An independent magazine dedicated to defamiliarized creative writing. Our anthology, Stranged Writing, is available at http://bit.ly/3d6z94O.
Since the journal’s inception in 2013, The Gravity of the Thing has been named one of thirty best online magazines by Bookfox, our publications have been finalists in the Shirley Jackson Awards, and we are the grateful recipient of a grant from Oregon’s Regional Arts & Culture Council. Our ongoing goal is to publish work that defamiliarizes literary forms, writing that stranges to achieve a renewed sense of discovery.
"In an upstairs room an angel is dreaming.
In an upstairs room there is an angel
body covered in eyes. It is dreaming
about all its eyes..."
A new poem by Luke Eldredge from our Spring 2024 issue.
"Upstairs some angel is dreaming / about all the women it annunciated. / It is dreaming about the calluses / on the buff of their feet, how the calluses / change shape with their heavying bodies..."
"Traverse the months to moan
under a hard tide, rust-veins
and amber desire. Enervate
this mad home, bare of habit"
Three anagram poems by Desiree Remick from our Spring 2024 issue.
"Karma keeps a small smile as warm / wishes warp shawls, harps help heels. / Walk a seesaw sail. She seeks harm, / washes wasps. A weak meal sparks real / skills. Her arms are a limp heap; she spills / his share..."
"Yesterday, I wasn’t myself, I was not my shadow, I was not your brother, nor your friend, nor your sister, nor the meat, nor the bone that gnaws the dog, nor the dog that gnaws the bone..."
Our Spring 2024 issue launched this week with a translated poem by Ivan de Monbrison.
"Yesterday, I wasn't myself, I was not my shadow, I was not your brother, nor your friend, nor your sister, nor the meat, nor the bone that gnaws the dog, nor the dog that gnaws the bone..."
"Theo watched the thin, long thread of a woman. The more he studied her face, the more he suspected she was not all there. The most amazing thing about her was her appetite. She constantly ate..."
Zdravka is the author of four books and our newest short story publication, "Sweet Cherries."
"Theo watched the thin, long thread of a woman. The more he studied her face, the more he suspected she was not all there. The most amazing thing about her was her appetite. She constantly ate..."
"So it must be a shadow. But a shadow of whom? Of what? Looking around the room there is nothing that could cast this shadow, or any other shadow for that matter. Other than a simple desk lamp on the floor, the room is completely empty..."
New fiction writing by Maria Kassandrou.
"The figure distorts and changes size according to the position of the lamp in relation to a particular spot on the floor, close to the far left corner of the room, where there should be a woman sitting. But there is nobody there..."
"...the rumors of the crone were whispered on the periphery of my life. It was a sharp intake of breath, my mother then too tired and weak to cry out, that pushed me past hope and into desperation..."
A new short story by Chelsea Utecht.
"...the rumors of the crone were whispered on the periphery of my life. It was a sharp intake of breath, my mother then too tired and weak to cry out, that pushed me past hope and into desperation..."
"Buried under the grass is a home for worms and insects
The buried has no room for error
I want to kill the war
I want to be home"
Mykyta Ryzhykh's poetry has appeared internationally in both Ukrainian and English.
"Buried under the grass is a home for worms and insects / The buried has no room for error..." Mykyta Ryzhykh publishes internationally in both Ukrainian and English.
"Paradox
The prison warden says to the prisoner, 'You will be executed sometime during the next week. It will be on a day you do not expect.'
The prisoner concludes that they cannot be executed on the last day of the week, or they would expect it..."
A new short story by Lillie E. Franks from our Winter 2024 issue.
"The prison warden says to the prisoner, 'You will be executed sometime during the next week. It will be on a day you do not expect.' The prisoner concludes that they cannot be executed on the last day of the week, or they would expect it..."
"the setting sun scribbles reddish equations on your back
and even though it's probably impossible to lock eyes with the divine
the littlest things do."
Our Winter 2024 issue recently launched with a multimedia poem by Sam Leuenberger.
"the setting sun scribbles reddish equations on your back / and even though it's probably impossible to lock eyes with the divine / the littlest things do."
"Since the arrival of the ghosts, we have been instructed to shelter in place and feed whatever ghosts arrive on our doorstep. For our roommates who are essential workers, this means little..."
Our Fall 2023 issue recently concluded with a short story by Marguerite Alley.
"Since the arrival of the ghosts, we have been instructed to shelter in place and feed whatever ghosts arrive on our doorstep. For our roommates who are essential workers, this means little..."
"When she pulled up the news, the emergency alert system drowned out a news anchor crying into his hands. It hadn’t been this way when the fires started, spread, and never stopped..."
A short story by Gale Huxley from our Fall 2023 issue.
"When she pulled up the news, the emergency alert system drowned out a news anchor crying into his hands. It hadn’t been this way when the fires started, spread, and never stopped..."
A six-word story by Fabiana Elisa Martínez recently appeared in our Fall 2023 issue. Fabiana is a linguist who has authored the short story collections 12 Random Words and Conquered by Fog, and the grammar book Spanish 360 with Fabiana.
Fabiana Elisa Martínez is a linguist who has authored the short story collections 12 Random Words and Conquered by Fog, and the grammar book Spanish 360 with Fabiana.
Our editors are excited to share our 2023 nominations for the Best of the Net Anthology, The Best Small Fictions, The Pushcart Prize, and more. A very warm congratulations to our contributors!
The Gravity of the Thing's editors are excited to share our 2023 nominations for the Best of the Net anthology, the Best Small Fictions anthology, the Best American anthologies, and more.
Good news! Our anthology, Stranged Writing: A Literary Taxonomy, is on sale until December 15th. Enjoy 50% for supporting our small, independent, and experimental literary organization during this gift-giving season.
- The clothbound hardcover edition, which includes a screen-printed dust jacket: $22.50 (normally $45)
- The digital edition: $2.50 (normally $5)
Thanks for being readers, y'all!
Stranged Writing is a collection of defamiliarized creative writing curated according to biological taxonomy. Our limited hardcover edition includes a screen-printed dust jacket that transforms into unique book sculptures.
"Tranquil as a baby goat on a ma*****na farm,
our dog is a haloed galoot.
He dips under the wigged out
big dogs and sleeps..."
Alex Braslavsky's poem "Daylight Savings" recently appeared in our Fall 2023 issue.
"...I left one hair in the sink, used her comb, forgot / to cover my spaghetti bowl with a paper towel / in the microwave, and sharpened my pencils / with the electric sharpener at two in the morning..."
"Disguised as a quiet teen who’s not cool,
I plumb wormholes in prisons you call school.
I disappear through windows you don’t see,
running quicksilver streets with my best friend,
the homeless wind..."
A poem by Mike Wilson from our Fall 2023 issue.
"Disguised as a quiet teen who’s not cool, / I plumb wormholes in prisons you call school. / I disappear through windows you don’t see, / running quicksilver streets with my best friend, / the homeless wind..."
Our Fall 2023 issue launched today with a poem by Daniel de Culla. Daniel is a writer, poet, painter, and photographer, and he currently lives between Madrid and Burgos, Spain. Check out the link below to read his poetry.
"-Where are you going? you ask the politician. / The politician answers: / -To cheat and steal. / -Where are you going? a sinful woman asks the priest. / The priest answers: / -You haven't given me the meat yet / And you already want absolution?..."
"Our dense temperate rainforest convulses from Chicxulub’s impact heard around the globe then lies eerily still. An old Tyrannosaur guards her first successful nest, determined. One peeking snout. Two more. Flustered chirps: a will to live..."
Our Summer 2023 issue concludes with a hybrid short story by A.T. Yano.
"Our dense temperate rainforest convulses from Chicxulub’s impact heard around the globe then lies eerily still. An old Tyrannosaur guards her first successful nest, determined. One peeking snout. Two more. Flustered chirps: a will to live..."
"Siobhan and Xander were nineteen years old. It was their first summer home after starting college, and they’d left last fall best friends and virgins. But both of those things had changed. Siobhan didn’t necessarily want to make up stories, she wanted to ensure that theirs continued..."
New fiction by Annie Fay Meitchik from our Summer 2023 issue.
"Siobhan and Xander were nineteen years old. It was their first summer home after starting college, and they’d left last fall best friends and virgins. But both of those things had changed..."
"Beetles litter the carpet this morning, as always. During the cold Vermont nights, the insects crawl through the windows, the cracks in the door frame, the invisible holes all over the house..."
New fiction by Emma Campbell from our Summer 2023 issue.
"Beetles litter the carpet this morning, as always. During the cold Vermont nights, the insects crawl through the windows, the cracks in the door frame, the invisible holes all over the house..."
"You, softbody whose secret beak
slices shells to inject venom,
jetted to the sea bottom
spurting black ink in your wake..."
A new poem by Martin Shapiro from our Summer 2023 issue.
"You, softbody whose secret beak / slices shells to inject venom, / jetted to the sea bottom / spurting black ink in your wake, / folded yourself into a fissure, / matched its darkness and texture..."
"don’t leave me alone. it scares me, the effort it takes to say this. it’s so tiring to be real. motion, how does it work? my skin bruised by bedsheets..."
A prose poem by Emily O Liu from our Summer 2023 issue.
"don’t leave me alone. i don’t want to talk to anyone but now it’s the only thing that forces me to materialize into something solid. my brain drifts with the clouds out the window, past the frame. wisps of something hard lick at my edges like flames, and i shy away..."
"as you cross the flooded silt-red Luckiamute and gawk at the calculus of a geese flock flaring to land into a swale of new jade grass, that insidious sense of admiration and peace has gotten up on you again..."
Our Summer 2023 issue launched today with a prose poem by Ted Jean.
"1. you are headed south to be with your dying sister; while 2. your idiot heart rises toward bliss to be sailing like an improbably bulky bird across this heartbreak beautiful pedestrian winter Western Oregon farmland..."
A big congratulations to our contributor Christi Nogle, whose first novel Beulah (Cemetery Gates Media) won the Bram Stoker Award for First Novel and was also nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award!
Congratulations to all the Bram Stoker award winners and to the runners up.
Here they are: The 2022 Bram Stoker Awards Winners.
Superior Achievement in a Novel
WINNER: The Devil Takes You Home, Gabino Iglesias (Mulholland)
The Fervor, Alma Katsu (Putnam)
Reluctant Immortals, Gwendolyn Kiste (Saga)
Daphne, Josh Malerman (Del Rey)
Sundial, Catriona Ward (Nightfire)
Superior Achievement in a First Novel
WINNER: Beulah, Christi Nogle (Cemetery Gates)
Jackal, Erin Adams (Bantam)
The Hacienda, Isabel Cañas (Berkley)
Black Tide, KC Jones (Nightfire)
All the White Spaces, Ally Wilkes (Emily Bestler/Atria)
Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel
WINNER: The Triangle, Robert P. Ottone (Raven Tale)
What We Harvest, Ann Fraistat (Delacorte)
The Weight of Blood, Tiffany D. Jackson (Katherine Tegen)
These Fleeting Shadows, Kate Alice Marshall (Viking)
Gallant, V.E. Schwab (Greenwillow)
Burn Down, Rise Up, Vincent Tirado (Sourcebooks Fire)
Superior Achievement in Long Fiction
WINNER: The Wehrwolf, Alma Katsu (Amazon Original)
And in Her Smile, the World, Rebecca J. Allred & Gordon B. White (Trepidatio)
“Through the Looking Glass and Straight into Hell”, Christa Carmen (Orphans of Bliss: Tales of Addiction Horror)
Below, Laurel Hightower (Ghoulish)
Three Days in the Pink Tower, EV Knight (Creature)
Superior Achievement in Short Fiction
WINNER: “Fracture”, Mercedes M. Yardley (Mother: Tales of Love and Terror)
“Nona Doesn’t Dance”, Aaron Dries (Cut to Care: A Collection of Little Hurts)
“Poppy’s Poppy”, Douglas Gwilym (Penumbrice)
“The Only Thing Different Will Be the Body”, J. A. W. McCarthy (A Woman Built by Man)
“A Song for Barnaby Jones”, Anna Taborska (Zagava)
“The Star”, Anna Taborska (Great British Horror 7: Major Arcane)
Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection
WINNER: Breakable Things, Cassandra Khaw (Undertow)
We Are Here to Hurt Each Other, Paula D. Ashe (Nictitating)
Hell Hath No Sorrow Like a Woman Haunted, RJ Joseph (The Seventh Terrace)
Spontaneous Human Combustion, Richard Thomas (Keylight)
The Black Maybe, Attila Veres (Valancourt)
Superior Achievement in an Anthology
WINNER: Screams from the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Nightfire)
Human Monsters: A Horror Anthology, Sadie Hartmann & Ashley Saywers, eds. (Dark Matter Ink)
Mother: Tales of Love and Terror, Christi Nogle & Willow Becker, eds. (Weird Little Words)
Into the Forest: Tales of the Baba Yaga, Lindy Ryan, ed. (Black Spot)
Chromophobia: A Strangehouse Anthology of Women in Horror, Sara Tantlinger, ed. (Strangehouse)
Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction
WINNER: Writing in the Dark: The Workbook, Tim Waggoner (Guide Dog)
Toil and Trouble: A Women’s History of the Occult, Melanie R. Anderson & Lisa Kröger (Quirk)
Weird Fiction: A Genre Study, Michael Cisco (Palgrave)
A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of American’s Ghosts, Leanna Renee Hieber & Andrea Janes (Citadel)
Writing Poetry in the Dark, Stephanie M. Wytovich (Raw Dog Screaming)
Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction
WINNER: “I Don’t Read Horror (& Other Weird Tales)”, Lee Murray (Interstellar Flight 10/22)
“This is Not a Poem”, Cynthia Pelayo (Writing Poetry in the Dark)
“African American Horror Authors and Their Craft: The Evolution of Horror Fiction from African Folklore”, L. Marie Wood (Conjuring Worlds: An Afrofuturist Textbook for Middle and High School Students)
“The H Word: The Horror of Hair”, L. Marie Wood (Nightmare 7/22)
“A Clown in the Living Room: The Sinister Clown on Television”, Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. (The Many Lives of Scary Clowns: Essays on Pennywise, Twisty, the Joker, Krusty and More)
Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection
WINNER: Crime Scene, Cynthia Pelayo (Raw Dog Screaming)
Sifting the Ashes, Michael Bailey & Marge Simon (Crystal Lake)
Girls from the County, Donna Lynch (Raw Dog Screaming)
The Rat King: A Book of Dark Poetry, Sumiko Saulson (self-published)
The Gravity of Existence, Christina Sng (Interstellar Flight)
Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel
WINNER: Kolchak: The Night Stalker: 50th Anniversary, James Aquilone, ed. (Moonstone)
Eat the Rich, Sarah Gailey, art by Pius Bak (Boom!)
Kraken Inferno: The Last Hunt, Alessandro Manzetti, art by Stefano Cardoselli (Independent Legions)
Something is Killing the Children Vol 4, James IV Tynion, art by Werther Dell’Edera (Boom!)
The Me You Love in the Dark, Skottie Young, art by Jorge Corona (Image Comics)
Superior Achievement in a Screenplay
WINNER (TIE): The Black Phone, Scott Derrickson & C. Robert Cargill (Blumhouse Productions, Crooked Highway, Universal Pictures)
WINNER (TIE): Stranger Things: “s4e1: Chapter One: The Hellfire Club”, The Duffer Brothers (21 Laps Entertainment, Monkey Massacre, Netflix, Upside Down Pictures)
The Pale Blue Eye, Scott Cooper (Cross Creek Pictures, Grisbi Productions, Streamline Global Group)
Men, Alex Garland (DNA Films)
Pearl, Mia Goth & Ti West (A24, Bron Creative, Little Lamb, New Zealand Film Commission)
As previously announced, Elizabeth Massie, Nuzo Onoh, and John Saul received the Lifetime Achievement Award; Undertow Publications won the Specialty Press Award; Meghan Arcuri received the Richard Laymon President’s Award; Karen Lansdale received the Silver Hammer Award; and David Jeffery received the Mentor of the Year Award.
Winners were honored at a gala during StokerCon 2023, June 15-18, 2023 at the Sheraton Pittsburgh Hotel at Station Square in Pittsburgh PA. For more information, see the Stoker Awards website.
Congratulations to our past contributors whose work was selected for The Best Small Fictions 2023! "Love in the Knots of the Coptic Stitch" by Beth Kephart originally appeared in our Fall 2022 issue, and "Signs" by Lucie Bonvalet originally appeared in SAND Journal.
Overview and guidelines for the Best Small Fictions annual series, published by Alternating Current Press.
"A farewell of last meetings that were not recognized, at the time, as such; a cessation of plans for the completion of incomplete projects; a futility of vengeful thoughts; a surrendering of cherished hostilities..."
Our Spring 2023 issue features a defamiliarized short story by Amber Burke.
"A farewell of last meetings that were not recognized, at the time, as such; a cessation of plans for the completion of incomplete projects; a futility of vengeful thoughts; a surrendering of cherished hostilities..."
"Let the y-axis be the s*x feelings of A & B.
Let the x-axis be time. The equation solved for A
is a sine wave. The equation solved for B is a cosine wave.
A & B cross at zero interest in the other’s charms..."
A poem by Sirianna Helleloid from our Spring 2023 issue.
"Let the y-axis be the s*x feelings of A & B. / Let the x-axis be time. The equation solved for A / is a sine wave. The equation solved for B is a cosine wave. / A & B cross at zero interest in the other’s charms..."
"Plodding along the lakeshore, bulbous blue toes splayed on spongy grass, coot feet are the clown shoes of the avian world..."
New nonfiction by Amanda Jaffe from our Spring 2023 issue.
"One minute I’m watching a small, black duck make its elegant approach toward the shoreline, barely a ripple on the water in its wake. The next minute, that 'duck' hops ashore on a pair of phlegm-colored legs that give way to three angst-inducing toes..."
Our Spring 2023 issue features a six-word story by Lisa Marie Lopez. Lisa resides in Northern California and has been published recently in Blink-Ink and Potato Soup Journal.
Lisa Marie Lopez resides in Northern California and has been published recently in Blink-Ink and Potato Soup Journal.
"philandering & crude
warbling w/ desire
& snarling obscene
Grendel uterus
persistent in crooning..."
A new poem by Trish Hopkinson from our Spring 2023 issue.
"...lustful compulsions / & boiling blood / philandering & crude / warbling w/desire / & snarling obscene / Grendel uterus / persistent in crooning..."
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Since the journal’s inception in 2013, The Gravity of the Thing has been named one of twelve best literary journals of 2015 (Authors Publish Magazine) and one of thirty best online magazines (Bookfox). We publish work that is aware of its literary form, writing that defamiliarizes in craft or content to achieve an enhanced rendering of reality.
As the editors of The Gravity of the Thing aim to publish writing that defamiliarizes, so do we aim to defamiliarize conventional editing and publishing models. To learn more about defamiliarized writing and our editorial processes, please visit our Baring the Device column. You can also click here to learn more, or click here for our submission guidelines.
