each contain a representation of childhood in contrast with adulthood, and each makes a statement about both.
Equal parts nostalgic and dystopian, this piece simultaneously looks forward and looks backwards, the past and future in conversation with one another in a way that feels both urgent and inevitable.
Nick Olson
Twitter: @nickolsonbooks
Instagram: @nickolsonbooks
Website: nickolsonbooks.com
Here’s Waldo: Order Here
Maudlin House: maudlinhouse.net (Twitter: @MaudlinHouse; Instagram: @maudlin_house; Facebook: @maudlinhouse)
A plurality of children narrates this brief microfiction, as much about othering and parents as it is about a ghoul.
Noa Covo
Twitter: @covo_noa
Fractured Lit: fracturedlit.com (Twitter: @FracturedLit; Instagram: @fracturedlit; Facebook: @FracturedLit)
This striking description of a shuttered nature museum, its contents—and its secrets—reveals something more about human curiosity, and about the nature of nature—than the exhibits ever could.
Tyler Barton
“Eternal Night at the Nature Museum, a Half-hour Downriver from Three Mile Island”
Twitter: @goftyler
Instagram: @tylerbartonlol
Website: tsbarton.com
Passages North: passagesnorth.com (Twitter: @PassagesNorth; Instagram: @passagesnorth; Facebook: @passages.north)