Capsule Stories

04/01/2024

🎉 Capsule Stories had not one but TWO pieces published in 2022 selected for the The Best Small Fictions 2023 anthology. 🎉🎉🎉

Congrats to Virginia Laurie (“Tuesday, Taking on Water,” Capsule Stories Spring 2022 Edition: Into the Light and Alejandra Medina (“Wishing We Were Anywhere but the High School Swimming Pool,” Capsule Stories Summer 2022 Edition: Swimming) for their inclusion in !!!

You can buy a copy of the BSF anthology and see the other selections here:

Flash, Haibun, Micro, and Hybrid by 110 Authors Nominated by Indie Presses around the World

07/12/2023

Unfortunately, Capsule Stories will be on hiatus for the foreseeable future, and we’ve made the difficult decision to cancel the Lost in Translation edition.

Thank you to everyone who has submitted over the years, the wonderful writers we’ve published, and the amazing team of readers who have made Capsule Stories so amazing! We hope to be back someday to bring you more beautiful writing. For now, we'll be in hibernation. 😴

29/04/2023

It’s ! Stop by Subterranean Books in and grab a copy of Capsule Stories to support a small press and an indie bookstore!

29/03/2023

Today’s highlight: Therese Gleason is author of two chapbooks:
📚 Libation, cowinner, South Carolina Poetry Initiative Chapbook Competition
📚 Matrilineal, honorable mention, ’s 2022 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize: https://bookshop.org/a/6998/9781646625871

Recent work appears in , Indiana Review, , .quarterly, , and elsewhere. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Therese lives in Worcester, Massachusetts, with her family. She teaches literacy and works as a dyslexia therapist. Find her at theresegleason.com.

Her poems “February, A Honeyed Existence,” “Nor’easter,” and “April Snow” are published in Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation, now available in paperback and ebook. Buy your copy here: capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition

27/03/2023

today’s forecast called for snow,
a prediction indifferent
to the calendar’s early border for spring,
as well as to my own personal feelings on the matter.
winter has these silences,
hidden between the refrains
of wind pushing past pine, through buildings, rattling
windows and bones.
perhaps hypocritically, just this week
i’d considered resurrecting
my christmas music playlist to manufacture a cheeriness
i could not seem to come by naturally.
i expected even this would not shake it;
i’ve been there before and know
the silences lie in wait,
buried beneath the song that gets stuck in my head
(but only about four lines of it, the only lines
i can independently recall, no matter how many times it’s been),
and then the mental voice
(this one sounds more like mine)
rereading the last elusive passage
of the book you recommended
years ago and i’m finally getting to it—
no, it wouldn’t do.
what i attempted instead, inviting spring indoors,
also failed; perhaps sensing my infidelity,
my potted plant, the only real
one among artificial succulents and stems,
wilted spectacularly, suffocated
by shadow and scant light from a sun
retreated to relic.
i knew the silences;
i couldn’t say it was without warning
when it went cold, withered to ghost,
and i couldn’t say
it didn’t make me think that
in the end,
maybe we were built to mourn.

—“[swan song]” by Katelyn Grimes, published in Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation. Featuring poetry and prose, Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition explores the theme Hibernation. These stories and poems ruminate on hunkering down for the winter and resting. Read about long days spent alone in bed and cold nights snuggled up on the couch, about stretching the holiday season to fend off gray days and lifting your spirits by braving the cold and snow with the people you love. These quiet, lingering pieces are full of longing and patience as you hide out, slow down, and wait for the end of winter. Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation is the perfect book to cozy up with as the winter wind howls outside.

Grab your paperback or ebook copy of Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition today! Visit http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition or search for Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition on your favorite bookselling website.

26/03/2023

Today’s highlight: Evie Groch, EdD, is a field supervisor/mentor for new administrators in graduate schools of education. Her opinion pieces, humor, poems, short stories, recipes, word challenges, and other articles have been widely published in , , Contra Costa Times, The Journal, Games Magazine, and many online venues. Many of her poems are in published anthologies. Her short stories, poems, and memoir pieces have won her recognition and awards. Her travelogues have been published online with Grand Circle Travel. The themes of travel, language, immigration, and justice are special for her. Her poem “Solstice Shivers” is published in Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation, now available in paperback and ebook. Buy your copy here: capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition

Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation is the perfect book to cozy up with as the winter wind howls outside.

26/03/2023

Staying home and reading >>>>>>>>> Art by on Instagram instagram.com/mshemdesigns

25/03/2023

Take a look at the latest from the many and presses that are members of . Opportunities with upcoming deadlines include Shō Poetry Journal, Belle Point Press, American Chordata, Three Rooms Press, The BeZine, Apple Valley Review, Host Publications, North Dakota State University Press, Onyx Publications, and more.

Take a look at the latest publishing opportunities currently available to writers from the many literary magazines and presses that are members of CLMP.

25/03/2023

What are you this weekend?

25/03/2023

In this snow globe I’ve created for us, you ask me to stay because you want to hold me. I stay because I carry enough warmth for the both of us. You relax as you envelop my radiating heat in your embrace. We laugh when my feet, the only chilled part of me, trace icy trails up your legs, and together we become a cozy cocoon. Two people drift off in one tangle of limbs. And even as we jostle apart through the night, you reach for me instinctively.

When the late-morning dawn crawls through your windows, you do not rush out of bed to shower. The crisp clouds of breath between us beg us to treasure this because we know our time is limited. I trace your body in small kisses, memorizing the unexpected dip of your waist and the catch of your breath when I find a sensitive section of skin.

Before I leave, we share not one but two cups of coffee in companionable silence. I’m afraid to drive, to go, because the roads are treacherous and what if this is all there is? But you say Wednesday, maybe sooner, but definitely Wednesday. And so I’ll come back on Wednesday, until there’s no more time left for us. When we say our final goodbye, we decide to leave us here, hidden in the sixteen hours of daily darkness. This is important, we agree, and so we cannot drag us into seasons where we don’t belong. We are intentional enough to be honest with each other. Sacred, precious, temporary. By every afternoon after every night we spend together, the snowfall will erase any trace that I was there.

—“we would happen in the winter” by Jillane Buryn, published in Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation. Featuring poetry and prose, Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition explores the theme Hibernation. These stories and poems ruminate on hunkering down for the winter and resting. Read about long days spent alone in bed and cold nights snuggled up on the couch, about stretching the holiday season to fend off gray days and lifting your spirits by braving the cold and snow with the people you love. These quiet, lingering pieces are full of longing and patience as you hide out, slow down, and wait for the end of winter. Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation is the perfect book to cozy up with as the winter wind howls outside.

Grab your paperback or ebook copy of Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition today! Visit http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition or search for Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition on your favorite bookselling website.

23/03/2023

Today’s highlight: Baylee Pawsey is a writer from the Midwest who spends her days crafting marketing content for a global tech company. As a freelance writer and editor, she works with local authors, entrepreneurs, and professionals. Outside of work, Baylee enjoys escaping into novels and video games, and she’s always looking for good recommendations of both! Follow her on Twitter at BayleeWrites and check out her work at bayleewrites.com. Her poem “A Lingering Languor” is published in Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation, now available in paperback and ebook. Buy your copy here: capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition

23/03/2023

Night reads 😴📚 Art by ohkeidea on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ohkeidea/

22/03/2023

Support independent literary publishers by picking your next read from this list of books launching this month!

Support independent literary publishers by picking a read from the list below, which features new books forthcoming in March 2023 from CLMP members.   All the Woods’ Wild: The Story of the Swamp Witch of Maurepas by Jack B. Bedell Belle Point Press | March 1, 2023 In this poetry chapbook, “Bede...

21/03/2023

From the easy elegance of deep window seats, she watched the crows peck at the dormant earth as the thaw began. She luxuriated inside the comfort of her velvet jacket. As she stepped outside in it, the tension in her limbs dispersed, and the potent perfume of new earth penetrated her nostrils. The loam wept dewy trails of moisture, softening the ground underfoot. Each day lengthened imperceptibly until the transition was complete, the edges smoothed and viable. The road no longer disappeared into denseness and instead opened and widened out in front of her.

Returning to the house one day, she automatically and quietly undid the jacket and placed it on a hook. Her hands stroked its still warm form, redolent of all she had dreamed and was now becoming.

The lack of intention she had once felt, a hesitation to think better of herself, a sense of sour regret were no longer present. The feelings had melted into a memory, lost in another season. The last clear light of winter shot through the painted glass, catching the velvet jacket inside its strands. She stood and smiled in the space that had offered safety and now sent her certainty.

—“In Velvet” by Jenny Dunbar, published in Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation. Featuring poetry and prose, Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition explores the theme Hibernation. These stories and poems ruminate on hunkering down for the winter and resting. Read about long days spent alone in bed and cold nights snuggled up on the couch, about stretching the holiday season to fend off gray days and lifting your spirits by braving the cold and snow with the people you love. These quiet, lingering pieces are full of longing and patience as you hide out, slow down, and wait for the end of winter. Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation is the perfect book to cozy up with as the winter wind howls outside.

Grab your paperback or ebook copy of Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition today! Visit http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition or search for Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition on your favorite bookselling website.

20/03/2023

together we embrace the season’s chill,
frozen bark on branches and snow glistening
from the limbs / when they jump, i follow
flying into the winter wind with nothing
but the squirrels to carry me through the trees—
the frost’s warm hold brings life to a time of year
when the sun sleeps early / the moon wakes
to light up the earth, glistening decay
in the fields and pastures that lie sleeping
under the branches and trees we lurk in.

—“the canopy is home to me and the squirrels” by K. S. Baron, published in Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation. Featuring poetry and prose, Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition explores the theme Hibernation. These stories and poems ruminate on hunkering down for the winter and resting. Read about long days spent alone in bed and cold nights snuggled up on the couch, about stretching the holiday season to fend off gray days and lifting your spirits by braving the cold and snow with the people you love. These quiet, lingering pieces are full of longing and patience as you hide out, slow down, and wait for the end of winter. Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation is the perfect book to cozy up with as the winter wind howls outside.

Grab your paperback or ebook copy of Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition today! Visit http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition or search for Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition on your favorite bookselling website.

19/03/2023

Today’s highlight: Anastasia Arellano is originally from California but now lives in Dublin, Ireland, as a freelance writer. She is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin and holds a master’s in creative writing.

She’s had short stories published in The Honest Ulsterman, Honey & Lime, , , , and , as well as some poetry published in Smithereens Press. She recently completed her first solo YA novel, which is now making the querying rounds.

When she’s not writing, she’s cooking, plastering her bedroom walls in storyboards, or seeking inspiration from the Irish landscape.

You can follow her on Instagram at writeranastasia26 and Twitter at aarellanowriter.

Her short story “Frost on Windowpanes” is published in Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation, now available in paperback and ebook. Buy your copy here: capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition

18/03/2023

For , asked their members—independent presses, literary journals, and others—to share some of the books and magazines they recommend reading in celebration. Check it out:

For Women’s History Month, observed annually during the month of March, we asked our members—independent presses, literary journals, and others—to share with us some of the books and magazines they recommend reading in celebration.   Fiction   A Noble Cunning: The Countess and the Tower by P...

18/03/2023

The world is this living room, and the world is cozy, and the world is these three people eating donuts and watching true crime and existing together. We are at rest. There is nothing to be done except be here. In fact, there is nowhere else to be.

—from “My Father Takes Me for Donuts” by Grace McGory, published in Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation. Featuring poetry and prose, Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition explores the theme Hibernation. These stories and poems ruminate on hunkering down for the winter and resting. Read about long days spent alone in bed and cold nights snuggled up on the couch, about stretching the holiday season to fend off gray days and lifting your spirits by braving the cold and snow with the people you love. These quiet, lingering pieces are full of longing and patience as you hide out, slow down, and wait for the end of winter. Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation is the perfect book to cozy up with as the winter wind howls outside.

Grab your paperback or ebook copy of Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition today! Visit http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition or search for Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition on your favorite bookselling website.

17/03/2023

most mornings, love would pull at me, would put
its hands inside my hands and pull me up,
would animate my feet, make air of my smile.

I am older now by many years.
I sit and eat and think. I sleep.
I think I will sleep all winter.

what words are said in the silence
of a look? in the shadow of
movement? leaning on a wall for shape,
leaving only what they were behind—
only breath that spreads through open spaces
like a spill.

—“The Love That Used to Move Me” by Andrew Calis, published in Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation. Featuring poetry and prose, Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition explores the theme Hibernation. These stories and poems ruminate on hunkering down for the winter and resting. Read about long days spent alone in bed and cold nights snuggled up on the couch, about stretching the holiday season to fend off gray days and lifting your spirits by braving the cold and snow with the people you love. These quiet, lingering pieces are full of longing and patience as you hide out, slow down, and wait for the end of winter. Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation is the perfect book to cozy up with as the winter wind howls outside.

Grab your paperback or ebook copy of Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition today! Visit http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition or search for Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition on your favorite bookselling website.

16/03/2023

Did you notice the Easter egg on our Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition back cover art? 👀

We have a hibernating bear for the Hibernation theme! Shoutout to dar_draws on Instagram for bringing so much creativity to our cover art!

16/03/2023

Today’s highlight: Abigail Frankfurt is a writer and artist from New York. Her poetry has been published in .magazine, Unbroken literary journal, , , , and Publishers. Her poem “Thief River Falls” is published in Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation, now available in paperback and ebook. Buy your copy here: capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition

15/03/2023

We've been delighted to publish several poems by across several editions over the years, so we are thrilled to read her new collection, lemon!

Here’s the book description from Isabella: “lemon centers around the body, my body. From the standpoint of medical trauma, physical health/illness, mental health/illness, disability/ableism, as well as the complex way mental and physical issues knit themselves together.

“My hope with this collection is to bring awareness to some of the challenges faced as a woman with a disability, the ache of having new health issues pile up with each passing year, and to finally share the story of my own disability, through poetry.”

Order your copy on Bookshop here (affiliate link): https://bookshop.org/a/6998/9798987198001

14/03/2023

Winter is when the world is more like me
tired and quiet and craving comfort
Slow activities, slow days, unafraid of shelving energetic displays
or else hungry and wide-eyed for color and celebration
soaking it into the bones, rattling with green, gold, pink, red
fizzy with naive, admirable courage
high on the window view
of the many bright spots
of our fatigued world.

—from “Autism in the Wintertime” by Izzy Amber Wyskiel, published in Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation. Featuring poetry and prose, Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition explores the theme Hibernation. These stories and poems ruminate on hunkering down for the winter and resting. Read about long days spent alone in bed and cold nights snuggled up on the couch, about stretching the holiday season to fend off gray days and lifting your spirits by braving the cold and snow with the people you love. These quiet, lingering pieces are full of longing and patience as you hide out, slow down, and wait for the end of winter. Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation is the perfect book to cozy up with as the winter wind howls outside.

Grab your paperback or ebook copy of Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition today! Visit http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition or search for Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition on your favorite bookselling website.

14/03/2023

Snuggling-up-with-a-book season isn’t over yet ☺️ Art by randilynnreedillustration https://instagram.com/randilynnreedillustration

13/03/2023

Check out contributor Isabella J Mansfield's latest collection!

13/03/2023

Today’s highlight: Michael Colonnese is the author of a hard-boiled detective novel, S*x and Death, I Suppose, and two poetry collections, Temporary Agency and Double Feature. He lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains, near Hendersonville, North Carolina. His poem “Cold House” is published in Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation, now available in paperback and ebook. Buy your copy here: capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition

13/03/2023

Midnight unlatches:
cinnamon and milk
in a hot cup, the dog
waiting by the door.

The hydrangea head
in the window looks
like a woman unsure
if she’s still welcome.

All the green things
have nowhere to go
but down, returning
to the living cradle.

—from “The Waiting Year” by Danielle Weeks, published in Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation. Featuring poetry and prose, Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition explores the theme Hibernation. These stories and poems ruminate on hunkering down for the winter and resting. Read about long days spent alone in bed and cold nights snuggled up on the couch, about stretching the holiday season to fend off gray days and lifting your spirits by braving the cold and snow with the people you love. These quiet, lingering pieces are full of longing and patience as you hide out, slow down, and wait for the end of winter. Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation is the perfect book to cozy up with as the winter wind howls outside.

Grab your paperback or ebook copy of Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition today! Visit http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition or search for Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition on your favorite bookselling website.

11/03/2023

Let’s show some appreciation! Tag your favorite indie bookstore in the comments.

We’re tagging Subterranean Books and Left Bank Books in St. Louis, where you can find an amazing selection of books, including Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation, which you can buy in store or online. 😉

Buy Capsule Stories online from either bookstore here: http://capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition

10/03/2023

Enjoying the slivers of spring afternoon light 🌞 Art by hessah._.art https://instagram.com/hessah._.art

10/03/2023

Today’s highlight: Frank William Finney is the author of The Folding of the Wings (Finishing Line Press, 2022): https://bookshop.org/a/6998/9781646629534

His work has been featured in Livina Press, , Quibble.Lit, , and elsewhere. Born and raised in Massachusetts, he taught at Thammasat University in Thailand from 1995 until 2020.

Frank William Finney's poem “Hibernaculum” is published in Capsule Stories Winter 2022 Edition: Hibernation, now available in paperback and ebook. Buy your copy here: capsulestories.com/winter-2022-edition